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for you and act like they’re your close friend,” Elfenbein said. “Those two effects wash out, and people on average have zero idea about who feels competitively toward them.”
The researchers offer two main reasons for the disconnect: First, people tend to mask outward feelings of competitiveness toward others in an effort to be polite. Also, the concept of reciprocity played a role.
“For liking, reciprocation is a good thing,” Elfenbein said. “You keep dates, you give gifts, you have shared, positive experiences. But to get the benefits of competition, such as promotions or perks, you don’t need it to be reciprocated. And when you don’t get that feeling back, it’s hard to gauge who’s truly competing against you.”
For a manager in the workplace who wants a strong and cohesive team, transparency and uncrossable lines appear to be the key in maintaining the balance, the researchers said.
“You want to promote a climate where there is friendly competition,” Elfenbein said. “At the car dealership, everybody knows they are competing against each other. Entire salaries can be based on performance. But if you create a climate where there are boundaries you don’t cross, you can make space for mutual healthy competition to be rewarded.”
As for the individual in the workplace who fears being blindsided by co-workers?
“You need to pay more attention to what people do rather than what they say,” Elfenbein said. “When people are too polite to say something to your face, you need a good, strong network that will let you know what other people really think.”
Elfenbein may be reached for interviews at [email protected] had been a delight to see children, and even adults, waving at us as our vehicle passed through the streets of Kunduz going to the hospital. The local staff and caretakers greeted us with smiles. Eid Mubarak! Happy Eid, doctor!
The atmosphere that dawn was in stark contrast to the previous weekend. Eid had just ended, which is a happy and celebratory time in the Muslim world. Not a single shot was heard that weekend. Roses were in full bloom and the weather was perfect. Afghan men were shaking hands and hugging each other; kids in their finest clothing were playing in the streets, candies in their pockets; food was shared; people were freely walking in the streets, going to relatives’ houses to pay visits.
Heart pounding and pulse racing, I tried to position myself as low as possible near the door, ready to spring up and jump out of the car if necessary. I had lots of questions in my mind — what are we going to do if a bomb was thrown our way, if they wouldn’t let us pass, or worse, if we were kidnapped? I chose to be silent, to maintain an appearance of calmness, to focus instead on the journey to the hospital. The sun was already rising in the east when the sound of explosions temporarily stopped and the surroundings became relatively quiet. When the go signal was given, the gates of the staff house were opened and two vehicles entered the deserted streets of Kunduz.
Darn! Securing my backpack, and trying to hide my frustration, I hurriedly climbed into the vehicle where a female nurse supervisor was already waiting. The male orthopedic surgeon and anesthetist were in the other van.
Surgical team going to the hospital. No wifi there. Will call once I’m back in the staff house. Tell mom and dad not to worry. We’re safe. :)
“Okay?” Four heads simultaneously nodded. I was hardly paying attention. Trying to fix my head scarf with one hand, I was also busy writing a message to send back home.
It was a few days before the bombing. Last minute instructions were being given to us. I couldn’t concentrate. The field coordinator’s voice drifted in and out of my consciousness. My stomach was growling and I hadn’t had any sleep since last night.
I was bored. I wanted to operate on patients. I wanted to do more. It was the reason I was there, after all. I only had two weeks before the end of my mission and, with a few exceptions, my life in Kunduz was one monotonous routine.
But I felt useless in my first few weeks in Kunduz. Except for the occasional liver injury sustained during motor vehicle accidents and some elective general surgeries, the majority of cases I encountered involved bones and fractures, something I have minimal knowledge about. And there were eight Afghan orthopedic surgeons who were so adept at what they were doing that I began questioning if I was of any use there at all.
In a 100-bed trauma center in a war zone, I was expecting to be inundated with patients, operating day in and day out, to be so exhausted that all I could do was crawl into bed and fall into a deep slumber each night. I wanted to do complicated cases. Bomb blasts. Gunshots. Cases I had only read in textbooks. Anything.
The desire to work in a war zone came later but it was prominent in my bucket list. I feel like I won the lottery when I got accepted by Médecins Sans Frontières as a field surgeon. Doctors Without Borders! Despite the reminders and warnings from well-meaning friends and relatives about the dangers of working in a conflict zone, I eagerly prepared for my first mission.
I was 12 years old when I read a famous woman surgeon’s biography. I dreamed of becoming a surgeon since then. “I am going to wear a scrub suit,” I thought to myself. “With a scalpel in my hand, I’ll make a difference in other peoples’ lives.”
Then, without warning, another tremendous, earsplitting blast shook the building. The ceiling came crashing down on us and the last remaining lights were turned off, sending us into total darkness. I screamed in terror as wires pinned me to the ground. That was the last thing I could remember.
Walking slowly now, we decided to crouch near a wall in the only lighted area and waited for the bombing to stop. The silence was unnerving. Everything was askew — the door was on the floor, a wheelchair was in the middle of the hall, papers everywhere.
Fuck! The word came unbidden from my mouth. We had not made it very far when I tripped and fell down on something soft. A dead human body…or bodies? Oh, dear God! Stifling a scream and fearing the worst, I slowly got up. There was a sticky wetness on the front of my operating room gown and my gloved hand. Hurriedly examining myself, I found a big gash on my right knee. Tiny pieces of glass were clinging on the surface of my OT gown. I ached all over. No major injuries, though. Good.
Trash crackling loudly under our feet as we headed in that direction. Loose debris continued to fall on us. Wires were hanging from the ceiling, and we were surrounded by mounds of trash, broken glass, wood, paper, cement, plastic, shreds and chunks of God-knows-what.
Fire licked at the roof at one end of the building, dancing and sparkling in the dark, reaching towards the branches of the trees nearby. The ICU was burning. We decided that we had to go the other way, towards what had recently been the lobby of the hospital, where we could see a faint gleam of light.
We were like two headless chickens running in total darkness — me and the surgeon who assisted me in an operation. The nurses who were with us a moment ago had run outside the building, braving the volley of gunshots coming from above. I was coughing, half-choked by dust swirling around the area. Behind my surgical mask, my mouth was gritty, as if somebody forced me to eat sand. I could hear my breath rasping in and out. Layers of smoke coming from a nearby room made it hard to see where we were. Blinking around, I caught sight of a glow, from a man’s hand holding a phone. He seemed mortally wounded but was still trying to send a message…perhaps to a loved one?
I lost track of time. The clock on the wall reminded me that it was already late afternoon. A barrage of gunfire and explosions continued in the distance. I had just finished my sixth surgery and was slowly drying my hands with a piece of cloth. My scrub suit and shoes had splatters of blood on them. I probably got them from the pregnant woman who was hit by a stray bullet in the neck, I thought to myself.
I was exhausted. I had been on my feet for almost nine hours already and my legs were aching. All I wanted to do was to eat a hot meal and sleep.
From somewhere, I heard a nurse saying that armed men were outside the gates of the hospital — but had respected our “no guns” policy. “That’s good,” I shouted to his direction, trying to sound cheerful. Hurrying to the empty office, I opened my locker and got a packet of instant oatmeal. I missed breakfast and lunch; if casualties would continue arriving at the hospital, there was little chance that I could have a meal on time that night. So, I slowly ate, savoring every morsel of my food. A big “EATING IS NOT ALLOWED HERE” sign on the wall was the only witness to how hungry I was. I stayed in that spot for what seemed like an eternity, fighting off sleep, mentally reviewing the cases I did that day.
Then I heard my name being called.
“Doctor, can you see the patients at the ER and tell us who’s going to surgery first?” There was urgency in his voice.
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
I was immediately given a white doctor’s gown to put over my soiled scrubs. Following him outside the operating room, it was a moment or so before I realized the strangeness of the scene before me. There were at least a dozen people on the floor. More were lying on stretchers parked on both sides of the ER lobby. There were women with blood-spattered shalwar kameez, one of them pregnant, another staring blankly at the ceiling; men with tattered, bloody clothes; and a little kid moaning in pain, blood pooling where his legs should have been.
Men. Women. Kids. All were victims of violence.
I was shocked at the scene I saw. I walked gingerly between patients, swaying lightly, feeling light-headed. Wounded people were everywhere. And more were still coming in. I didn’t want to look and yet I had to.
Overwhelmed, I asked one of the local surgeons to accompany me to check patients’ injuries and their vital signs. We decided whom we should prioritize and wrote it on their respective charts. “This one goes to the OT first, this one’s next. The one with the bomb blast on the abdomen is next at room two. And tell the caretakers we need blood.” And on and on we went. Twelve patients needed immediate surgery; the rest could wait.
It was going to be a long night for all of us.
I walked slowly back to the operating room with a forlorn look on my face. I was startled when an old wrinkled man with a full beard and kind eyes stopped me, and uncharacteristic for an Afghan man, tried to touch my arm. With a pleading voice, he asked me in halting English, “Doctor, please. My son is out there. Could you please take a look at him?” pointing to the black zone.
Oh, no! The black zone is where fatally wounded patients who have very slim chance of survival are placed in the triage area. I wanted to send him away, to gently tell him to ask the assistance of nurses nearby. I was aware that I could not do anything more for his son — and unsure if I could stand the grief on his face if I told him about his son’s condition.
But I went with him, asking him what happened.
He was trying to evacuate. Hit by a bomb. No vehicle. Took them a long time to bring him to the hospital.
“He’s a nice man, doctor. My youngest son.” He was saying the words to me proudly, a hint of a smile on his face. I managed to suppress a gasp when I saw the man on the stretcher near the wall. He was young, in his early 30s perhaps. Multiple wounds of various sizes covered his extremities. Bomb blast. On his chest, a big gaping wound gave me a view to his partially exposed lung. He already had a glassy look in his eyes and had no palpable pulse. Trying to do something, anything, I adjusted his intravenous line. I gently covered his chest with hospital linen and, in a breaking voice, told the old man to excuse me and that I’ll ask one of the nurses to tend to his son.
The grateful look in his eyes, as if I had given his son a second lease on life, will haunt me forever.
The constant element of my nightmares was the roaring sound and panels of wood crashing down on us. And screams. Mine. Then me tripping and landing on the floor.
I vividly remember that moment. My ears rang and the wind was knocked out of me after the explosion. My heart was slamming against my chest. I was too stunned to move. Lying there stiffly, I became aware of a hand holding me, tugging at me.
“Get up! Come on.”
I slowly stood wincing in pain, trying to see him in the dark. “Stop pulling me!” I shouted. A thick cable was on my chest, restricting my movement. My body hurt, like somebody hit me with a lead pipe, yet I knew we had to get out of there. There was no time to waste.
I clumsily tried to free myself from the tangle of wires and cables, wondering where the others went. A moment before, while we were crouching near the wall waiting for the bombing to stop, a group of five kids and two women — each holding an infant — had joined us.
A hair-raising scream from a young voice shattered the stillness. Then there was another scream, of anguish this time. Running steps followed. Then, as if nothing happened, it was quiet once again. Oh, God, I said with dread. Somebody just got hit.
Freed from the cables, my colleague and I starting running out of the building. It was still dark outside. The outlying buildings were meters away and it was too dangerous to run in the open field and go there.
Where? Where? He seemed to be saying. He was looking at me, asking me which direction we should run. Doing a quick assessment, I realized that running towards the gate of the hospital, towards the streets, would be an unwise choice. We had no idea what’s going on beyond the gates. Then I saw the unmistakable slanting roof. The basement! Thank God.
“Left side. Going to the basement!” I shouted. We ran and jumped into the hole. To our horror, and big disappointment, we found ourselves inside the exhaust of the basement window. Surrounded with thick cement walls, about seven feet below the ground, it was covered only by a thin sheet of roof above. An abyss. A dark space. Dead end. The basement was on the other side of the wall.
We were like two mice who ran into a trap. Resigned to our fate, I silently reminded myself that we had done everything. If this is where we are going to die, then so be it. Settling down beside my colleague, I closed my eyes, hopeless, worn out, but feeling oddly safe and comfortable. Absent, dreamy. Must be hypoglycemia.
“It’s going to be alright. We will get out of here.” He was trying to reassure me but there was a hint of fear in his voice. I could hear his heart beating loudly. His breathing was fast. “Yeah, maybe,” I answered, trying to convince myself, too.
The wind was blowing to our direction, fanning the smoke towards us. Coughing, tears streaming from our eyes, we struggled to not inhale the smoke. The sound of crackling wood and leaves were the only other indication that there was a fire nearby. Bombs continued dropping in the hospital. At one point, the ground shook so hard we thought it was the end for us.
“Pray with me,” I heard him saying with terror in his voice. “Allah…” I only heard the first word of what he said.
“What? Say it again. Slowly.”
Patiently, like a teacher, he guided me through the prayer.
La…La, I repeated.
Ilaha…ilaha
Illa….illa
Allah…allah
La ilaha illa allah
I barely heard him from the cacophony of noise above us. In all honesty, I did not understand what I just recited but I prayed it with all my heart, holding on to any hope I was being offered. Maybe Allah, in his goodness and mercy, would keep us safe. “I am not Muslim but I pray for your protection. Keep us safe.” I silently begged Him.
At the same time, I was thinking of my mom. What would she feel if I was returned home in an urn, just a mound of ash? Worst, if I would burn to death here and nobody would recognize my remains. Unidentified. Missing for eternity. I shuddered at the thought. I wanted to spare her from that agony. But how? How?
There was silence between us, occasionally interrupted by a burst of gunfire or a big explosion that seemed far away. I could only see his outline in the dark but I knew he was deep in thoughts, too. I was drifting in and out of consciousness. Dog-tired and hungry, all I wanted was to sleep.The next release for the Second Doctor, Polly, Jamie and Ben from The Early Adventures is The Outliers, a tale that takes a spookier turn from last month’s The Night Witches...
The Early Adventures of Doctor Who continue from last month’s 10/10 adventure with the Second Doctor, Polly, Jamie and Ben finding themselves underground in deep water and deeper trouble.
The TARDIS takes the Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie to a flooded underground town on an alien world. The streets are empty. The houses are bare. Not a trace of life.
The miners working here are vanishing. And it isn’t long before the time-travellers are suspected of being responsible for the disappearances. But even the authorities haven’t fully realised the scale of the problem.
There’s something else on this world. Something dragging people away. And it won’t stop until it’s taken them all.
We chatted to writer Simon Guerrier about what inspired this tale: “The Outliers was the result of me wanting to write something for Ben Jackson, having not given him much to do in my last one, The Yes Men, because I didn't expect the part to be recast, let alone by someone as talented as Elliot (Chapman). So I was thinking about a story that might suit Ben, and that him being a sailor it should be set on a boat.
“I then remembered the great scene towards the end of Jaws, the night before Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss face the giant shark, where they sit up drinking on their boat comparing war stories. So I watched Jaws again for the first time in years, and realised there was lots more I could plunder.
“It's set in the long gap between The Macra Terror and The Faceless Ones (I assume it's long given how much Polly's hair grows between them!), and after The Yes Men.”
Grab this chapter of The Early Adventures starring Anneke Wills, Frazer Hines and Elliot Chapman, available on CD at £14.99 or download at £12.99. Don’t forget that all CD purchases unlock a download exclusive with the Big Finish app.
Or save in a subscription – get all four volumes of series four of Doctor Who – The Early Adventures for £45 on CD or £40 on download.
Coming out next in Doctor Who – The Early Adventures is The Morton Legacy written by Justin Richards.
When the TARDIS lands in London, Ben and Polly are initially delighted to be back home… until they realise that they’re a hundred years too early. But this is nothing next to how the Doctor and Jamie feel when the TARDIS itself vanishes!
Their attempts to locate their ship lead them to an antiquarian, Josiah Morton, possessed of a most unusual collection that is currently subjected to a legal dispute. But they’re not the only people interested in him. Dangerous criminals watch from the shadows, waiting for a moment to strike. And the police are calling too – accusing him of murder.
An unusual series of deaths have been occurring across the capital, and all signs point to Morton as the culprit. But is he really a killer? Or is there something else at large in the city? Something… alien?Alon Meir/PhotoStock-Israel/Alamy
There just aren’t enough palm tree homes to go around. Invasive ring-necked parakeets have prompted a rapid decline in Israel’s native hoopoe population, probably because of their aggressive takeover of nesting cavities in palm trees.
Reuven Yosef at Ben Gurion University, Israel, and colleagues followed densities of hoopoes in four palmeries in rural areas over a period of 10 years. In the two that were invaded by parakeets in 2000 and 2006, the team found a significant decline in hoopoe population density. By contrast, in the two palmeries without parakeets the hoopoe density remained unchanged.
These invasive parakeets usually nest in existing tree cavities. But in Israel they were observed digging new cavities, which suggests there is a lack of nesting sites. Parakeets start breeding earlier in the season than hoopoes do, and may use up all nesting sites before hoopoes can get to them, the team says.
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Cavity competition
The results add to growing evidence of competition for suitable nesting cavities between ring-necked parakeets (Psittacula krameri) and native birds, including nuthatches, starlings and great tits. They may even be affecting bats.
Originally from Africa and South Asia, parakeets have spread globally, probably after individuals kept as pets escaped or were released into the wild. They are now a permanent fixture in cities like London.
But hoopoes in Europe are safe for now. “Currently, almost the entire European population of ring-necked parakeets is breeding in urban areas, whereas the hoopoes are generally not entering cities,” says Liviu Pârâu at Heidelberg University, Germany.
“The authors describe a local situation in Israel which cannot be generalised,” says Michael Wink at Heidelberg University. He says that in his experience there is no lack of nest holes and no apparent competition with native species in Germany, for example.
Journal reference: Annales Zoologici Fennici, vol 53, p 281A view of the U.S. Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, October 13, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
By Joan Biskupic
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will again take up the highly charged question of race in admissions to public universities, hearing arguments for the second time from a white woman who claimed that a University of Texas policy caused her to be rejected in favor of less qualified blacks and Hispanics.
In the three years since the justices last heard the case and sent it back to a lower court for more scrutiny of the university's rationale for considering an applicant's race, legal battles over admissions have intensified.
The conservative advocates behind the Texas challenge have separately mounted an even more sweeping lawsuit against the nation’s most iconic private university, Harvard.
In a twist on the Fisher case, the Harvard lawsuit asserted that Asian Americans have been particularly hurt by affirmative action programs in university admissions. A similar case has been filed against the University of North Carolina.
These new Asian-American cases, which both sides believe are destined for the Supreme Court, could ultimately have greater national consequence than the Texas dispute because they take aim at the landmark decision that first upheld campus affirmative action, a policy under which minorities historically subject to discrimination are given certain preferences.
That 1978 ruling in the case Regents of the University of California v Bakke, forbade quotas but allowed race to be used as one admissions factor among many.
Lawyers for Abigail Fisher, the woman who challenged the University of Texas policy, do not question the Bakke decision or a major 2003 ruling in a University of Michigan case that affirmed it. Rather, they make the narrower argument that Texas could have accomplished its diversity goals with a policy that did not look at race.
The state of Texas enrolls most freshmen at the Austin campus of its flagship public university by guaranteeing places to the top 10 percent of a high school graduating class. A supplemental diversity policy looks beyond grades to a range of attributes including race.
A ruling in the Fisher case might not apply to schools that have other systems that take applicants' race into consideration.
A BOLDER CLAIM
The backers of the newer Asian American cases make a bolder claim. They argue that the Bakke decision was wrong and that using race in any way in admissions violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.
The cases were organized by conservative legal activist Edward Blum, who has launched more than a dozen lawsuits over the past 25 years against race-based policies and initially recruited Fisher, the daughter of a friend.
Blum's newer cases are largely on hold in federal district courts until the justices rule in the Texas dispute. Harvard and the University of North Carolina are among the scores of universities that have submitted "friend of the court" briefs on behalf of the University of Texas.
In its filing, the University of Texas argued that because of lingering patterns of racial segregation in state high schools, the "top ten" method does not generate a sufficient mix of students. It also disputed whether Fisher, based on her high school record, would ever have been admitted through the separate broader student review.
The university added that the Austin campus has been reminded of “the continuing relevance of race” by such incidents as the June shooting deaths of nine black people at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a man who expressed white supremacist views.
Fisher’s lawyers said Texas has not shown that the "top ten" method produces insufficient diversity, and they argue that if administrators want more of a mix they could consider race-neutral factors such as family income.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has said that racial remedies can themselves foster conflict. In 5-4 rulings, the court in recent years has curtailed policies intended to protect blacks and Hispanics under public-school integration plans, municipal employee promotion exams and voting practices.
Wednesday’s arguments will be heard by eight of the nine justices. Liberal justice Elena Kagan, who was U.S. solicitor general in the Obama administration when it backed Texas in lower court litigation, is not participating.
(Reporting by Joan Biskupic; Editing by Amy Stevens and Will Dunham)The singer, who died of heart failure in June aged 50, was also convinced that he could have cured the Nazi leader's evil, had he been alive to speak to him.
He said that the dictator - responsible for the murder of 6 million Jews - needed "help" and "therapy".
Jackson made the claims during interviews with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, with whom he became close friends. The conversations were recorded with Jackson's approval and have been published in a new book – The Michael Jackson Tapes – which goes on sale in the US and online on Friday.
During one interview, Jackson said: "Hitler was a genius orator. To make that many people turn and change and hate, he had to be a showman and he was."
Boteach then asked the star: "You believe that if you had an hour with Hitler you could somehow touch something inside of him?"
Jackson replied: "Absolutely. I know I could."
He went on to argue that nobody is totally evil, adding: "You have to help them, give them therapy, teach them that somewhere, something in their life went wrong."
Boteach, 42, who recorded more than 30 hours of interviews with Jackson, told The Sun: "Michael despised what Hitler had done. When it came to believing he could heal Hitler, that was hopeless naïvety."A Maryland bill that would prohibit discrimination against transgender people has overwhelming support among state residents, according to a new poll.
Opponents, meanwhile, continue to obsess about men in dresses nefariously hanging around women's bathrooms -- even while acknowledging that they're probably going to lose this one.
The Goucher Poll found that 71 percent of those surveyed said that they favor including gender identity in the state's anti-discrimination laws. Twenty percent were opposed. Metro Weekly reports majority support from both women and men, from black, white and "other" races, and from Republicans (60-27), Democrats (79-15) and independents (68-23).
The state's General Assembly stands poised to pass the protections in a bill called the Fairness for All Marylanders Act of 2014. Maryland's Senate approved it earlier this month, voting 32-15 to grant protections based on "appearance, expression, or behavior of an individual regardless of the individual's assigned sex at birth."
The bill would apply to housing, employment and "public accommodations" like
hotels, restaurants, stores and theaters, with exemptions for some private clubs and owner-occupied rental buildings with fewer than five units, as well as religious groups and educational institutions.
The House, which passed a similar measure in 2011 before it died in the Senate, is expected to take up its version this term.
Opponents of what they term the "bathroom bill" claim that prohibiting discrimination against transgender people would "radically change our society and put our families and children at risk," in the words of Del. Neil Parrott (R-Washington County).
Members of an anti-LGBT group called Maryland Citizens for a Responsible Government (their website is found at notmyshower.com) have long warned that protecting trans rights would lead to women being attacked in public restrooms by cross-dressing men. Elaine McDermott, a member of the group, cited "five reports of attacks and assaults committed by men in restrooms" in recent testimony against the House bill, reports the Washington Blade. The paper goes on to note that McDermott "described Chrissy Lee Polis, a trans woman who was attacked at a Baltimore County McDonald’s in 2011, as a 'prostitute.'"
"The argument that providing transgender rights will result in an increase of sexual violence against women or men in public bathrooms is beyond specious," Toni Troop, spokesperson for a Massachusetts sexual assault victims organization, recently told Media Matters. "The only people at risk are the transgender men and women whose rights to self-determination, dignity and freedom of violence are too often denied."
Media Matters spoke with members of the law enforcement and victims advocacy communities in 12 of the 17 states, plus D.C. and Puerto Rico, with statewide transgender antidiscrimination protections. None reported any incidents of sexual assault -- in women's bathrooms or out of them -- arising from these laws.
In 2012, Thomas Manger, police chief for Montgomery County -- one of the Maryland jurisdictions that already prohibits discrimination against transgender people -- also denied the allegations that those protections had led to increased attacks in women's bathrooms.
Manger told HuffPost by email that his original statement stands. "No cases of women being attacked in a public restroom have been reported to us since the original 2012 story," he said.
But if foes continue to play the same old tune, some seem to recognize their song is no longer at the top of the charts. Here's what longtime opponent of LGBT rights Del. Kathy Afzali (R-Frederick) had to say about the Fairness for All Marylanders Act in her latest constituent newsletter:
I want to take this opportunity to let you know that I am completely and unequivocally opposed to this bill which doesn't aim to end discrimination, but to normalize abnormal behavior. HB 1265 seeks to create a new class of protected individuals in the state's anti-discrimination statute. Specifically, the bill defines "gender identity" as "appearance, expression, or behavior of an individual regardless of the individual's assigned sex at birth." It is important that Maryland does not separate one's "gender identify" and their "assigned sex at birth" as noted in the bill. Like the majority of Marylanders, I share the view that this redefinition rejects our society's understanding of human nature. So ladies if you happen to see a guy in a dress in the restaurant bathroom, you'll know the bill passed and that I voted NO!
This story has been updated with a comment from Police Chief Thomas Manger.Story by Jeremy Jones
Disclaimer: I am not an avalanche expert. My personal protocol to approaching the backcountry is something I am always trying to evolve and improve. I have made many mistakes in the mountains. I take these mistakes seriously and I try to learn from them.
As I come over the roll my stomach drops. I am in the wrong spot. I’m five feet left of where I need to be and as much as I fight to correct my mistake I can not. I am going too fast to stop and am now descending an unrideable rock strewn face. I skip down some rocks, take some unwanted air, land on some rocks and start rolling in a place I should not be rolling.
My mistake was that I misread one of two identical shadows as the entrance to my line. Tactically a true statement but my mistake that day was more mental then tactical. Why did I blow that call? When it comes to analyzing mistakes made by ourselves or other people we tend to focus too much on “what” the mistake was and not enough on “why” the mistake was made.
You see it on the internet forums and hear it in the bar room every time there is a fatality in the mountains. “How could they have missed the signs?! I would have never done that, etc.”
Some accidents are extremely reckless and do not keep me up at night. It’s when I see experienced backcountry experts dying in the mountains that I lose sleep thinking about their mistakes. What led them to make that mistake that day? If they missed the call then who am I to say I would never do the same thing?
The day of my fall down the rock face I was over confident, in a rush and not present. I made several mental mistakes that nearly cost me my life. Looking back at this accident and other mistakes I have made over the years, I realized there were a few common lessons to be learned from all these experiences. I turned these "mental keys" into a checklist that I go over in my head every time I step into the mountains. Here’s the list:
Present Moment
“Mountains Speak, Wise Men Listen,” is a John Muir quote I live by. Am I present enough to read the signs? Life can be crazy but I view walking into the mountains as walking through a portal into a different world. A world that does not care about life’s dramas. The mountains demand your full attention. Turn the phone off and start reading the signs.
For the real serious lines I like to disconnect from the world and camp in front of the mountain for long periods of time to feel the mood of the line and observe the weather cycles.
Humility vs Ego
The battle between ego and humility is one of the greatest mental challenges of daily life. Am I over confident? Do I, anyone in the group, or the group as a whole have a big ego today? Is our confidence over-boosted by recent success? Observing and avoiding over amping ego in other people is easy but it is much harder to see in yourself. Lack of humility is one of my most common mistakes at times when I have screwed up in the mountains.
Patience
The mountains do not care that your only day off is Saturday, it is the last day of your trip, or that the shadow is creeping up your line. For the real serious lines the calendar and your agenda needs to be thrown out the window. The more critical a line is the rarer it is in form. A serious line with consequences should be looked at as unrideable. It is only in rare occurrences that they become ridable. That window can be minutes long. As quick as it opens it can also close.
Ride For Tomorrow
When I get the opportunity to be around longtime backountry riders or mountaineers I always try and soak up their knowledge. I often ask, “Any advice for being able to do this for my whole life?” 72 year old Norwegian snowboard legend Tommen summed it up best, “Tomorrow is good too. Ride for Tomorrow.” The season is a marathon not a sprint. Do not force the issue. “What happens if this slope slides or I make a mistake?” I ask this over and over moving through the mountains. Don’t hide from the answer. Try and avoid the “I die if it slides” answer at all costs.
Just Say No
This is another mantra I say over and over going into the mountains. The mountains are guilty until proven innocent. I do not like to say, I am going to ride xxx, rather, I am going to look at xxx. I do not become mentally attached to a line until I am dropping into it. Look for reasons to back down and anticipate that the turn around point may be at the top of a line you just spent hours hiking to the top of. I get antsy if I have not backed off a line in awhile. Celebrate when you do turn around. Nothing shows your head is in the right place more then backing off a line.
Here are a few dramatic crashes that occurred about fifteen years ago while filming with Standard Films and TGR.
The avy in this video looks a lot more dangerous then it was. We were dealing with 1 to 5 inches of new snow on a hard surface. The snow was extremely dry and smokey and had zero density to it. The heaviest avalanche scenarios I have been involved with have occurred in intermediate terrain not while I was filming.
The tumble down the pinner chute was the scariest and most serious of the bunch. I hit a uphill ice chunk that sent me superman-ing headfirst down the chute at 50mph.
I learned an important lesson this day in the Wasatch about foot powered snowboarding. The emotional high of topping out at sunrise, mixed with the cocktail of endorphins from hiking and the adrenaline of dropping into a dream line had me peaking like never before. Riding this buzz I throttled the line way too hard.
The mountains are not going anywhere. No line is worth dying for. Hopefully these mental keys I have learned the hard way help keep you safe. And remember, one bad call can erase 1,000’s of good calls.
Ride to live another day!Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, Brooklyn Museum
Ancient Egyptian rock inscriptions and carvings on pharaonic tombs chronicle hartebeest and oryx — horned beasts that thrived in the region more
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simplicity and interpretability, and some are crazy about neural networks for their flexibility.
My favorite out-of-the-box algorithm is (as you might have guessed) the Random Forest, and it’s the second modeling technique I typically try on any given data set (after a linear model).
Here’s why:
Random Forests require almost no input preparation. They can handle binary features, categorical features, numerical features without any need for scaling.
They can handle binary features, categorical features, numerical features without any need for scaling. Random Forests perform implicit feature selection and provide a pretty good indicator of feature importance.
and provide a pretty good indicator of feature importance. Random Forests are very quick to train. It’s a stroke of brilliance when a performance optimization happens to enhance model precision, or vice versa. The random feature sub-setting that aims at diversifying individual trees, is at the same time a great performance optimization! Tuning down the fraction of features that is considered at any given node can let you easily work on datasets with thousands of features. (The same is applicable for row sampling if your dataset has lots of rows)
It’s a stroke of brilliance when a performance optimization happens to enhance model precision, or vice versa. The random feature sub-setting that aims at diversifying individual trees, is at the same time a great performance optimization! Tuning down the fraction of features that is considered at any given node can let you easily work on datasets with thousands of features. (The same is applicable for row sampling if your dataset has lots of rows) Random Forests are pretty tough to beat. Although you can typically find a model that beats RFs for any given dataset (typically a neural net or some boosting algorithm), it’s never by much, and it usually takes much longer to build and tune said model than it took to build the Random Forest. This is why they make for excellent benchmark models.
Although you can typically find a model that beats RFs for any given dataset (typically a neural net or some boosting algorithm), it’s never by much, and it usually takes much longer to build and tune said model than it took to build the Random Forest. This is why they make for excellent benchmark models. It’s really hard to build a bad Random Forest! Since random forests are not very sensitive to the specific hyper-parameters used, they don’t require a lot of tweaking and fiddling to get a decent model, just use a large number of trees and things won’t go terribly awry. Most Random Forest implementations have sensible defaults for the rest of the parameters.
Since random forests are not very sensitive to the specific hyper-parameters used, they don’t require a lot of tweaking and fiddling to get a decent model, just use a large number of trees and things won’t go terribly awry. Most Random Forest implementations have sensible defaults for the rest of the parameters. Versatility. Random Forest are applicable to a wide variety of modeling tasks, they work well for regression tasks, work very well for classification taks(and even produce decently calibrated probability scores), and even though I’ve never tried it myself, they can be used for cluster analysis.
Random Forest are applicable to a wide variety of modeling tasks, they work well for regression tasks, work very well for classification taks(and even produce decently calibrated probability scores), and even though I’ve never tried it myself, they can be used for cluster analysis. Simplicity. If not of the resulting model, then of the learning algorithm itself. The basic RF learning algorithm can be written in a few lines of code. There’s a certain irony about that. But a sense of elegance as well.
If not of the resulting model, then of the learning algorithm itself. The basic RF learning algorithm can be written in a few lines of code. There’s a certain irony about that. But a sense of elegance as well. Lots of excellent, free, and open-source implementations. You can find a good implementation in almost all major ML libraries and toolkits. R, scikit-learn and Weka jump to mind for having exceptionally good implementations.
You can find a good implementation in almost all major ML libraries and toolkits. R, scikit-learn and Weka jump to mind for having exceptionally good implementations. As if all of that is not enough, Random Forests can be easily grown in parallel. The same cannot be said about boosted models or large neural networks.
This beautiful visualization from scikit-learn illustrates the modelling capacity of a decision forest:
Visualization from scikit-learn.org illustrating decision boundaries and modeling capacity of a single decision tree, a random forest and some other techniques.
Drawbacks?
The main drawback of Random Forests is the model size. You could easily end up with a forest that takes hundreds of megabytes of memory and is slow to evaluate.
Another point that some might find a concern is that random forest models are black boxes that are very hard to interpret.
Some References:
Here’s a paper by Leo Breiman, the inventor of the algorithms describing random forests.
Here’s another amazing paper by Rich Caruana et al. evaluating several supervised learning algorithms on many different datasets.Mindfulness seems to improve nearly every aspect of health -- but how? While mounting research has revealed many of the numerous physical and mental health benefits of mindfulness, little is known of the mechanisms underlying these positive changes.
"Many people are skeptical about whether there are helpful aspects of mindfulness meditation practices," Dr. David Creswell, a professor of psychology at the university and the study's lead author, told The Huffington Post. "We show that mindfulness meditation impacts measurable brain circuits more so than helpful relaxation practices, and that these brain circuit changes help us understand how mindfulness meditation improves health."
The researchers found that inflammation seems to be the key factor, as mindfulness reduces it by way of impacting changes in the brain's functional connectivity.
“[T]his new work sheds light into what mindfulness training is doing to the brain to produce these inflammatory health benefits,” Creswell said in a statement.
Chronic inflammation -- the long-term, runaway activation of the immune system's defense response, even in the absence of infection or injury -- is at the core of a host of health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer, stroke, depression and Alzheimer's disease.
This new work sheds light into what mindfulness training is doing to the brain to produce these inflammatory health benefits." Dr. David Creswell of Carnegie Mellon University
The researchers recruited 35 stressed-out adult job-seekers, and asked half of the participants to complete an intensive three-day mindfulness meditation retreat program while the other half completed a three-day relaxation retreat program that did not have a mindfulness component.
The participants completed brain scans before and after the programs, and also provided blood samples before the programs and after a four-month follow-up.
The brain scans revealed that meditation increased functional connectivity between two brain areas that typically work in opposition: the default mode network (which is involved in mind-wandering and internal reflection) and the executive attention network (key to attention, planning and decision-making). Relaxation training, however, did not have this effect.
The blood samples showed that participants who underwent the mindfulness training had lower levels of Interleukin-6, a biomarker of inflammation, than those who did the relaxation retreat.
The researchers concluded that the changes in functional brain connectivity resulting from the mindfulness program seemed to help the brain manage stress (a known inflammation trigger), and therefore is responsible for the reduced levels of inflammation.
Why does it seem to be more beneficial than mere relaxation for managing stress? Creswell suggests that mindfulness may have a more lasting impact.
"Mindfulness meditation teaches participants how to be more open and attentive to their experiences, even difficult ones," Creswell said. "By contrast, relaxation approaches are good in the moment for making the body feel relaxed, but... [they're] harder to translate when you are dealing with difficult stressors in your daily life."
Also on HuffPost:According to WSBT, police in LaPorte County (Indiana) located what they call an IED.
Police say they got the call around 4 p.m. Monday. A woman had been walking along a roadside ditch, cleaning it out, when she found something and brought it home. Her husband was concerned about what she found and called police.
Officers came to the scene and discovered it was an improvised explosive device, according to LaPorte County police. The bomb squad is now on the scene and the device is secure.
The device is something homemade that police say had components that might be a pipe bomb of some kind. No one was injured.
A containment vehicle is being brought in from Porter County. Officials say they will put the device in that and then transport it to a field where it will be detonated.By Peter Biles
BBC Southern Africa correspondent
A multi-millionaire but the new notes don't buy much
Zimbabwe's central bank is to introduce new higher-denomination banknotes in an effort to ease the critical shortage of cash in the country.
Zimbabwe has been in economic decline for the past eight years, with annual inflation widely thought to be in excess of 50,000%.
The highest value note that will go into circulation on Friday is worth 10m Zimbabwean dollars.
But that is worth less than US$3.90 (£2; 2.60 euros) on the black market.
The introduction of the new banknotes, or "bearer cheques" as they are officially called, is a further attempt to stabilise the Zimbabwean economy.
Hyperinflation
There have been long queues every day at banks as people have struggled to withdraw cash.
The government's only response is to print more money - and that is seen as the main reason for the hyperinflation.
There have been no official inflation figures published for the past three or four months.
Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank governor, Gideon Gono, has called on the business community not to increase prices every time new measures are taken to adjust the currency.
The new higher denomination bank notes are certain to cause more confusion and they may only bring short term relief.
In the meantime, many people have become dependent upon imported goods, there are still severe shortages of fuel and power supplies remain erratic.CLOSE Comments made about Islam on the floor of the chamber Wednesday led to a rare rebuke and sparked a brief but fierce discussion about religious freedom. 4/6/17 Damian Giletto/The News Journal
Sen. Dave Lawson, R-Marydel, caused a brief uproar with comments he made about Islam on Wednesday. (Photo: Provided by the Delaware Senate Republican Caucus)
Comments that state Sen. Dave Lawson, R-Marydel, made about Islam on the floor of the chamber Wednesday led to a rare rebuke from the chamber's chief member and sparked a brief but fierce discussion about religious freedom.
"We just heard from the Quran, which calls for our very demise," Lawson said after a Muslim duo gave the invocation, including a passage from their holy text. "I fought for this country, not to be damned by someone that comes in here and prays to their God for our demise. I think that's despicable."
Lawson served in the Air Force and did a tour in Vietnam. He addressed his colleagues on the floor of the Senate.
IN OTHER NEWS:Vote could mean higher electricity bills in Delaware
Tarek Ewis, imam of the Masjid Isa Ibn-e-Maryam mosque in Newark, and Naveed Baqir, executive director of the Delaware Council on Global and Muslim Affairs, were invited to give the Senate invocation.
Lawson and Sen. Colin Bonini, R-Dover South, stepped out of the chamber for the prayer. They re-entered when the speakers had finished, and Lawson gave a brief speech, saying he "took great exception" to the reading from the Quran.
After Lawson's comments, the Senate proceeded as normal, debating and passing several bills. But before the chamber adjourned later in the evening, President Pro Tempore David McBride, D-New Castle, halted, saying he felt "there is complicity in remaining silent."
RELATED:Muslims honor former Gov. Markell
"I have never been of the mind to censure the words of other members, but I also believe deeply that words have consequences," McBride said, reading aloud from a statement. "To criticize the sacred prayer of another religion from the floor of the Senate strikes me as antithetical to everything we ought to stand for as lawmakers."
McBride went on to say that Muslims serve in the military and as police and are doctors, professors and teachers.
Senate President Pro Tempore David McBride, D-New Castle (Photo: File photo)
"I am personally offended that our guests from the Muslim community and anyone else here in the chamber today would feel anything less than welcomed with opened arms," McBride said. "And for our guests today to be branded as anti-American when our First Amendment of our country’s Constitution explicitly guarantees the freedom of religion is both ironic and deeply sad to me."
McBride said he was "hopeful we can move past this sad chapter in the body's history."
Afterward, Lawson said he thought McBride was "ignorant to what's going on."
He said the Quran includes passages about killing "infidels" and pointed to some majority-Muslim countries that restrict women's rights and persecute Christians, among other evils.
"Their belief flies in the face of our Constitution," Lawson said afterward. "This is not our Bible, we should not be allowing them to pray from that book in our house, just as I do not believe I would be allowed to pray from my Bible in their house."
Baqir called Lawson's comments "textbook Islamaphobia."
"It stems from a deep-rooted misconception about Muslims," he said. "My belief does not call for me to kill anyone. The Quran says we are not supposed to hate people; we are supposed to hate sins."
Buy Photo Naveed Baqir is the executive director of the Delaware Council on Global and Muslim Affairs. (Photo: JENNIFER CORBETT/THE NEWS JOURNAL)
Baqir provided The News Journal with the passage from the Quran that was part of the invocation. It says: "O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, even though it be against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, be he rich or poor, God is a better protector to both than you. So do not follow the lusts of your hearts, lest you may avoid justice, and if you distort your witness or refuse to give it, verily, God is ever well-acquainted with what you do."
Baqir said there are about 10,000 Muslims and 12 mosques in Delaware. He said members of the General Assembly visit frequently and said he would be happy to have Lawson visit, too.
"I like to look at it as a positive, in a way," Baqir said. "Nobody would have paid much attention today had it not been for Senator Lawson."
Baqir said he hoped to have a sit down with Lawson to explain more about the Muslim faith.
Sen. Bonini said afterward that he does not think Lawson is Islamaphobic.
"Anybody who knows Dave knows that there is not an ounce of hate in him," he said. "There is not an an ounce of hate in me either."
Still, Bonini said, "Religious freedom is not a one-way street; it is a busy intersection."
Sen. Colin Bonini, R-Dover South (Photo: File)
"You have a right to pray, as do I," Bonini said after McBride's response. "And I have a right to be offended by what you believe, just as you have a right to be offended by what I believe."
Bonini said neither his nor Lawson's walkout nor their comments were intended to "be specifically disrespectful to the people who are here."
Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected], (302) 324-2428 or on Twitter @TNJ_malbright.
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/2oDFzOkPete and Ashlee Won't Be Selling Bronx' Baby Photos
Fall Out Boyand wifehave decided against making a quick buck off of new son, who was born on November 20th.
Any time you want to know what is going on in Pete's world, just check out his blog. His most recent entry talks about their decision to keep Bronx and his sweet little face private. The post was titled, Ring ring...It's the truth calling.
"Truth is like every celeb couple, we were offered mounds and mounds of money by mags from here to Guam to pimp out the baby. We just don't want to go down that road with him."
Wentz also assures everyone that he is cute and looks just like his mommy Ashlee. Speculation was that the couple didn't get the kind of offers they were hoping for and that was the reason for no photos. We want to believe that they truly were protecting their child.
Check out the top 10 most expensive baby photos here.
Photo: WENNIt's the kind of incident that shows why people are frightened of downtown Saskatoon and why police are moving more officers to the street.
A half-dozen police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck jammed the street in front of The Lighthouse Supported Living building on 2rd Avenue South at 8 a.m. CST on a Thursday morning.
Suspect subdued and upright. (Dan Zakreski/CBC) Some officers re-directed people away from the main entrance. Cruisers with flashing lights were double-parked on the street, downtown morning traffic came to a crawl. An officer with a shotgun walked the sidewalk.
They were responding to reports of a disturbance inside the building.
Police said later that a 31-year-old man was taken to hospital. Staff at the Lighthouse had reported that a male was causing a disturbance and was in possession of a knife.
They also reported that the man may have been under the influence of an intoxicant. Officers arrived and located the male inside a vestibule. When they attempted to take him into custody he became unconscious.
No one was injured during the incident.Getty Images
The Packers announced their biggest move earlier on Saturday when they released guard Josh Sitton and they got around to announcing the rest on Saturday evening.
The most notable thing about the other cuts is that the Packers don’t currently have a long snapper on their roster. They released Rick Lovato, which means that one of the 53 guys that remain on the roster will likely be departing in the coming days so that they can fill that hole.
There are also only five defensive linemen, so there are multiple areas where the Packers might be looking to shuffle the deck.
They do have three quarterbacks on hand as preseason workhorse Joe Callahan made it through cuts to join Aaron Rodgers and Brett Hundley. Center Corey Linsley was placed on the reserve/physically unable to perform list due to a hamstring injury.
Quarterback Marquise Williams was among the cuts, as were veteran linebackers Sam Barrington and Carl Bradford. They were joined by wide receivers Geronimo Allison and Herb Waters; linebackers Beniquez Brown and Reggie Gilbert; cornerbacks Robertson Daniel and Warren Gatewood; running backs Brandon Ross and Alstevis Squirewell; defensive tackle Brian Price; guard Lucas Patrick; tight end Casey Pierce; and safety Jermaine Whitehead.
Defensive tackle Tyler Kuder and center Kyle Steuck are headed to injured reserve and cornerback Demetri Goodson and defensive tackle Mike Pennell will serve supensions to start the year.Um Saad, a middle-aged woman living in the Sunni district of Khadra in west Baghdad, blames the Americans for the death of her husband and two of her sons and threatens revenge.
"They are monsters and devils wearing human clothes," she exclaims vehemently. "One day I will put on an explosive belt under my clothes and then blow myself up among the Americans. I will get revenge against them for my husband and sons and I will go to paradise."
Just as the White House and the Pentagon were trumpeting the success of "the surge" – the dispatch of extra American troops to Iraq last year – and the wire services' claim that the country has enjoyed "months of relative calm", Um Saad saw Saif, her second son, shot dead as he opened the door of her house.
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.
Iraq is still convulsed by violence and security has only improved compared to the height of the sectarian civil war in 2006 and early 2007 when 65 Iraqis were being killed every day. By this February the number of dead had fallen to 26 a day though this has risen to 39 in March so far.
The misery of people like Um Saad is the cumulative result of years of war. Dressed in dark robes, sitting in the bare sitting room of her modest house in al-Khadra, this 49-year-old woman tells how her family was slowly destroyed. "I am not educated and I only went to primary school," she says. "I married an air force pilot called Latif and we had three sons and one daughter."
Latif was stationed at Bakr airforce base at Balad, north of Baghdad, during the 1990-91 Gulf War and was killed in an American bombing attack. "I didn't get support from our uncles and aunts so we lived on his pension and we sold a car, a Chevrolet Malibu, he had been given by the government because he was a pilot," says Um Saad.
Her eldest son, Saad, wanted to enter the military academy just like his father. Um Saad said she did not want to lose him and instead he went to the police academy and had graduated as a police lieutenant when Saddam Hussein was overthrown in April 2003. She wanted him to resign. "After the fall of Iraq the police were the second target [of Sunni guerrillas] after the Americans."
Saad equivocated over resigning since he held the Americans responsible for killing his father, but the family needed his salary. He finally decided to leave the police, but before he could do so, on 25 October 2003, his police station at Khadra was hit by a large car bomb. He was uninjured by the blast but, as he ran with his pistol drawn to help a friend, American soldiers at the scene thought he was attacking them. "They shot him dead with six bullets in the head and many more in the body," says his mother.
Um Saad says it was at this point she began to hate the Americans: "I do not look on them as human beings." Her priority was to try to save her three surviving children. She was particularly worried about Saif, 17 and in his fifth year in secondary school, because many of his friends had joined al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Um Saad thought it would be safest if Saif went to Syria and she enticed him to go there at the end of 2006 by telling him that his cousin Mariam, whose family had already fled there, was in love with him and wanted to marry him. Saif came back to Baghdad in October last year when Syria changed its visa and residency requirements.
Um Saad was "desperately worried because the security situation was bad". It was at this time that the US forces in Khadra had set up al-Sahwa, the Awakening Council, as a Sunni anti-al-Qa'ida force.
"I was so stupid," says Um Saad bitterly. "I thought the danger was that Saif would join al-Qa'ida because the Americans had killed his father and brother." In fact he secretly joined al-Sahwa and was expecting to earn $400 a month. On the night of 15 February as the family were having their supper there was knock on the door. Saif answered it and Um Saad heard shots. "I was too late," she says. "He was lying dead on the doorstep and on his chest was a piece of paper saying: 'Death to al-Sahwa and all enemies of al-Qa'ida'."
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 nowCTV Vancouver Island
Despite numerous warnings, the rare spectacle of a solar eclipse proved too tempting for some people in Victoria on Monday.
Several optometrists reported multiple calls of people complaining about eye pain after looking at the rare celestial event without protection.
“I had patients calling after looking at it for about a minute or so,” said Dr. Balraj Sharma.
“It can definitely cause damage to the back of the eyes if you’re not careful. At least if you had some sunglasses looking at it for a quick second it shouldn’t hurt the back of the eyes, but there’s no guarantees.”
Leading up to Monday’s eclipse, doctors warned solar gazers that not wearing proper eye protection could lead to a lifetime of problems. Even momentary glances at the sun can severely damage a person’s vision.
“If they’re having an after-image after the fact and it’s not going away, it’s really important that they get their eyes checked,” said Sharma. “It’s not reversible, so it’s something that if it did happen, it’s definitely going to stay there.”
Sharma said solar eclipses can cause such serious damage because the effect of the sun is intensified during the rare event.
“It’s definitely heightened for the fact that when you have something covering the sun like that and it’s dark, your pupils actually get quite large,” he said.
Anyone who looked at the eclipse and is now noticing eye pain or a blind spot is urged to get in touch with an eye doctor.27 Pages BIS27pages Even as I write this, the remaining buildings at Boys Industrial School/Fairfield School for Boys are in danger. There are no funds specifically allocated to preserve (let alone restore) these historic structures. Although they are controlled by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, ODRC’s job is to operate the state’s prisons. It is not in the museum business. The only real hope is for some independent group to take custody of them such as was done with the Ohio State Reformatory by the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society. However, that is unlikely to happen unless more attention can be focused on the institution’s history. That is what my daughter and I hoped to do with our book, Central Ohio’s Historic Prisons. That is also why I am posting this typewritten chronology as a pdf. Advertisements Permalink Leave a Comment
2012 in review The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 4,600 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 8 years to get that many views. Click here to see the complete report. Permalink Leave a Comment
Old Photographs I am pleased that so many of you are using this blog to communicate with one another. If you have photos you would like me to post, email them to [email protected]. Thanks. Permalink 15 Comments
Shawshank Jr. BIS27pages Click on the above link to view a 27 page history of the BIS/FSB from 1862-1954. I have posted this for the sake of those who want to learn more about the history of the institution than is available in my book, Central Ohio’s Historic Prisons. While most of the buildings have been razed, a few still remain standing, although their future is tenuous. They are controlled by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections. However, the business of ODRC is operating prisons, not museums. The hope is that these historic structures can be deeded over to a preservationists group such as was done with the Ohio State Reformatory. Unfortunately, this will require hundreds of thousands of dollars. I feel the more people who know about the institution, the better. Maybe Stephen King will write a story about it, Hollywood will come calling, and it will develop into a popular tourist attraction. We could call it Shawshank Jr. Permalink 3 Comments
The night I broke into prison When I was a deputy superintendent at Training Institution Central Ohio (TICO), Trooper Don Whipple was our assigned Ohio Highway Patrol investigator. This meant he was called in whenever we had reason to believe a crime had been committed within the institution, whether by staff or inmates, day or night. I had known Don for several years and had lobbied hard to keep him when OHP top brass decided to play musical chairs. What set him apart from the other investigators I knew was he actually enjoyed the institutional part of his job. Most of them would have preferred to do anything else than wade into the murky waters of a juvenile correctional facility, but Don relished it. (Later, he would become chief of security for the Department of Youth Services, a post he held until his unexpected death.) Now, Don had been told by numerous youth that they were being physically abused by the staff. However, the youth were not regarded as good witnesses for many reasons including the fact they were adjudicated delinquents who were already on record as being untruthful. What Don needed was a reliable witness – himself and someone else. Don hatched a plan to break into TICO one night, sneak up to the windows, and see if he could catch any of the juvenile correctional officers behaving badly. However, he needed someone from institutional management to accompany him. Since the superintendent had a bad back and the other deputy was a woman, I got picked by default to join him in his caper. On the chosen night, we met in the parking lot of the Timothy Moritz mental health facility next door, dressed in black clothing, ninja-fashion. Don had brought another trooper with him who was at least 6’ 6” tall. I think his name was Wheeler. Anyway, we went around to the rear gate where Whipple planned to cut off the padlock and chain. Fortunately, I had brought my keys with me so we did not have to damage state property. I was always concerned about reducing expenses. Since it was still relatively early, many of the youth were just returning from recreation in the gym. They walked down a long, window-lined hallway and we were concerned they could see us if they happened to look, so we kept low and skittered along in the shadows, crouching down as much as possible. When we reached the lowest part of the building, Wheeler boosted Don up onto the roof. Don then pulled me up behind him, and then we both struggled to haul up the lanky Wheeler. I could not have done it by myself, but Whipple was as strong as he was short. And he was very short for a trooper. There were several television cameras mounted on the roof, anyone of which might broadcast our image to the switchboard operator who controlled access to the building via electronic latches on various doors and gates. We avoided the cameras as much as possible, but would have been caught had anyone bothered to look at the battery of TV monitors. To make a long story short, we went around to the various living units (“cottages”) and spent time spying through the windows on the activities taking place within each one. However, after several hours of observation, we saw nothing incriminating. The juvenile correctional officers did not do anything they weren’t supposed to. And I was glad because we worked hard trying to ensure that TICO staff did the right thing. It didn’t always work, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Permalink 35 Comments
A.R.T. for my sake When the Child Study Center closed in 1980, they moved the entire diagnostic unit (social workers, psychologists, and typing pool) to Terrace Cottage at Scioto Village where we continued to perform, more or less, the same function. After a few years, they decided to disperse us to the wind and a plot was hatched to hide me out at the school, hoping nobody would notice I was there. And it actually worked for awhile. I was now doing school psychology and had to quickly bring myself up to speed on learning disabilities and the like. I found there wasn’t really much of a diagnostic protocol in place, so I developed one. Meanwhile, I started co-leading therapy groups after work with Duane Johnson, a former Peace Corps volunteer who had worked with Albert Schweitzer in the Congo. Not long after that, I met Dr. John Gibbs, an Ohio State professor who was a disciple of Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg, who was renowned for his theories on moral development. Dr. Gibbs wanted to use our groups to test out some of his ideas for what would eventually be known as Aggression Replacement Training (ART). Essentially, he had a number of stories involving moral dilemmas which we would use as the basis for discussion in our therapy groups. However, I found them unsatisfactory because 1) the youth couldn’t relate to them and 2) the discussions were too open-ended. Therefore, I rewrote them to incorporate moral dilemmas which I knew from experience our delinquent teens were encountering and I also added a few discussion questions to each one. Dr. Gibbs eagerly embraced my “environmentally valid” moral dilemmas (as he called them) and we began keeping track of the results from each group session. Unfortunately, someone at Central Office realized I was still employed at Scioto Village and decided I should start traveling around the state to do school psychological evaluations. Basically, I spent two days a week at Cuyahoga Hills, one day at Maumee Youth Center, and the other two days at Scioto Village and Riverview. Consequently, I could no longer devote anytime to the group work. Many years later, I was contacted by a publisher who asked permission to reprint a few of my moral dilemmas in a book by Dr. Gibbs et al entitled Aggression Replacement Training: A Comprehensive Intervention for Aggressive Youth. On one hand, I was amazed that so much research had been done using my little stories. On the other, I was a tad disappointed that I wasn’t given credit for the format they continued to use. However, by then I was no longer working in psychology. Footnote: James E. Rogers, director of the Ohio Department of Youth Services during this time, was later sent to prison on a number of corruption charges. One of the things he was notorious for was having “phantom” employees on the payroll. While I was spending two days a week in Cleveland doing psychological evaluations, I was told there were actually 15 psychologists on the institution’s payroll, but nobody ever saw them. Permalink 1 Comment
The Ignoble Experiment For reasons I could never fathom, someone decided during the early ‘eighties to make Scioto Village (formerly Girls Industrial School) a coed institution. I suppose it was just an extension of the movement to “normalize” the day-to-day living experiences of the delinquent youth who were committed to us for “rehabilitation.” However, throwing these particular teenage boys and girls together in an open campus setting was just tempting fate. It was also testing the staff’s ability to adequately monitor their extracurricular activities. Needless to say, this misguided experiment failed dismally. On one occasion, deputy superintendent Duane Johnson and I had to break up an amorous couple who had sneaked off to a room in an abandoned cottage. On another, I had to separate a boy and a girl who were trying to harm one another with a chair leg and a scissors respectively. (And, no, we did not receive hazardous duty pay.) It was a highly volatile, hormone-fueled environment, populated by teenagers who were already prone towards acting out. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was relieved when the order came down to ship the males off to another institution. The boys, though, didn’t see it that way. When word leaked out that they were scheduled to be bused to Indian River or somewhere the next day, they went on a rampage. They completely tore up their cottage (either Sherwood or Woodbine, I don’t remember which), terrorizing the night staff who couldn’t do anything but take cover. The morning after, I walked through the empty cottage, stepping gingerly over the piles of debris. There wasn’t a single piece of glass that remained intact. What they could break they had and what they couldn’t they had vandalized. Although a full-scale riot had taken place, the media never caught word of it. I’m not sure how they managed to keep it quiet, but some administrations seemed to be better at it than others. There was always the fear that if youth at another facility heard about a riot, they would stage their own in sympathy. One of the unexpected consequences of placing boys at Scioto Village was that one in particular got to visit his birthplace. He had been born in the institutional hospital years before when his pregnant mother was committed to GIS as a teenager. Permalink 8 Comments
How do you spell EEG? Sometime in the late ‘eighties while I had administrative responsibility for the clinic at Buckeye Youth Center, I was notified by one of my staff that we needed to purchase a new battery for the EEG machine. At that time (and for many years previously), it was customary to order an electroencephalograph of many a delinquent youth who passed through our doors. This was a recording of electrical activity along the scalp resulting from the firing of neurons in the brain. Irregular EEGs were associated with epilepsy, tumors, and other neurological problems. The EEG machine was located in a standard examination room, except for the fact that there was copper screen covering the windows, light fixtures, and other possible sources of stray electrical transmissions. The machine itself had an array of dials, meters, and switches. The battery was located in a cabinet beneath it. The “subject” of an EEG examination would have electrodes fastened to his or her head with a conductive paste or gel. Then over the course of thirty minutes or so, all of his/her “brain waves” would be recorded on a scrolling piece of paper with a stylist (much like an old-fashioned seismograph). A doctor would read the report, determine whether it was normal or abnormal, and place it in the youth’s file. The purpose of the battery, I believe, was to amplify the electrical signals since they otherwise would be far too weak to detect. So I did not hesitate to instruct my staff member to contact the manufacturer of the machine about obtaining a new one. What I did not expect was a faxed letter back from them almost immediately, notifying us that 1) the device had been recalled sometime in the late ‘sixties, 2) it had a serious electrical problem, and 3) we were lucky we hadn’t injured anyone over the intervening years. When I brought this issue to the attention of our central office, they made the decision to forego any further EEG examinations rather than purchasing a new machine. To
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and for the people, any conduct and speech flowing from such Constitutional distortion will become “politically incorrect.”
As Justice Wilson stated: “A state, I cheerfully fully admit, is the noblest work of Man. But, Man himself, free and honest, is, I speak as to this world, the noblest work of God.” [Ibid. p.463] By this he means that the state was created by Man to serve Man but Man himself was created by God. We should never forget the hierarchy of values from which we derive morals and ethical conduct. Justice Wilson then continued to cite several examples from human history, including Homer and Demosthenes, in which “politically correct” meant “classically correct,” such as the appellation “the people of Athens,” ergo: “the People of the United States.” Politically correct thus meant legally subject to the “more perfect union” (the quote comes from the Preamble to our Constitution) which meant the Union of the United States, a confederacy, if you will, where states are treated on an equal footing, subjected to federal laws and government.
“In order therefore to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, to ensure domestic tranquility, to provide for common defense, and to secure the blessings of liberty…” – we all know these words and they ring in our ears as indelible common sense truths today. Legislative and Executive powers are vested in our Constitution. What we have seen in the last seven years, however, has been distortion upon distortion, a Three-Card Monte game of thorns played upon us by our leaders: Find the Lady – Liberty. Where is she? He in Power provided her with “shelter.”
TRANQUILITY, COMMON DEFENSE, LIBERTY – they have all been undermined and eroded by what we call “political correctness.” More than that, we are losing them because we have permitted the term “politically correct” to be radically transformed: instead of “Constitutionally correct” it means “inoffensive to anyone.” If we act to preserve our borders and TRANQUILITY (domestic peace), it is not “politically correct.” If we strive for COMMON DEFENSE, be it by providing our police with what they need to defend us, financing our military, managing and securing American foreign policy and our strategy, we are not “politically correct.” If we see something suspicious going on in our neighborhood but we are afraid to say something in order not to offend someone…
Alas: there lies true political correctness! When we do not stand for our Constitutional rights and liberties, then we are not “politically correct” in the sense in which the Supreme Court defined political correctness. To be American first, to be a patriot, to be unafraid and fight for your Constitution: that is the only “political correctness” that matters. It is the political correctness of action, not that of the word.Corporal Ian Tuckley has been named after an injunction protecting his identity was lifted.
Some of his alleged victims were as young as six, The Sun newspaper claimed. He was arrested last year.
Tuckley, 31, believed to be a specialist dog handler, served with the SAS for more than five years in Afghanistan as well as in Britain.
He faces 31 charges over alleged assaults against young girls between July 1997 and July 2010.
Tuckley and his co-defendant Martin Finney, 40, are on remand in prison and will be tried at Worcester Crown Court.
Finney faces 24 charges of rape, assault and sexual assault. The former St John Ambulance paramedic is accused of drugging one woman with nitrous oxide, which is usually used for women in labour.
It is understood that the Director of Special Forces applied for the reporting ban to provide anonymity to Tuckley.Basil Pesto Pasta With Sun Dried Tomatoes and Asparagus requires only a few ingredients, and is ready to serve in less than thirty minutes. The flavors of the asparagus and sun dried tomatoes are delightfully enhanced by the fresh basil and garlic and who doesn’t love the sweet aroma of pesto in the kitchen. Pesto is a great addition to any dish, but here, it turns an ordinary meal into a flavor feast. Serve with a salad, and you have a scrumptious, nutritious meal. Vegan, gluten free and dairy free.
5 from 1 vote Print Basil Pesto Pasta With Sun Dried Tomatoes and Asparagus Basil Pesto Pasta With Sun Dried Tomatoes and Asparagus Prep Time 15 minutes Cook Time 30 minutes Total Time 56 minutes Servings 4 -6 servings Calories 334 kcal Author greenschemetv Ingredients Pasta 8 ounces of brown rice gluten free pasta
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes
1 cup cooked asparagus
1 tbsp olive oil Pesto 1 cup fresh basil
1 cup raw cashews
5 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup olive oil Instructions Basil Pesto Add all ingredients to high speed blender and blend until smooth. Pasta Boil pasta in salted water and drain and return to pot Saute asparagus and sun dried tomatoes in olive oil Add asparagus and sun dried tomatoes to pasta and gently stir Add Basil Pesto and mix Top with basil and pine nuts Nutrition Facts Basil Pesto Pasta With Sun Dried Tomatoes and Asparagus Amount Per Serving (1 g) Calories 334 * Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
Grilled Vegetable Tart
For more photos, see Instagram.Below are some highlights from a recent interview Prince Devitt conducted with Low Blows:
Devitt on if he’d be a trainer when he’s finished wrestling: “I would, I wouldn’t see it as a business opportunity but as a hobby. I really love helping people out, a lot of people have helped me out and though I can’t pay it back maybe I can pay it forward in the future.”
Devitt on never facing Sheamus in the ring: “That whole ‘this is our club and we don’t work with you guys’ (caused it). I think just as Sheamus and I left the scene the companies were starting to work together. But yeah, Sheamus put Irish wrestling on the map. I just had a chat with him last night, he’s in good form. I was never aware of being an ‘international hope’, for me I was just happy to do what I was doing and still am. Obviously I would’ve loved to work with Sheamus but the opportunities never arose because of the divide there. It’s sad but you can’t change the past but ultimately I hope people can learn from it and change the future.”
On going to New Japan: “I was only going out there for 3 months on an internship and it turned into 8 great years.”
On his debut in the Korakuen Hall: “I’d watched Japanese tapes growing up and actually felt like I was walking into one of these tapes.”
His thoughts on if other countries could learn from the Japanese model of training: “The whole system in Japan is tailored towards respect. I think the way people are trained in the west, some people may get it too easy, whereas in Japan everyone comes through the exact same way and everyone has come through the hard way. If I look across the ring from a lad in Japan, I know exactly what he’s been through to get there.”
Devitt on if he expected to be so successful in Japan: “The contracts are so short, I was never sure if I was going to be brought back again. I’ve never stepped back and thought, ‘Wow, I’ve done a lot of stuff.’ Maybe in the future it’ll hit me, but for the moment I’m trying to look forward and not dwell too much on the past.”‘Israeli example’ cited to back for use of torture when interrogating terror suspects ‘where there is no other available means to prevent the harm’ they might inflict. HAARETZ The scathing report published Tuesday by the United States Senate Intelligence Committee on the CIA’s interrogation of terror suspects reveals that the CIA’s lawyers used the rulings of Israel’s Supreme Court to construct a legal case justifying torture. According to the 528-page document, a redacted version of the 6,000-page report that remains classified, in November 2001 some CIA officers were concerned they may need legal justification for the interrogation methods they had begun using when questioning Al-Qaida suspects in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. In a draft memorandum prepared by the CIA’s Office of General Counsel, the “Israeli example” was cited as a possible justification that “torture was necessary to prevent imminent, significant, physical harm to persons, where there is no other available means to prevent the harm.” The “Israeli example” refers to the conclusions of the Landoi Commission in 1987 and subsequent Supreme Court rulings that forbid Israel’s security services from using torture in interrogation of terror suspects, but allows the use of “moderate physical pressure” in cases which are classified as a “ticking bomb,” when there is an urgent need to obtain information which could prevent an imminent terror attack. Over the years, Israeli human rights organizations led by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel have petitioned the Supreme Court a number of times, and succeeded in outlawing various interrogation methods which the Shin Bet continued to use. In 2005, as members of the U.S. Congress began asking more questions regarding the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques,” the intelligence agency began planning a public-relations campaign to drum up support for its methods. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the CIA attorney preparing the campaign “described the ‘striking’ similarities between the public debate surrounding the McCain amendment (a congressional act passed in December 2005 regulating interrogation methods) and the situation in Israel in 1999, in which the Israeli Supreme Court had ‘ruled that several… techniques were possibly permissible, but require some form of legislative sanction,’ and that the Israeli government ultimately got limited legislative authority for a few specific techniques.” The CIA attorney also referred to the Israeli Supreme Court’s “ticking time bomb” scenario and said that “enhanced techniques could not be preapproved for such situations, but that if worse came to worse, an officer who engaged in such activities could assert a common-law necessity defense, if he were ever prosecuted.” Share this: Facebook
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This entry was posted on 12/09/2014, 9:34 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.Image copyright Gearstd Image caption The Institute of Directors has ideas about how to bridge the Brexit gap
One of the UK's biggest business lobby groups has urged the cabinet to stop "dancing around the edges" of Brexit.
The Institute of Directors (IoD) called on the cabinet to come up with a "transitional agreement" to smooth the move to Brexit.
It wants it to bridge the "the Brexit Gap" between leaving the EU and setting up new trading arrangements.
It warned that without agreement, business faces "short-term chaotic cliff edges".
The group criticised the cabinet for engaging in what it called "a range of speculative arguments over transition".
In recent weeks cabinet members have given opposing views on how long a transition period would last and what it would involve.
The IoD report Bridging the Brexit Gap: Options for Transition said: "Instead of dancing around the edges, this issue must become a policy discussion for the cabinet.
"This could minimise the growing level of confusion and uncertainty in this area."
However, Gerard Lyons, an economist and leading figure in the Economists for Brexit group this week described concern about a "cliff-edge" Brexit as "alarmist talk" similar to the fear of the Y2K bug threat to computers at the turn of the millennium.
Stalling investment
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond warned in June: "There is a large amount of business investment that is being postponed until business can see more clearly what the likely outcome of these discussions is."
Allie Renison, IoD head of EU and Trade Policy, said: "The Chancellor is right to worry about business investment stalling.
"This is among the most frequently considered changes to deal with Brexit, alongside relocation of operations to the EU.
"The latter is especially true for IoD members in Northern Ireland who are currently considering co-location [or] relocation."
The IoD suggests a range of options including:
Doing a deal to extend the Article 50 deal beyond March 2019
Joining the European Economic Area
Agreeing to stay longer under the rule of of EU law
Creating a transitional customs agreement, similar to the EU Customs Union
Ms Renison said: "The IoD has put forward this range of options for transition in the hopes that it sparks a proper debate on the practicalities of how best to Brexit.
"Prioritising interim arrangements and thereby mitigating the risks of EU exit means the eventual opportunities aren't diminished by short-term chaotic cliff edges."ROMNEY HAS BEEN LYING FOR YEARS ABOUT HIS FATHER AND MLK http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
IS ROMNEY THE LIAR LYING ABOUT HIS "INVESTMENTS" IN THE CAYMAN ISLANDS? http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY'S STUMP SPEECH: WALL-TO-WALL LIES http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR CLAIMS ANYONE WHO QUESTIONS HIM IS ATTACKING THE "FREE ENTERPRISE" SYSTEM
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ROMNEY THE LIAR BENEFITS FROM A TAX CODE HIS OWN COMPANY RIGGED http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR CLAIMS HE PAYS A 50%(!) TAX RATE http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
WHY YES, ROMNEY DOES LIE CONSTANTLY. NO, HE HAS NO "CHARACTER" http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
DEBUNKING ROMNEY THE LIAR'S "JOB CREATOR" LIES http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR CLAIMS THAT HE WAS "OUTSPENT" (!) IN SOUTH CAROLINA http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR LIES ABOUT EVERYTHING, EVEN HIS OWN MEMORIES
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ROMNEY THE LIAR'S ACCOUNT OF HIS TIME IN MASSACHUSETTS: A WORK OF FICTION http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
"IS MITT ROMNEY A SERIAL LIAR?" AND THE CROWD SAYS "YES!!" http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
SOMETIMES, ROMNEY'S LIES ARE JUST PATHETIC AND LAUGHABLE http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR IS LYING ABOUT HIS "BLIND TRUST" http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR: ZERO TAXES ON $100,000,000 IN GIFTS TO HIS FAMILY http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR LIES ABOUT AID TO THE POOR http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR: THE ETCH-A-SKETCH CANDIDATE http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
THIS IS HOW WILLARD ROLLS
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"IS THERE ANY LIMIT TO MITT ROMNEY'S DISHONESTY?" http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR CALLS OBAMA A "CRONY CAPITALIST" BUT IT'S WILLARD WHO GOT THE SUBSIDIES
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ROMNEY THE LIAR CAUGHT ON TAPE IN ANOTHER LIE http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
A TRIO OF LIES FROM ROMNEY THE LIAR http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ONCE AGAIN, ROMNEY THE LIAR ON VIDEO, DOING WHAT HE DOES BEST--LYING THROUGH HIS TEETH
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SOMETIMES ROMNEY THE LIAR IS JUST PATHETIC http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR NAILED ON HIS UNRELENTING FLIP-FLOPS http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR SAYS HE ISN'T A BIRTHER, BUT HE SURE SUCKS UP TO THEM http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR LIES ABOUT HIS "COMMITMENT" TO EDUCATION http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
NO, ROMNEY THE LIAR DID NOT START STAPLES http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR NAILED ON HIS "JOB CREATOR" LIE--AGAIN http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
WATCH ROMNEY THE LIAR'S NON-STOP LIES, EVASIONS, DOUBLE TALK, AND FLIP-FLOPS [Powerful video] http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR LIES ABOUT HAVING BEEN A VICIOUS HOMOPHOBIC BASTARD IN HIGH SCHOOL
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ROMNEY THE LIAR'S SO-CALLED "BUSINESS EXPERTISE" IS SIMPLY ANOTHER PATHETIC LIE
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ROMNEY THE LIAR SKEWERED IN DEVASTATING VIDEO http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
AN ARTICLE YOU NEED TO READ--"MITT ROMNEY: PROFESSIONAL LIAR" http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR LIES ABOUT HAVING BEEN A DRAFT-DODGER http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR: SHREDDING THE EVIDENCE, SHREDDING THE TRUTH http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR: CORRUPT AND LYING ABROAD AS WELL AS AT HOME http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR'S "I SAVED THE OLYMPICS" LIE http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
MORE ON ROMNEY THE LIAR'S BIG "I SAVED THE OLYMPICS" LIE http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
THE DARK SIDE OF ROMNEY THE LIAR'S EARLIEST FINANCIAL BACKERS http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR **LYING* ABOUT OUTSOURCING--AGAIN http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR IS FLAT OUT *LYING* ABOUT WHEN HE LEFT BAIN http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
WHY ROMNEY THE LIAR WANTS TO DENY HE WORKED AT BAIN UNTIL 2002 http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR KEEPS HIS PROFITS, DUMPS HIS LOSSES ON *US* http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
*WOW!*QUESTIONS FOR ROMNEY THE LIAR http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
DID ROMNEY THE LIAR BREAK THE LAW? http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
*ROMNEY THE LIAR NAILED BY HIS OWN TESTIMONY!* http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
MORE ON ROMNEY THE LIAR'S INVESTMENT IN A FIRM THAT DISPOSED OF ABORTED FETUSES
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LISTEN TO ROMNEY THE LIAR TALKING ABOUT JOB LOSSES WHEN HE WAS A GOVERNOR http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
READ ALL ABOUT ROMNEY THE LIAR'S *INCREDIBLY* SHADY BUSINESS PRACTICES http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
*SCANDAL!* ROMNEY THE LIAR LIED ABOUT INVOLVEMENT WITH COMPANY THAT DISPOSED OF ABORTED FETUSES
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HOW DID ROMNEY THE LIAR GET $101,000,000 IN HIS IRA?!?
http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
IS ROMNEY THE LIAR A TAX CHEAT?
http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR TRIPPED UP BY HIS OWN WORDS http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR *POWERFULLY* SKEWERED IN NEW ARTICLE http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR ILLEGALLY SUPPRESSED A LABOR UNION http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR SAYS (IN EFFECT) "TRUST ME" ON HIS TAXES http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR GETS THE F-WORD FROM LAWRENCE O'DONNELL http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR SLAPPED DOWN BY HIS OWN FATHER'S WORDS http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR *SKEWERED* ON HIS TAX LIES http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR'S *HYPOCRISY* ON HIS TAX RETURNS IS *EXPOSED* FOR ALL TO SEE
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ROMNEY THE LIAR REFUSES TO ANSWER SEN. REID http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
WATCH ROMNEY THE LIAR'S *PATHETIC* LIES ON TAXES GET DESTROYED http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR STONEWALLING ON HIS TAX RETURNS *AGAIN* http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR: INCAPABLE OF ADMITTING ERROR OR TAKING RESPONSIBILITY http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR CAUGHT IN ANOTHER *BLATANT* CONTRADICTION http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR DECLARES HIMSELF TO BE UNQUALIFIED FOR THE PRESIDENCY http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR'S MOST ABSURD LIE YET http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
MEET SOME OF THE PEOPLE ROMNEY THE LIAR HOLDS IN CONTEMPT http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR CLAIMS THAT OBAMA VOTERS ARE ALL DEPENDENT ON THE GOVERNMENT!!
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ROMNEY THE LIAR, AKA "MULTIPLE CHOICE MITT" http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR NAILED ON *FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY THREE LIES*BY STEVE BENEN
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LYIN' RYAN SAYS THE 47% NEED TO GET JOBS! http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR SAYS HE WAS WRONG IN WHAT HE SAID ABOUT THE 47% http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
LYIN' RYAN INSULTS AND DENIGRATES *SIXTY PER CENT* OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!
http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR'S *LOUSY* RECORD AS MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
MORE EVIDENCE THAT ROMNEY THE LIAR IS A *TAX CHEAT* http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
ROMNEY THE LIAR'S FORGOTTEN SCANDALS http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
DAVID STOCKMAN, REAGAN'S BUDGET CHIEF, *DESTROYS** ROMNEY THE LIAR'S "BUSINESS EXPERTISE"
http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
TOP STRATEGIST FOR GEORGE ROMNEY DENOUNCES THE SON, AKA ROMNEY THE LIAR http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...
WOW!! CHECK OUT JOHN McCAIN'S OPPO RESEARCH BOOK ON ROMNEY THE LIAR http://romneytheliar.blogspot.com/...First let me start off by saying that my original Santa never retrieved my info and I was re-matched during the first batch. I, a busy college student focusing on classes and the next round of gift exchanges, had completely written off even getting a gift from the Doctor Who exchange via my original Santa or a re-match Santa! I have been stiffed before, so I understand that sometimes the honor system isn't fail proof-- there will always be people who don't receive gifts. However, I AM NOT ONE OF THEM! My Doctor Who Secret Santa gift came in the mail today! And my god, guys, I am completely blown away. I was laughing like a maniac and in absolute awe upon opening that I am PRETTY sure that my neighbors now believe that I have lost a piece of my sanity... My Santa, u/welmoed (pronounced "VEL-moot"!), sent me a HANDMADE STITCHED & SEWN, Tardis purse! THIS THING IS HUGE! Like, I can fit my arm up to my elbow inside of it! I have never received a gift that was an absolute crafted labor of love! I have my own, unique, one of a kind Tardis purse that I am in sheer love with. This has to be the best thing that I have ever received via Reddit Gifts. I am still in shock. I know they say that re-match Santa's can be the best gift givers, BUT THEY'RE NOT KIDDING! My favorite little blue box can now hold everything a girl might need on the go! Thank you, u/welmoed, you are going down in the history books as my favorite Santa since I have been a part of Reddit Gifts. Hats off, no one can beat this gift. Seriously. I hit the jackpot! :D I am so happy!Rock and Roll world honors Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved Guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, of Austin, Texas, center, rehearses with his band Double Trouble for a performance on Saturday Night Live, Feb. 13, 1986, New York. Bassist Tommy Shannon is at left. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler) Rock and Roll world honors Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble Guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, of Austin, Texas, center, rehearses with his band Double Trouble for a performance on Saturday Night Live, Feb. 13, 1986, New York. Bassist Tommy Shannon is at left. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler) prev next
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- A group of Austin legends will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday in Cleveland. Both Stevie Ray Vaughan and his band Double Trouble dominated the fan poll, with more than 18 million votes.
"I think it was the people, really," said Double Trouble drummer Chris Layton. "We haven't been a band in almost 25 years, so we gave our music and apparently it meant something to enough people and they said they wanted us to come here tonight."
Band members only wish Stevie was beside them to accept the honor, saying he would have been humbled. Vaughan lost his life in a 1990 helicopter crash at the age of 35.
"Even Eric Clapton probably put it best when he said, when Stevie Ray was playing his guitar, he was channeling a higher power through that guitar," said Terry Lickona, executive producer of Austin City Limits. "He might have had a short life and a short career, but man, he contributed a lot to that lexicon of guitar music."
Austin has a statue honoring Stevie Ray Vaughan on Lady Bird Lake, and the City of Dallas announced plans Thursday to honor Stevie and his brother Jimmy with a statue near their old Dallas neighborhood.Time is running out to register to vote
The deadline to register to vote by mail or with an outside agency is Oct. 11, 2016.
Media Release
For Immediate Release
www.washoecounty.us Contact: Amy Ventetuolo
[email protected]
775.328.2070
Reno, Nevada. Oct. 6, 2016. Washoe County is reminding residents that the deadline to register to vote for the General Election by mail or with an outside agency is Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2016.
“It’s important to remember that you must be registered to participate in the upcoming November 8th election,” Washoe County Registrar Luanne Cutler said. “Equally as important is that each voter is registered at his or her current address. It affects who you’ll vote for and where you’ll be voting. If you’re not sure your information is current, you can verify that by entering your last name and date of birth on Washoe County’s website.”
To register in person:
Registrar of Voters Office is located at 1001 E. Ninth St., Building A, 1 st floor, Reno
floor, Reno Office hours: Open Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Closed holidays.
Phone: 775-328-3670
Important dates to know
Oct. 11 -Last day to register to vote by mail or with any outside agency
Oct. 18 - Last day to register in person (Registrar of Voters Office only)
Oct. 22 - Early voting begins
Nov. 1 - Last day to request an absentee ballot
Nov. 4 - Last day to vote early
Nov. 8 - General Election Day
To register to vote or find more information, head to the Washoe County Registrar of Voters' website.
# # #Over the next week, HMS Queen Elizabeth will be manned and ready as her crew operate the ship 24-hours a day as though she’s at sea, except for one detail: the carrier will not leave the pier at Rosyth.
The Training Cruise (also known as a ‘fast cruise’) commenced today and its purpose is to exercise a number of scenarios which the Ship’s Company may experience at sea. You’re right that the Training Cruise commenced today.
An ACA spokesperson told the UK Defence Journal:
“The Ship’s Company is now living on board the HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH and working with industry colleagues to prepare for maiden sea trials in the summer as well as undertaking a period of training.
The Training Cruise is part of this training programme and, whilst alongside, exercises a number of scenarios which the Ship’s Company may experience at sea.”
A senior member of the Ship’s Company said:
“We are thrilled to be settling into HMS Queen Elizabeth and making this ship our home. There is a real buzz of excitement as we focus on honing our skills and knowledge to bring the ship to life.”
The cruise is a simulated underway period that prepares the crew for life at sea. This is the last training effort before the supercarrier begins sea trials.
The training provides the opportunity to measure the ship’s preparedness and is designed to get the crew into an operational mindset. Each department will accomplish this task in their own way, but all training will simulate at-sea conditions as closely as possible.
Coinciding with the tides and the booking of various tugs, it’s estimated that HMS Queen Elizabeth will sail between the 21st and 24th of this month. This has not been confirmed by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance.
According to a source at Rosyth, the rumour mill supports this:
“Obviously most of us don’t know the exact time as that’ll depend on a multitude of factors but as far as I’m aware from what I’ve been told, Queen Elizabeth will sail in around two weeks.”
Another source tells us that the plan is for the vessel to depart on the 21st at noon and anchor in river. All going well, the supercarrier will sail under the bridges around 18:00, weather permitting. Again, this has not been confirmed.
The ships company have moved their belongings onboard for Ships Staff Move On Board (SSMOB). SSMOB is a key milestone in the ship preparing to sail. The ship is nearly ready to go to sea for the first time.
The earlier news of the slippage in trials of HMS Queen Elizabeth is no secret, the ship was supposed to sail in Spring. In such complex engineering projects, this type of occurrence isn’t a cause for concern nor is it unusual. HMS Queen Elizabeth, after all, is essentially a prototype and the Ministry of Defence can’t afford to get it wrong.
Recently Merlin helicopters of 820 Naval Air Squadron wrapped up an exercise in Scotland to prepare them for operating from HMS Queen Elizabeth. Merlin helicopters will be the first aircraft to begin flying from HMS Queen Elizabeth later this year, soon followed by Apache, Wildcat, Chinook and F-35 next year.ARLINGTON, Texas -- Alabama fans were nervous.
They'd just lost their defensive coordinator to Georgia, but that wasn't the source. Reports indicated strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran was considering joining Kirby Smart in Athens. The cult hero -- easily the most recognizable man with his title -- created some anxious moments around the state.
A week after Smart's introduction, however, Alabama announced Cochran would return. His $420,000 annual salary will be going up. On Tuesday, Cochran reflected on the decision to remain in Tuscaloosa instead of following his close friend to Georgia.
"Man, that whole decision was humbling, exciting," Cochran said. "To be wanted is really, you know, I wasn't a recruit coming out. That was cool. But at the same time, I know Coach Smart is going to do an awesome job. No doubt about that because he knows we've done this together for a long time. There are things that are behind the scenes that I know he's going to do. It's going to be very successful so I know he'll do great.
"But I also work for Coach (Nick) Saban. He gave me my shot. He gave me my chance. I was a GA for him at LSU, then I was an assistant in the NBA. To be pulled from the NBA to do this job... whew!"
How Scott Cochran grew from mischievous child into local celebrity with Alabama football A look at how Scott Cochran became one of the faces of Alabama football.
Cochran, like Smart, is an original member of Saban's Alabama staff. He grew into a statewide celebrity with his sideline energy that eventually landed him on video-board announcements and local TV commercials. His "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" catchphrase is also the namesake for a Tuscaloosa charity 5K that drew more than 600 participants this September.
"That's why it's so cool. To take my position that 90 percent of the country knows nothing about but Alabama fans and Coach Saban have created this brand for me that's just a lot of fun."
Cochran declined to get into the specifics of the discussions that kept him at Alabama. Fans approached him in that week of speculation, hoping to help sway him toward staying. He just told them the focus was on Thursday's Cotton Bowl.
"You know I'm built on The Process," he said. "Come on, baby!"
Players were happy to know the weight-room spark plug wasn't leaving.
"I love the man," said defensive lineman Daron Payne, a true freshman who went from 340 pounds in the spring to 315 by August.
After the playoff run, the offseason conditioning program will begin. That's Cochran time. But he'll also have to adjust to a football complex without his good friend Smart around.
"You know who the man is," Cochran said. "Yes, it will be different. But you know who it is. He's Coach Saban. He would win without me. He'd win with me. I know that. I'm a piece in the puzzle and my piece is not that big."There is a departing phrase that is very common in Japanese which is ‘O dai ji ni’ which means literally, ‘Take care of the great matter.’ The great ancestor Nagarjuna said, ‘In this world of birth and death, seeing impermanence is bodhicitta ; is the mind of awakening.’ This was very true for me. This is what turned me toward practice. I was going along, living my life, when one day my best friend had a really bad headache. She went to the doctor the next day, was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, went into a coma and died. Whoosh! Just like that. I was stunned.
Often we don’t think so much about birth and death until someone close to us – particularly a contemporary – or even someone younger than us, is suddenly dying, and then we get it that we are also impermanent. In that great Indian classic, the Mahabarata, there’s a passage where a great sage is asked: ‘Sir, of all of the things you’ve observed in life, what is the most amazing?’ And he responds: ‘That a man seeing all around him die, never thinks that he will die.’ That’s certainly the way I was until my friend Pat died.
I was in a really agitated frame of mind. And in all of my agitation and searching around what I wanted to know was ‘Well, if you know you’re going to die, how do you live?’ This is the important point of knowing that all of us die. It’s not just, ‘Oh sure, everybody dies; I’ll die someday.’ It’s that – we never know. We never know. The important part of that is that it encourages us to really pay attention to how we live now. Because how we live is the most important thing. It may feel like we’ve got plenty of time to figure that out later. “Later. I’ll get around to that later. Right now, I’m going to do this.” But the very encouraging part about noticing that everything changes and this also changes is the reminder in the ‘Gakudo yojin shu’ where Dogen-zenji says, ‘Ancestor Nagarjuna said: ‘The mind that fully sees into the uncertain world of birth and death is called the thought of enlightenment: bodhicitta. Thus if we maintain this mind, this mind can become the thought of enlightenment. Indeed, when you understand discontin
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next few months unable to get into your cupboards or up the stairs.
When babies are born they don’t even realise that their hands belong to them.
They are therefore unlikely to stick fingers which they don’t know they have into electrical wall sockets.
They are also highly unlikely to be opening the fridge or falling downstairs of their own accord whatever their older siblings may tell you.
This does not stop parents rushing to make their homes as safe as possible. What this really means is that your baby will grow up in an environment where there is a lot of swearing. Those plastic plug socket protectors can only be removed with the blade of a knife and a liberal application of cursing. The stair gates will become a dangerous trip hazard for sleep deprived parents and the fridge lock will leave you unable to access any chilled food. (Top tip: Put a child lock on the cleaning cupboard and never clean again.)
By the time your baby does start to move around and explore the safety measures will have been removed in a cloud of foul language and you will only remember to put the stair gates back when you watch your beloved child bounce down the stairs head first.
2. You will sniff your baby’s bum to check for poo.
I remember seeing parents do this and thinking: Yuk, that’s disgusting. I am never doing that.
It is disgusting, and yes I have done it. Lots.
Even more disgusting is the reason why parents do this.
Let me spell this out as clearly as possible: parents sniff baby’s bums because they no longer have the mental capacity to detect the smell of shit even when they are sat right next to it.
Children are disgusting.
I blame the parents.
3. You will go out to eat and sit colouring in a picture of a man with a moustache making a pizza.
Because when you go out to eat with small children you are given colouring-in kits. (I know, amazing!)
There are two reasons you as an adult will get stuck in:
Firstly, it is good fun to colour in a picture and you are fantastic at not going over the edges.
Secondly, you are too tired to have a conversation with the person sitting across the table from you. You have only left the house because neither of you has the energy to throw beans in a pan.
Think of this as me time. Who needs massages or spa days when you can spend 15 minutes in silence neatly filling in a cartoon of a pizza chef?
Even if it is quite challenging creating a realistic skin tone from 4 primary colours. Honestly how do they expect small children to manage?
(Top Tip: I carry my own skin tone crayon*)
4. You will refer to your partner as Mummy or Daddy.
Even though all the books say you ABSOLUTELY MUST NOT do this because you and your partner will immediately stop fancying each other and you will never have sex ever again. I wouldn’t worry about it. There are many, many other things that will stop you from having sex – number one being the baby (total cock blocker).
Unless of course you are one of those people who looks sexy colouring in (Ooh look I’ve gone over the lines, naughty mummy).
In which case having a baby is going to be a total game changer.
5. You will fantasize about the upstairs deck of a bus.
The top deck of a double decker bus will become like the VIP area of the nightclubs you used to frequent – a place of mystery and intrigue, reserved for people whose lives are infinitely more exciting than yours.
But this is not the VIP area of some hot new club.
It is the top deck of a bus.
And you have a pram and cannot get in.
You have officially the most depressing life on the bus.
No wait…. there’s a man getting on at the next stop who is arguing with a copy of yesterday’s Metro.
Phew, saved.
6. You will announce that you are a parent even when it is not relevant.
When you are not with your children you will feel the need to let people know that you have children stored somewhere else.
God forbid anyone should see you sitting there on the train and not realise that you have a baby at home.
"Can I take that seat?"
"Yes, I’ve got a nine-month-old baby at home."
"Actually I’ll stand."
7. You will shout “Look Cow! Horse! Dog!” every time you see an animal.
You will do this even when there are no children with you.
It is a conditioned response, especially when you are in a car, because this is when you are most desperate to entertain your children.
Travelling in a car with small children is like shaking a can full of soda, one small flick and it will all kick off and everyone nearby is getting a sticky face.
8. You will laugh at Michael McIntyre’s jokes.
Just the stuff he does about being a parent.
You will either laugh because you find his parenting material funny (improbable) or because you are tired and grumpy and glad bad things are happening to Michael McIntyre (more likely).
9. You will reassess what constitutes soiled clothing.
You’ve been wearing that jumper all week but is it actually dirty?
Yes, yes it is. It is a dirty jumper.
Once you have a baby the washing basket becomes less of a place to put washing in and more of a storage receptacle for clothes that are not quite dirty enough.
Vomit and poo stained clothes will forever be jumping the washing queue leaving clothes that are just plain old dirty in laundry basket limbo. Until you decide you need to change and then you will sort through your dirty clothes and refresh them with a baby wipe.**
10. You will drop your baby.
Or, even better smack its head on the door frame in the middle of the night after spending hours rocking the little bugger to sleep.
Peaches Geldof was photographed talking on the phone while dropping her baby out of her pram. I don’t care what you think of Peaches to me she is a fellow mother, a young woman whose own mother was actually pretty fabulous.
And she dropped her baby.
It happens.
This or something like this will happen to you but the good news is there is unlikely to be any paparazzi on hand to catch your moment of shame.
Dropping your baby is not bad parenting. It is just parenting.
———
If you have children and find things on this list you haven’t done please leave a comment and let the rest of us know how you managed it.
If you do not have children yet why not make your own list of things you do not intend on doing, pin it to the fridge and cross them off one by one as you watch all your principles vanish when the baby arrives.
———
*I absolutely do not do this but I have definitely thought about it.
**This may just be me.
Eeh Bah Mum is a mother of two small children who writes about the funny side of family life. So far she has asked the internet Is My Son A Dick? (Answer: yes, probably) and compared her toddler daughter to Margaret Thatcher. This post originally appeared on her blog and is crossposted here with permission.Kranium is a bike helmet that is made from the same cardboard used for the boxes you find at the supermarket. This material, along with some clever construction, turns out to be a lot better at absorbing impact than the more usual polystyrene-filled lids.
Anirudha Surabhi's design absorbs four times more impact energy that the polystyrene equivalent, and – unlike regular helmets which break on impact – it survives longer. One Kranium was smashed five times in a row and still passed the British Standard (EN 1078) test.
What about rains and sweat? No problem. Surabhi's helmets mix the cardboard with a "waterproof acrylic compound" which makes them just as rain-resistant as the helmet you have now.
The Kranium is better than regular helmets in another way too. Because they are easy to build to order by scanning the buyer's head and cutting the cardboard to order, it fits perfectly. This means that it will stay in place if you crash, offering much better protection.
Surabhi's design has already been licensed by some major manufacturers, so this is one student project that may make it into stores.
Kranium project [Anirudharao via London Cyclist]
See Also:Manchester City agree deal to sign Feyenoord starlet Rodney Kongolo [AD.nl]
Dutch website AD.nl reports today that Manchester City have agreed a deal to sign Feyenoord starlet Rodney Kongolo.
Rodney is the 16-year-old brother of Terence Kongolo a 20-year-old who has broken through into the Feyenoord first team this season.
Feyenoord have once again lost a very talented youngster to a big Premier League side with Rodney Kongolo opting to join Manchester City despite interest from Liverpool.
Previously, the likes of PSG, Juventus and Marseille had all been interested in Rodney Kongolo and Feyenoord are hoping they will not lose older brother Terence to a big club in Europe.
Rodney Kongolo just turned 16 and has signed his first professional contract with Manchester City. Following in the footsteps of the likes of Nathan Ake, Karim Rekik and Kyle Ebecilio who have left Feyenoord for sides in England.
Ad.nl point out that Rodney Kongolo’s deal at Manchester City is immediately more than his older brother Terence is currently earning at Feyenoord.
Incredibly, there is also another Kongolo borther training with Feyenoord, 9-year-old Fidel.
Rodney Kongolo has been compared to Patrick Vieira in some sections of the European press.IMPORTANT: As of December 7th 2016 Circle no longer allows the option of buying or selling Bitcoins through their services. They are now referring all of their customers to Coinbase.
Probably the biggest competition in the Bitcoin marketplace today lies within Bitcoin exchanges, the most dominant being Coinbase and Circle.
Today I’ve decide to test out these 2 exchanges head to head and see how much value for money I can get using $500. But I didn’t test only the fees and exchange rate, I also tried to figure which website makes the process easier.
Contries supported
Instant buy via Credit card
Transaction fees
Credit card fees
ACH fees
Time for ACH transaction Coinbase
Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Malta Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States 19
$1000/week
1%
None
$0.15
2-4 days Circle
Wordwide
$500/week
None
%2.9
None
2-4 days
Coinbase charges fees, Circle Doesn’t – Is that so….
The most noticeable difference between Coinbase and Circle are the transaction fees. Circle states:
“You shouldn’t have to pay fees to use your own money. We don’t charge fees when you convert funds to or from bitcoin with a linked bank account, when you store your bitcoin, or for bitcoin transactions”
Indeed when you buy Bitcoins with Circle you won’t pay a fee but it seems that circle $500 don’t come up as $500 worth of Bitcoins. This is due to several reasons:
There is a credit card processing fee that is applied when buying your Bitcoins with a credit card through Circle. From what I’ve seen this adds up to 2.9% which is not exactly negligible.
It seems that Circle doesn’t guarantee the exchange rate at the time of placing the order (unlike Coinbase). This can cause a difference in how much you pay (initially found this issue on Reddit).
Coinbase on the other hand charges a fixed 1% transaction fee no matter what payment method you use and a $ 0.15 fee for ACH deposits. These fees are pretty low compared to other alternatives out there that allow you to buy Bitcoins.
Circle has the easiest buying process I’ve seen to date
Until today I’ve bought Bitcoins through almost 10 different exchanges. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a website that’s so intuitive as Circle’s. The simple design and sleek animation make it appealing and easy to use for even non tech savvy users.
But the real “magic moment” comes from the ability to purchase Bitcoin with a credit card within 2 minutes of setting up an account. Most websites require some sort of initial verification and until today the process of buying Bitcoins with a credit card was pretty complex. It takes about 2 minutes to complete the process with Circle and I’m willing to pay extra for that.
Coinbase has also done a great job on their website but the process is a bit lengthy and can wear you out. The main issue being the fact that you need to verify your back account and sometimes this can take a day or two.
Coinbase has something fishy going on..
Since 99Bitcoins deals with a lot of people who buy their first Bitcoin I’ve noticed something strange going on lately. On several occasions I’ve gotten emails from people claiming they placed an order on Coinbase and it got canceled claiming that their account is in “high risk”. Oddly enough all of these cancelation happened when the price of Bitcoin went up drastically.
Here’s an example of such a case which caused a delay of purchase for the user. One user was so angry that he went out and made a website called Coinbase Fraud, this websites shows real live examples of Coinbase cancelling orders when it benefits them due to changes in the price of Bitcoin.
I can’t say I’ve experienced such issues with Coinbase myself but it seems to me that I’ve heard about these kinds of stories so many times that there’s probably some truth in it.
Both mobile apps work great, support is also fine
Both Circle’s and Coinbase’s mobile app are pretty intuitive and easy to use. Having said that Circle does a much better job at creating an enjoyable experience (just like their website). At times when I needed support from Coinbase and Circle they both seemed to have responded in a timely manner and got my questions answered.
If you buy $500 worth of Bitcoin here’s what you’ll get
If you spend $500 with Coinbase at today’s exchange rate you’d get 1.3103BTC (all fees included). If you go with Circle you’d receive 1.2782BTC. This may seem that Circle is much more expensive than Coinbase, but it important to note that I’ve measured Coinbase’s ACH payment method with Circle’s credit card method (since I don’t have an American credit card which Coinbase accepts).
This mean that with Coinbase you’ll get the coin 2-4 days after you’ve made the purchase and with Circle you’ll get it instantly – so I guess you should figure out if 0.0321BTC is worth waiting 2 days (~roughly $11 at today’s exchange rate).
Circle is the winner by a nose in my book
After all is said and done, I prefer Circle to Coinbase. Their sleek design, ease of use and lightning fast transaction delivery creates a real “magic moment” for me. I also don’t mind paying more fees for this outstanding experience. If you’re all about saving as much as possible than Coinbase is probably the way to go, but if you want to avoid the hassle choose Circle.August 9, 2011: Bright moonlight streams through your window. A nugget of space debris disintegrates in a sparkling fireball. A huge spaceship glides silently overhead.
By itself, any one of these events might be enough to get you out of bed. This weekend, all three are going to happen at the same time.
On August 12th and 13th, as the Moon waxes full, the International Space Station will glide over US towns and cities during the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower.
Above: Click on the image to view a ScienceCast video about the Perseid meteor shower. The video includes a sky map.
The meteor shower is already underway. Earth is passing through a broad stream of debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, and specks of comet dust are hitting the top of Earth's atmosphere at 140,000 mph. These disintegrating meteors stream out of the constellation Perseus--hence the name "Perseids." According to the International Meteor Organization, worldwide observers now are counting more than a dozen Perseids per hour with more to come on August 12-13 when Earth passes near the heart of the debris stream.
Experts note that moonlight and meteor showers don't mix. Indeed, the great number of faint Perseids that observers would normally count in a dark year will be invisible in 2011 with the Moon glaring overhead. On the bright side--no pun intended--any Perseid that does manage to pierce the glare is likely to be a fireball. These are caused by relatively big pieces of debris disintegrating in flashes too bright to be subdued. It's not unusual to see at least a few Perseid shadow-casters on peak night.
Perseid meteors can appear any time Perseus is above the horizon--i.e., between about 10 pm and sunrise. The best time to look is during the hours before dawn especially on Saturday morning, August 13th. The full Moon will be relatively low, and the meteor rate should be peaking at that time.
Before dawn is also the time of the ISS. All week long and into the weekend, the International Space Station will be making a series of early-morning flybys over the United States. The massive spacecraft glides silently among the stars, shining so brightly that moonlight and even city lights have little affect on its visibility. You simply cannot miss it if you know when to look. Check NASA's ISS Tracker for local flyby times. Several major cities are favored with flybys on August 12th and 13th including Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New York and others.
Set your alarm and enjoy the show.
Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASABATON ROUGE, Louisiana – The Consulate General of the Russian Federation has asked a number of southern states, including Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, if they could monitor Election Day activities at various sites.
Alexander Zakharov of the Russian Federation requested that the Louisiana Secretary of State allow an officer to monitor voting sites in order to study “the U.S. experience in organization of voting process during the United States Presidential Elections,” according to NOLA.com.
Secretary Schedler denied the request but not for the reason that some would have imagined.
The Louisiana Secretary of State told Zakharov he was denying the request was because of the impact of massive floods in the region which affected over 60,000 homeowners.
“I have approximately one-third of my employees personally affected, we are short-staffed and working day and night to prepare for this election along with the changes of precinct locations and other related processes,” Schedler said to Kakharov. “Had this flood event not occurred, we certainly would have been open to such a visit, but I cannot meet such a request with the situation I have currently in front of me.”
Schedler said Zakharov could ask again in the 2020 Election, as Louisiana law permits foreign monitors at its voting sites.
Texas and Oklahoma also denied the request.
In recent months, Hillary Clinton has routinely blamed Russia for hacks into the Democratic National Committee’s email server, as well as John Podesta’s, despite Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks claiming general credit.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has used the WikiLeaks scandal to his advantage, often reading off emails between top officials within Clinton’s campaign during rallies across the country.
John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.In a heated exchange, Ms Rice had to argue with the US President in Florida not to return to the White House because it was a potential terrorist target.
She told the Channel 4 documentary: "The President got on the phone and he said: 'I'm coming back'.
"I said: 'You cannot come back here. The United States of America is under attack, you have to go to safety. We don't know what is going on here'.
"He said: 'I'm coming back'. I said: 'You can't'.
"I said to him in a raised voice, and I had never raised my voice to the president before, I said: 'You cannot come back here'. I hung up.
"The president was quite annoyed with me to say the least.
"I've known the president a long time and I knew that he wanted nothing more than to be there at the helm of the ship."
Ms Rice also revealed that the bunker beneath the White House, where she was sheltering with Vice President Dick Cheney, began to run out of air.
She said: "There were so many people in the bunker that the oxygen levels started dropping and the secret service came in and said we've got to get some people out of here.
"They literally went around telling people that they weren't essential and they had to leave."
Meanwhile, the government communication systems were failing and even Mr Bush resorted to an unsecured line to talk to Washington.
Ms Rice said: "Despite all of the sophisticated hierarchy, sophisticated command and control equipment that we had, at that moment much of it didn't function very well and people instead did whatever they could to communicate messages. And frankly we then had to make it up.
"I think back on the number of cell phones that were probably used to communicate the most sensitive information because somebody was driving in or somebody couldn't get to a landline.
"And I think how really dangerous that was because if the terrorists were monitoring our communications, they would have heard a lot on cell phones."
Mr Bush gave the order authorising the airforce to shoot down any commercial airliner that was not responding.
And when United 93 came down Ms Rice and the other officials believed it may have been shot out of the sky.
She said: "Everyone in that room thinks that perhaps it's been shot down. I got on the phone with somebody at the National Military Command Centre... just saying: 'You must know whether or not you you've shot down a commercial airliner or not.'
"That was just a horrible thought that the American air force would have shot down innocent civilians, that was a horrible thought."
She continued: "As I've reflected now on what the passengers and crew of, of 93, flight 93 did, first of all there's a sense of personal gratitude that they may well have saved my life, me personally.
"I also think of what they did for the country because had another plane hit the White House or the capital I just don't think we had much more capacity to absorb greater shock than we already had."Just as the title describes, this drawing was made from a lot of correspondences that i have received since end of January, regarding the portrayal of Women Warriors both in Fantasy and History. The drawing compares the 'Horny Viking' (The name taken from her Horned Helmet), with the 'Historical Viking', each representing their own views and values in the portrayal of Viking Women Warrior in popular media. The reason why the Viking was chosen is because they are probably the next most popular warrior, besides knight in shining armor (think of Joanne d'arc)Now, before I start with the discussion, i would like to point that the aim of this drawing is to increase the awareness of why each of the characters are represented as such. As for the actual representation in my drawing, they are all full of artistic license and stylized art, so the historical accuracy may not be the most well representedFrom what I have seen, Women warriors can be divided into two categories. The first one comes under what i call "fantasy", where the design of the character is only limited by the artist's imagination. From bare chain-mail bikinis to the Warhammer-esque huge armor, complete with exotic weapons that comes with them, Fantasy Women Warriors are the most commonly depicted in the popular media. The second category, comes under the title "Historical", whereby the artist try to depict the character in the historically appropriate (if not politically correct) attires belonging to the corresponding era. Practicality, protection and fashion were taken into consideration, as such, they are represented much less than the fantasy due to the time-consuming research done before-hand. We must also understand that, our understanding of "Historical Women Warriors" may well be different than what it was during their respective era. Also, warfare had been predominantly male occupation since the dawn of time, even if some culture publicly accept their womenfolk fighting in their ranks. So in many cases, women who decided to join the fight as warrior would have to adapt with equipments, armor, weapons and fighting style which were designed for their most frequent users, men.Simply put, women who fought in battle, chose to do so themselves, knowing well the consequences and burden they had to undergo. In my opinion, regardless whether they fight in proper full plate armor or half naked with loincloth, it is always better and respectful to represent them as Women who fought as Warriors, instead of Women who just dress as warriors (or lack of)Now,For the first character, the Horny Viking (taken from the horned helmet), she is dressed in anything that you can criticize at this very instant, derived from the famous fantastic depiction of Valkyrie. The horned helmets which was never worn by the vikings, the double headed axe which is more commonly used for chopping trees, small decorated metal shield, a spear with a long blade (reminds me of japanese yari), a chainmail bra and others that i have yet to describe.In terms of practicality, it would be very limited at best. Horned helmet can be cumbersome, the horns is more threat to the user and his/her allies, as well as allowing the enemies to grab the horn, throwing the use off balance. As for the battle-bra, everyone would probably know why it's a no no. But having one's hair flowing freely while wearing chain mail is a recipe for trouble. Chainmails are made of tiny rings joined together to for a chain, as such, free flowing long hair can easily get caught, leading to some discomfort to the user. Also, Scandinavia (where the viking came from) is a very cold region, so wearing such clothing would be....cold defying, not to mention leaving the most vulnerable parts of the body (which you really want to cover), open for attack.Why is she represented that way? well, fist of all, she looks more attractive than our historical viking. Apart from that, this image has been popularized by the Viking revival in the modern era, where the viking had been anachronistically mixed the bronze age culture, as well as the idealized portrayal of Scandinavian epic saga.What about the historical viking? I think they prefer to wear less exposing battle attires than our Horny Viking. Adorned in chainmail, furcoat, large shield, a battle axe, seax as well as throwing spears, she is more than ready to remove some heads for their bodies. But my representation of her would probably anachronistic, if not historically accurate. Her Chain-mail was very expensive back then, and only the richest could afford such protection. As for the helmet, the decorated helmet was reserved for the chieftain, denoting her highborn and rich status. The battle axe is a heavy double handed danish axe, so one cannot use shield while wielding on in real life. While there are historical records of Viking Women fighting as shield maiden, there are only handful of archaeological records of what they actually wore and used when fighting in battle. But my best guess is, whatever was commonly wore back then as protection, she'd probably wear the same as well.If you ask my opinion as to which one that i like, I prefer the historical one. Not because of its practicality or fashion sense, but because when one draws something related to history, he/she would be able to learn something from it. The more you are aware of history, the more creative you will becomeSo, which one would you prefer?-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Historical Viking Character is from the Historically Wrong Sketch Series:The Horny Viking is taken from“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
Whenever I want to make a change in my life, I choose to travel. I’ve tried self-help books, Internet videos, and local programs – but nothing seems to work so effectively as the open road.
When I engaged in meaningful travel for the first time, I realized that so much of it was geared towards personal development. I was afforded time away from my stressors and triggers at home, while having sufficient time to develop and discover myself.
And in the process, I received a perspective on life that I could not have acquired anywhere else.
For 18 months I traveled from the spiritual paradise of Bali, Indonesia – to the desolate solitude of the Himalayan Mountains. And as I moved from place to place, I began to notice that I was taking bits and pieces of the cultures along with me – I was reinventing my life by traveling.
And now, having returned home – I have the unique perspective resulting not only from the self-made changes and discoveries, but also from the cultures and peoples that I connected with along the way.
Here are the 5 steps that I took to reinvent my life while traveling, and how it’s possible for you to do the same.
Before You Go
Step 1. Write out all the changes that you want to make in you.
Whether you want to kick a simple habit or completely change your life, traveling offers you a way to do both. But any changes that you want to happen in you – you must first identify in you, awareness is the first step. So instead of just brainstorming, do some observing.
Grab a sheet of paper and divide it into three sections (below). Afterwards, put it in your pocket, purse, or backpack.
Then, over the next few days start recording all of the changes that you want to make in your life based on the feelings and thoughts that you have throughout the day.
During any instance that you feel upset, dissatisfied, or incomplete – write down either what you can change to overcome it, or your solution to that particular problem.
To make it simpler, separate your list into these three categories:
• The habits, patterns, and behaviors that you want to drop in you.
• The habits, patterns, and behaviors that you want to form in you.
• The things that you want to achieve, accomplish, or experience (including any skill or knowledge that you want to acquire). And any major life change you want to make – like a change in your career, relationship, or place of residence.
Continue this process for about a week to get the best and most complete list possible!
Important: Change only what YOU want to change. Feedback from others is important, but suggestions are not – keeping your list authentic will keep you motivated.
Step 2. Choose your travel methods and destination using your list
For every aspect of you that you want to change, every skill that you want to acquire, and every experience that you want to have – there will be a place in the world, AND a way of traveling the world, that can help you do it.
Use the list you made in the previous step to help you decide on where you’re going and what you’re going to do while you’re away.
Some destination examples:
• Had enough of luxury? Experience life in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Want to learn another language? Visit a country that speaks it.
• Want to get in touch with your spiritual side? Then go to India!
Some traveling-method examples:
• Want to learn to control your anger (or any other bad habit)? Do a Buddhist meditation retreat.
• Want to get in shape? Go mountain climbing or bike across a country.
• Want to make a change in your social spectrum? Then try hitchhiking, Couchsurfing [https://couchsurfing.org], or traveling solo!
Both examples could continue forever. The main point is – Whatever you’re trying to accomplish, there are entire cultures out there practically just waiting to help you out!
Once you’ve picked a place and thing or two to do – then pack your list and your lunch (eat it BEFORE airport security) and be on your way!
Bon Voyage!
While You’re Away
Step 3. Say yes to opportunity!
Think you’re just going to do what you planned in step 2? Think again! Onset one of traveling’s greatest gifts: Cultural practices and perspectives.
Getting a new outlook on life is a perfect way to enhance your own ‘reinventive’ plans. Traveling gives you many new opportunities and it’s time to take advantage. Remember that each new culture is also a new perspective!
Here are a few things that you can do:
• Say yes to one new cultural opportunity or experience each week that you’re away.
• Have a 5 minute conversation with someone new every-day.
• Explore a new place or area every chance you get!
And remember to keep an open mind! Let people challenge you and question you. Because eventually you’ll start to challenge and questions yourself – and that’s when reinvention is at its finest.
Step 4. Add some self-discovery
Here is a quote from my Guru: “Spirituality is seeing a change in your outer world as a result of making a change in your inner world.” – Paramahamsa Nithyananda
Changing our inner worlds is the essence for reinventing our lives – it’s why we started with observing our thoughts and feelings in Step 1!
Now it’s time to address them directly.
There are many things that you can do, but here three really good places to start:
• Begin a self-awareness practice [http://tinybuddha.com/blog/conscious-healing-the-power-of-mindfulness-and-meditation/]. Like meditation, yoga, or mindful exercise.
• Begin a self-love practice [http://tinybuddha.com/blog/what-self-love-means-20-ways-be-good-to-yourself/]. Like hugging, complimenting, or treating yourself.
• Begin a gratitude practice [http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-start-a-gratitude-practice-to-change-your-life/]. Like listing things you’re thankful for, or noting the positive things that happen to you at the end of each day.
Engaging in a self-discovery practice transforms time to yourself, into time for yourself. Let your plans form the slab, cultural exposure form the filling, and self-discovery form the icing on the cake for how you can reinvent your life by traveling.
After You Return
Step 5. Re-integration
No trip is complete without a return ticket, and no transformational journey should be either. This is your final test!
The first few weeks after your return are critical. It’s very important to establish your new routine, radiate your new identity, and transform your every-day life based on the changes that you’ve made while traveling.
This will help you maintain and expand on your changes, while stopping you from relapsing into your old ways.
Here are a few things that you can do:
• Schedule a reflection time. It can be a continuation of your self-discovery practice or something new like journaling. Just 15-20 minutes of time alone will be enough.
• Change the look of your ‘home base’ to reflect the new you. It can be your room or car or office or all of the above. Making physical changes will remind you of your internal changes.
• Make your new feelings, behavior, or future plans clear to others. Firmly establishing your new identity will help prevent inadvertent peer pressure.
Bonus step. Use your changes to enrich the world around you.
What fun is transformation if you can’t use it to help others too? Teach them something you learned, share with them your new perspective, or who knows – maybe even write an article like this one! The more you give the more you get, and this applies for reinventing your life too!
Like this Article? Subscribe to Our Feed!A quiet 24 hours for the Texas Longhorns in the pursuit of a new offensive coordinator gave way to the news that head coach Charlie Strong is interviewing California Golden Bears offensive coordinator Tony Franklin on Thursday, according to reports from Horns Digest and Orangebloods.
With Sonny Cumbie staying with the TCU Horned Frogs and no job offer out to Tulsa Golden Hurricane co-offensive coordinator Sterlin Gilbert in the wake of his interview on Wednesday, Franklin is now the third coach interviewed by Texas head coach Charlie Strong.
Running the so-called Bear Raid offense under head coach Sonny Dykes, Franklin has had a great deal of success during this three years in Berkeley, as his attacks have set numerous school records, in large part because of highly-talented junior quarterback Jared Goff:
Cal has set new single-season school marks in 2015 on the offensive side of the ball for passing yardage (4,425), passing touchdowns (38) and total offense (6,293) that were previously set in 2014 and has an opportunity to add more single-season marks during its bowl game in total yards per game (524.4 ypg in 2015, record 495.2 in 2014), passing yards per game (368.8 ypg in 2015, record 331.4 in 2013), completions (327 in 2015, record 368 in 2013), first downs (314 in 2015, record 321 in 2003), first downs passing (185 in 2015, record 188 in 2014) and yards per play (6.9 in 2015, record 7.03 in 2004).
If Texas decides to hire Franklin, it would be the culmination of a long climb back to the highest echelons of college football that has spanned nearly a decade now. Hired by Tommy Tuberville at Auburn following a successful stint at Troy, Franklin was scapegoated for the offense's early struggles in 2008, lasting only six games that season.
Relegated to Middle Tennessee State for the 2009 season, Franklin caught on with Dykes in 2010 at Louisiana Tech and has remained with him since,Edited 6/20/14: There is a new and updated version of this post here. You can quick link to it by typing in this: http://thecaffeinatedautistic.tumblr.com/A$
(TW: Ableism)
Autism Speaks is the most well-known autism charity. They have the most media coverage and are endorsed by many celebrities, but this certainly does not make them a good organization.
Autism Speaks does not have a single autistic member on their board.
Autism Speaks only spends 3% of their budget on “family services”.
Much of Autism Speaks’ money goes toward research, and much of that research centers on finding a way to eliminate autism, and thus, autistics (which will likely be done through a prenatal test, in the same way that the Down’s Syndrome test is conducted).
Autism Speaks produces advertisements, small films, etc. about what a burden autistic people are to society.
Autism Speaks was responsible for “Autism Every Day”, which featured a member of their board talking about contemplating murder-suicide of her daughter in front of her daughter. This has now be removed from Autism Speaks’
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like. You can see here that we are able to run our whole application in one very fast scratch container:
The “Container OS” Container Tthe Next-Best Thing)
These types of containers are a great option if you can’t get your application running in a scratch environment.
It’s important to remember that a container should ideally do just one thing well: run a database, a web server, etc. When running single applications like this, we have no need for many of the default higher-level operating system functions that can steal CPU and RAM we would otherwise like devoted to our application.
Unlike scratch containers, most of these container images provide a package management tool that allows you to install dependencies. A great example of one of these operating systems is Alpine OS.
These containers also have the virtue of being very small — usually 5-8 megabytes in size. However, dependencies can make these container sizes balloon quickly when they are not kept in check. After installing a typical NodeJS or Rails environment, it is not uncommon to see your container size balloon to 50 or 100 megabytes or more, and this can severely impact container performance.
Let’s use our dashboard example from the scratch container to see how it would look in this type. Remember, we only run one application per container, but we can use Docker container linking to link them together into one object. Things get a bit more complicated, but our applications is still fairly fast:
The “Full OS” Container (The Least Desirable)
The Full Operating System container is similar to the Container OS container, but it has all of the features you expect of a full OS — access to SSH, init, multiple shells, etc. These come at a steep cost to performance.
An example of one of these operating systems would be Ubuntu, or Red Hat server. These types of containers can range from 300-800 megabytes in size. When your container management system deploys this container hundreds or thousands of times a day/week, you can see how the data transfer size can get cumbersome.
The good news is major operating system providers are aware of these issues, and many are releasing smaller and more compact container-specific versions. These new versions can range from 50-200 megabytes in size, and it appears they are making them smaller and smaller as the container space matures.
I am not going to include a diagram here because it would look the same as the Alpine diagram above. The only exception is that this type of container is the least performant of the bunch.
Put It to Work
So now you know a few container types you want to have in your architecture, but how should you organize your containers so Kubernetes can make the most of them?
Let’s lay out a web application that requires a database to run:
Okay… don’t run away screaming just yet. I promise I will break this down for you.
Let’s follow the user’s path through this containerized Web Application on Kubernetes. I will explain what everything does as we step through each part.
Load Balancer/Kube Proxy: This is the entrypoint to the Kubernetes cluster, and I like to add a little more network security here in a Load Balancer configured to work with the Kube Proxy. The Kube Proxy’s job is to route traffic from the outside to the correct containers inside.
This is the entrypoint to the Kubernetes cluster, and I like to add a little more network security here in a Load Balancer configured to work with the Kube Proxy. The Kube Proxy’s job is to route traffic from the outside to the correct containers inside. Namespace: A Kubernetes Namespace logically groups resources. You create these Namespaces to share services or manage resources within the Namespace.
A Kubernetes Namespace logically groups resources. You create these Namespaces to share services or manage resources within the Namespace. Web App Service and Database Service: A service is what you would have if a load balancer, a network switch, and a router all had a baby. It can be configured to do a lot of things with traffic, but its basic purpose is to route traffic from IP address or DNS to the containerized Apps that do the work. In this example, the “Web App Service” routes traffic to each of the “Web App” containers, using a metadata tag called “website” (or whatever works for you). All your users see is a single, speedy “website,” but behind the scenes there could be multiple instances of the app container crunching on problems.
A service is what you would have if a load balancer, a network switch, and a router all had a baby. It can be configured to do a lot of things with traffic, but its basic purpose is to route traffic from IP address or DNS to the containerized Apps that do the work. In this example, the “Web App Service” routes traffic to each of the “Web App” containers, using a metadata tag called “website” (or whatever works for you). All your users see is a single, speedy “website,” but behind the scenes there could be multiple instances of the app container crunching on problems. Replication Controller: A replication controller has a pretty simple function: it works as an autoscaler for your containers. It contains a blueprint of what a replica should look like, so when a containerized app is in trouble, the Replication Controller will simply spin up what it needs to keep a service running.
A replication controller has a pretty simple function: it works as an autoscaler for your containers. It contains a blueprint of what a replica should look like, so when a containerized app is in trouble, the Replication Controller will simply spin up what it needs to keep a service running. Pods: Pods are groups of containers that may be “linked” together, like in our earlier Alpine OS diagram. If your container is not linked, it will just be in a Pod all by itself. No need to get too far into the weeds here. In this example, our “Web App” is technically a Pod.
Inside this arrangement of services, each service sees the other as a network resource. This allows each service to see the other as a service, and, well, its services all the way down.
What do I do now, with my new degree in container architecture?
Now that I have made your eyes bleed for a few minutes, with your new honorary degree in container architecture, let’s get down to why this setup and others like it are so great.
This web app isn’t just a few programs running on a few big, expensive boxes. Instead, it’s spread over smaller, clustered servers that do the same job, but they have the ability to spin down and cost far less when not needed.
And in the event there is a failed physical server, or a failed Pod, Kubernetes immediately replicates or moves that Pod to another physical server.
The Replication Controller always ensures the Pod is running, and if your containers are engineered with the methodology I describe here, you can expect this process to be very quick. In most cases, nobody but the logs will even notice when an issue occurs.
So what would this application look like in Supergiant?
I have to say, the above is a lot to absorb. Just in case some of it isn’t sticking, I have good news.
One of Supergiant’s jobs is to abstract Services, Replication Controllers, and Pods away into a single object called a Component. We simply felt that abstracting this into a simple concept would be more welcome than repeating complicated configurations for Kubernetes applications.
For users who still like dealing with like that sort of thing (we get it — really), we have not obscured the guts at all. The nitty-gritty features are all still there and can also be incorporated/tweaked within Supergiant Components to suit your needs.
However, our hope is that this abstraction will help clear up those bleeding eyes a bit.
This is the same Web Application as above except this is how it looks to Supergiant users:
Now let’s follow the user’s path through this containerized Application on Supergiant:
Entrypoint: An Entrypoint wraps up the Load Balancer and Kube Proxy settings into one configurable object, and Supergiant sets this up for you. It is important to note here that Kubernetes currently does not allow multiple services to share an external load balancer. A load balancer for every service can get expensive, so we made Entrypoints “sharable” between components and apps, and it is far less complicated than trying to figure out how to configure the Kube Proxy and Load Balancer to play well together.
An Entrypoint wraps up the Load Balancer and Kube Proxy settings into one configurable object, and Supergiant sets this up for you. It is important to note here that Kubernetes currently does not allow multiple services to share an external load balancer. A load balancer for every service can get expensive, so we made Entrypoints “sharable” between components and apps, and it is far less complicated than trying to figure out how to configure the Kube Proxy and Load Balancer to play well together. Application: This is the same as a Kubernetes Namespace, but we felt Application better conveys the purpose of the Namespace, and it’s easier to think of structures in the Supergiant API this way.
This is the same as a Kubernetes Namespace, but we felt Application better conveys the purpose of the Namespace, and it’s easier to think of structures in the Supergiant API this way. Component: This is the coolest part! A Component is a service, replication controller, and pods all wrapped up into one object.
Most of the time, you will find that configuration of Kubernetes services in relation to replication controllers and pods can be complicated or repetitive. The Supergiant API puts all configuration into one simple config. This can then be exported, imported, saved away, or shared with other Supergiant users. And since the Component contains everything you need for a running application, the person you share your Component with does not really need to know anything about your application or how it works.
One of Supergiant’s goals is to lower the entry-level knowledge required by businesses wanting to use Kubernetes, and for those who have the knowledge, to make things fast and simple to configure.
Supergiant gives you the tools to switch to a containerization strategy in no time, so you can start saving your business money.
This was a dense article.
I am trying to walk the line of exposing why Kubernetes container management is such a win to business readers while explaining some technical aspects that show why, so if you have any questions about what you have read here today, I encourage you to comment below and hit us up on our Slack, Twitter, or our Reddit.
For more information on Supergiant visit us at supergiant.io, and we welcome your contributions on GitHub.The Haarp Machine denied entry into U.S.
[ 5,126 views ]
UK progressive metal band, and recent Sumerian Records signees, The Haarp Machine, are apparently unable to enter the United States legally at this point. The group had the following to say: "The American Government has denied us entry into the US. Go figure."
Given the group's name and its members, one could easily read into this a bit too much. Could the U.S. government be overly suspicious of a band seemingly named after the High Frequency Active Auroral Reasearch Program, a much-maligned military research initiative? Or could the ethnicity of band founder Abdullah Al-Mu'min have triggered some sort of warning bells within our increasingly sensitive homeland security apparatus? Perhaps, and most likely, this is just a case of a few minor legalities that need to be tended do. [I can't believe that I just wrote this paragraph]
Regardless, this could obviously prove problematic for the band as they are scheduled to embark upon a tour of North America late this month with Decapitated and Decrepit Birth, among others. There has been no word thus far on whether their denial into the U.S. is temporary or permanent, so we'll have to see what happens.
Related News StoriesA stand of trees in the Elliott State Forest north of Coos Bay. A single company has placed a bid to buy the forest from the state of Oregon. (Photo: Oregon Department of Forestry)
UPDATE (8 a.m., Feb. 2):
U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz announced on Wednesday night that he would withdraw H.R. 621 following outcry.
Read the update here.
——
Original post
A lawmaker from Utah has introduced legislation that would “dispose” of 3.3 million acres of public land nationwide, including 70,300 acres in Oregon.
In what some have called the opening shot by Republicans to sell or transfer federal lands, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz introduced H.R. 621 last week to free up resources “for economic development in struggling rural communities.”
Environmental groups denounced the effort, saying Chaffetz is pushing an “anti-American public lands agenda” with the broader goal of privatizing natural treasures across the West, a statement from Oregon Wild said.
The land identified for disposal — meaning sale to private entities or states — includes acreage from 10 different states. The bulk comes from Nevada (898,000 acres), New Mexico (831,000), Wyoming (694,000) and Arizona (450,000 acres).
In Oregon, the 70,300 acres comes in parcels from 19 counties managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The parcels range from 44,533 acres in Harney County to 1 acre in Marion County.
“I think this bill is basically a ‘test balloon,’ to get the effort and conversation moving,” said Jim Moore, professor and director of the Tom McCall Center for Policy Innovation at Pacific University. “The land referenced here is pretty scattershot and may or may not make sense. I’d watch for a more focused effort if we’re really talking about this happening.”
It's not clear whether President Trump's administration would support the bill. Trump has made statements opposing the sale of public lands and nominated Montana lawmaker Ryan Zinke, who also opposes the idea, to lead the Department of Interior.
"That's kind of the fly in the ointment of this whole idea," Moore said.
The identified land comes from a 1997 survey conducted by the Clinton administration, which was seeking potential revenue to benefit the Everglades Restoration effort. The survey never resulted in the land being sold.
There’s no map showing the exact location of each parcel, only a short description of the land’s character, monetary value and possible problems with disposal.
In the entry for 1,475 acres in Deschutes County, for example, it’s noted that “recreation is a major support of Deschutes County’s economic base, consequently, the county is opposed to any loss of federal lands.”
The 2,120 acres in Jefferson County, meanwhile, is identified as having mining claims, endangered species, wetlands and floodplains, along with historic and cultural resources.
The largest area proposed for disposal is in Harney County, where 44,500 acres is described as agricultural and grazing land with some public access.
"These lands have been deemed to serve no purpose for taxpayers," Chaffetz said.
Oregon senator Ron Wyden disagreed.
“Legislation based on a decades-old report on lands supposedly ripe for disposal clearly belongs on the shelf,” Wyden said in a statement. “Public lands belong to all Americans, and preserving these lands in public ownership keeps them accessible to everybody – including hunters, fishers, timber enterprises and recreation lovers.”
See the full breakdown below, and read about it by following this link.
Federal land in Oregon counties referenced by “Disposal of Excess Federal Lands Act”
All land currently overseen by Bureau of Land Management
Harney — 44,533 acres
Klamath — 7,506
Lake — 4,140
Giliam — 3,200
Jefferson — 2,120
Lincoln — 1,932
Wasco — 1,880
Deschutes — 1,475
Josephine — 810
Sherman — 800
Crook — 640
Tillamook — 402
Linn — 399
Hood River — 240
Jackson — 174
Clatsop — 40
Lane County — 9
Yamhill — 7
Marion — 1
Total: 70,300
Zach Urness has been an outdoors writer, photographer and videographer in Oregon for eight years. He is the author of the book “Hiking Southern Oregon” and can be reached at [email protected] or (503) 399-6801. Find him on Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.
Read or Share this story: http://stjr.nl/2jSDEljHouston Texans: Mario Williams, DE, N.C. State
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Mario Williams, DE
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Mario Williams, DE
I don't know who it was, but someone recently called out for saying that the Texans made the dumbest draft pick ever by taking Mario Williams over Reggie Bush. Did I write that? I can't even remember what I had for dinner last night, so I figured I wrote something stupid.
For this re-mock, I opened up my 2006 NFL Mock Draft and was pleasantly surprised by what I had to say about Houston's No. 1 overall choice:
In my opinion, this is a good move. The Texans did not need Bush; they already had Domanick Davis in the backfield. If Williams pans out, Houston will finally have a player that can disrupt Peyton Manning and Indianapolis' offense. If I were Charley Casserly, however, I would have tried to trade down in an effort to secure D'Brickashaw Ferguson. I'm sure David Carr would have liked that as well.
Holy crap. Go me.
New Orleans Saints: Haloti Ngata, DT, Oregon
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Reggie Bush, RB
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Reggie Bush, RB
Think the Saints wish Houston would have picked Reggie Bush? New Orleans would have a dominant defense with Mario Williams up front.
Haloti Ngata would work as well. With Ngata in the mix, New Orleans' defensive front would have been comprised of Ngata, Will Smith, Darren Howard and Brian Young. Not bad.
Tennessee Titans: Tamba Hali, DE, Penn State
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Vince Young, QB
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Matt Leinart, QB
The Titans missed Jevon Kearse after watching him play with the Eagles in the mid-00s. Tamba Hali would have been a much better pick than Nick Lachey's boyfriend or Jeff Fisher's worst enemy.
New York Jets: D'Brickashaw Ferguson, OT, Virginia
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: D'Brickashaw Ferguson, OT
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: D'Brickashaw Ferguson, OT
D'Brickashaw Ferguson is an awesome left tackle, so I have to imagine that the Jets would redo this pick if they had the chance.
Green Bay Packers: Tramon Williams, CB, Louisiana Tech
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: A.J. Hawk, OLB
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: A.J. Hawk, OLB
Tramon Williams has become one of the NFL's premier cornerbacks. He was an undrafted free agent back in 2006, but the Packers would need to spend a top-10 pick in this re-mock to retain his services. Not that A.J. Hawk was a bad selection or anything, but Williams is an elite talent.
San Francisco 49ers: Johnathan Joseph, CB, South Carolina
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Vernon Davis, TE
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Vernon Davis, TE
Vernon Davis is a very good player, but you don't take tight ends in the top 10.
Bruce Thornton started 11 games at corner for the 49ers in 2005. I have just one question: Who the f*** is Bruce Thornton?
Oakland Raiders: DeMeco Ryans, ILB, Alabama
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Michael Huff, S
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Vince Young, QB
You probably shouldn't take safeties in the top 10 either unless you're convinced they're the next Troy Polamalu or Ed Reed.
If Al Davis thought rationally, he would have said the following on Draft Day while sacrificing a pair of virgins: "DeMeco... Ryans... is a great... playa... he doesn't... run... a 4.1... 40... but he's... a great... playa..."
Buffalo Bills: Andrew Whitworth, OT, LSU
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Donte Whitner, S
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Haloti Ngata, DT
I'm convinced the following conversation occurred between Marv Levy and his interns an hour before this pick was made:
Levy: "Guys, I'm going to take a nap. Take Michael Huff when we're on the clock."
Interns: "But Mr. Levy, what if he's not available?"
Levy: "Don't worry, no one else is stupid enough to take a safety this high."
The poor interns settled for the next-best safety available when Undead Al snagged Huff at No. 7.
At any rate, the Bills could actually have a good offensive line right now if they had drafted Andrew Whitworth. I have no idea how Whitworth has never made the Pro Bowl; he's one of the best left tackles year in and year out.
Detroit Lions: Jay Cutler, QB, Vanderbilt
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Ernie Sims, OLB
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Michael Huff, S
Not that Jay Cutler is a great quarterback or anything, but Detroit's quarterbacks in 2005 were Joey Harrington and Jeff Garcia. One loves men and one loves caviar. Not that there's anything wrong with either of those things.
Arizona Cardinals: Maurice Jones-Drew, RB, UCLA
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Matt Leinart, QB
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Jay Cutler, QB
I wanted to place Maurice Jones-Drew earlier in this re-mock, but he just didn't fit. Starting at No. 6, the 49ers had Frank Gore. The Raiders paid a ton of money to LaMont Jordan. The Bills had Willis McGahee. The Lions spent a first-round pick on Kevin Jones the year before.
The Cardinals, meanwhile, had Marcel Shipp in their backfield. The defining moment of Shipp's career was when Chris Berman was reading a highlight of Shipp's on NFL Primetime (in this case of lowlight).
When Shipp was stuffed at the line of scrimmage, Berman cleverly said, "Shipp... capsized." God, I miss the good old NFL Primetime.
St. Louis Rams: Santonio Holmes, WR, Ohio State
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Tye Hill, CB
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Tye Hill, CB
Think Sam Bradford would like throwing the ball to Santonio Holmes? At the time of the 2006 NFL Draft, a 34-year-old Isaac Bruce was wrapping up his career. Holmes could have fit right in across from Torry Holt.
Alas, St. Louis drafted Tye Hill because he ran a 4.3 40 at the Combine. It's a miracle that Al Davis didn't select him.
Cleveland Browns: Elvis Dumervil, DE/OLB, Louisville
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Kamerion Wimbley, DE/OLB
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Kamerion Wimbley, DE/OLB
I mocked Kamerion Wimbley and D'Qwell Jackson to the Browns in the first two rounds. I received an e-mail the night before the draft from someone who wrote, "Cleveland will never draft those bums!" Well, they most certainly did.
Let's help Browns fans retain their sanity by giving them a much better rush linebacker.
Baltimore Ravens: Marcus McNeill, OT, Auburn
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Haloti Ngata, DT
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Winston Justice, OT
I apparently thought the Ravens needed an upgrade at tackle, so let's give them an upgrade at tackle. Sorry, Baltimore fans. Haloti Ngata is not on the board. Good thing this isn't real.
Philadelphia Eagles: Greg Jennings, WR, Western Michigan
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Brodrick Bunkley, DT
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Brodrick Bunkley, DT
Months before the 2006 NFL Draft, Donovan McNabb and Terrell Owens committed black-on-black violence against each other. When will this madness stop!?
Denver Broncos: Marques Colston, WR, Hofstra
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Jay Cutler, QB
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Chad Jackson, WR
I praised myself earlier about Mario Williams, so it's time to point out something dumb I said five years ago:
"Chad Jackson will make a great replacement for Rod Smith when the veteran receiver retires."
By Chad Jackson, I obviously meant De'Sean Jackson. Duh.
Marques Colston works too, by the way.
Miami Dolphins: Chad Greenway, OLB, Iowa
Actual 2006 NFL Draft Pick: Jason Allen, CB
My 2006 NFL Mock Draft Pick: Ernie Sims, OLB
The poor Vikings miss out on Chad Greenway by just one pick. The Dolphins could have used him, as a 36-year-old Junior Seau started 15 games for Miami in 2005.
Go to 2006 NFL Draft Re-Mock: Picks 17-32
Sorry for cutting this into two halves; I've received complaints about load times and putting the mock draft on two pages saves bandwith.
NFL Draft Links:
This is a 2006 NFL Draft Re-Mock, just in case you missed the big blue letters up top. I'm going back to 2006 and re-distributing all of the 2006 NFL Draft prospects to all of the teams in the 2006 NFL Draft order. This 2006 NFL Draft Re-Mock is based on how these players have performed in their careers, as well as the needs each team had back in 2006.File Photo: The European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) in its enclosure on Cerro Armazones, a 3060-metre mountaintop in Chile's Atacama Desert. (AFP Photo)
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has said that by 2020 Chile should host about 70 percent of the global astronomical infrastructure.
At a stone-laying ceremony on Tuesday to mark the start of construction work for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) in Vicuna, northern Chile, the president said the highly anticipated project will take astronomical research a giant step forward.
"To measure the magnitude of change, it is enough to know that during its first month of operation, the capacity of LSST will exceed what could previously be observed, if all existing telescopes were combined," said Bachelet.
The new LSST telescope will be built in the Cerro Pachon area, 532 km north of Santiago, and integrated into the network of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) active in Chile since the first great international observatory at Tololo hill became functional in 1961.
The new installation will be built around a telescope with a lens eight metres in diameter, and a camera taking three billion pixel images.
It will be used to observe and identify all manner of space objects, from supernovas to near-Earth asteroids, and map them all into a 3D cosmos.
"The technological leap will be revolutionary. The information that this telescope will provide will no doubt open new fields of research, new questions that will be answered by researchers from around the world for years", added Bachelet.Bachelet also highlighted the trajectory of AURA, the many projects of which over time have made Chile a global leader in astronomical research."It is estimated that by the year 2020, 70 percent of global astronomical infrastructure will be concentrated in our country, with the most powerful telescopes ever installed, and an investment close to $6 billion," she said. The president emphasised that these scientific and technological developments contribute a lot to the Chilean scientific community and the well-being of its 17 million people.February 17, 2015
Something Huge Is Happening! Over 40 Bankers Dead Since 2014: Latest Banker Death Connected To JP Morgan VP
By Susan Duclos - All News PipeLine
Since the beginning of 2014, over 40 bankers have died, and while the reports of the circumstances of their deaths, suicides, accidents, natural causes, etc... do not imply any wrongdoing, the sheer number over a 14 month span, seems to contradict the official story line.
The list just got longer with this report showing that investment banker, 32 year-old Kate Matrosova, was found dead in the New Hampshire mountains on Monday. Matrosova was dropped off on Sunday night by her husband, whom the Daily Mail names as Charlie Farhoodi. According to a LinkedIn profile for the name Charlie Farhoodi, he is listed as a Vice President of JP Morgan. (Screen shot shown below)
The connection is solid as on Matrosova's Facebook page, there is a photo album titled "Charlie and my girls," which provides pictures of Mr. Farhoodi, one of which is shown below.
The prior 36 banker deaths from 2014, found at ZeroHedge, shown below:
1) David Bird, 55, long-time reporter for the Wall Street Journal working at the Dow Jones news room 2) Tim Dickenson, a U.K.-based communications director at Swiss Re AG 3) William Broeksmit, 58, former senior manager for Deutsche Bank 4) Ryan Henry Crane, age 37, JP Morgan 5) Li Junjie, 33, Hong Kong JP Morgan 6) Gabriel Magee, 39, age JP Morgan employee 7) Mike Dueker, 50, who had worked for Russell Investments 8) Richard Talley, 57, was the founder and CEO of American Title (real estate titles) 9) James Stuart Jr. 70, Former National Bank of Commerce CEO was found dead in Scottsdale, Ariz 10) Jason Alan Salais, 34 year old IT Specialist at JPMorgan since 2008 11) Autumn Radtke, 28, CEO of First Meta, a Singapore-based virtual currency trading platform 12) Eddie Reilly, 47, investment banker, Vertical Group, New York 13) Kenneth Ballando, 28, investment banker, Levy Capital, New york 14) Joseph A. Giampapa, 55, corporate bankruptcy lawyer, JP Morgan Chase 15) Jan Peter Schmittmann, 57, voormalig topbestuurder ANB/AMRO, Laren, Nederland 16) Juergen Frick, 48, CEO Bank Frick & Co AG, Liechtenstein 17) Benoît Philippens, 37, directeur BNP Parisbas Fortis Bank, Ans, België. 18) Lydia, 52, bankier Bred-Banque-Populaire, Parijs 19) Andrew Jarzyk, 27, bankier, PNC Bank, New York 20) Carlos Six, 61, Hoofd Belastingdienst en lid CREDAF, België 21) Jan Winkelhuijzen, 75, Commissaris en Fiscalist (voormalig Deloitte), Nederland. 22) Richard Rockefeller, 66, achterkleinzoon elitebankier John D. Rockefeller, Amerika 23) Mahafarid Amir Khosravi (Amir Mansour Aria), 45, bankeigenaar, zakenman en derivatenhandelaar, Iran 24) Lewis Katz, 76, zakenman, advocaat en insider in de bancaire wereld, Amerika 25) Julian Knott, Directeur Global Operations Center JP Morgan, 45, Amerika 26) Richard Gravino, IT Specialist JP Morgan, 49, Amerika 27) Thomas James Schenkman, Managing Director Global Infrastructure JP Morgan, 42, Amerika 28) Nicholas Valtz, 39, Managing Director Goldman Sachs, New York, Amerika 29) Therese Brouwer, 50, Managing Director ING, Nederland 30) Tod Robert Edward, 51, Vice President M & T Bank, Amerika 31) Thierry Leyne, 48, investeringsbankier en eigenaar Anatevka S.A., Israël 32) Calogero Gambino, 41, Managing Director Deutsche Bank, Amerika 33) Shawn D. Miller, 42, Managing Director Citigroup, New York, Amerika 34) Melissa Millian, 54, Senior Vice President Mass Mutual, Amerika 35) Thieu Leenen, 64, Relatiemanager ABN/AMRO, Eindhoven, Nederland 36) Geert Tack, 52, Private Banker ING, Haaltert, België
Since the beginning of 2015, the bank deaths have continued, with 1) Michael Flanagan, 45, head of Foreign Exchange, National Australia Bank, London, England 2) Omar Meza, 33, Vice President, AIG, Los Angeles, America 3) Chris van Eeghen, 42, Head of Syndicate and Corporate Finance Markets, ABN / AMRO, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Those were as of January 24, 2015.
On February 6, 2015, yet another two bankers were killed, reported here at ANP. Those two were 1) Aditya Tomar 2) Eric Vandercar.
By February 9, 2015, another banker and his wife were dead, supposedly Michael A. Tabacchi, 27, listed as a JPMorgan Chase & Co. employee strangled and stabbed his wife to death before turning the knife on himself.
According to some, that list is even longer than those named above.
Even for those that believe that a stream of coincidences such as well over 40 bankers all dying in such rapid succession, when you add to that knowledge that back in February 2014, when there were less than a handful of deaths, Steve Quayle brought to our attention that there was a hitlist and it included over 3 dozen names, a larger, more disturbing picture emerges.
Something huge is happening here and as the first video below asks, could this all have to do with an upcoming economic collapse and the chaos that would assuredly follow?First of all we need an AOT query which will fetch data from AX and display it in a report. For this tutorial, I am using an existing query in AX which displays a list of customers.
CustTableListPage query will be used in this tutorial. To find this query, open AOT à Queries à CustTableListPage.
The development of the SSRS report is done in Visual studio. So a new project needs to be created in Visual studio.
Open Visual studio. Go to File à New à Project.
In the section Installed templates select Microsoft Dynamics AX and then select Report Model in the right pane. Name the project “QueryBasedDemo“. Press OK.
A new project will be created as shown below:
Now add a new report in the project by right clicking on the project QueryBaseDemo à Add à Report. A report will be added to the project with the name “Report1”. Rename the report to QueryBasedDemo. Now double click the report to open it.
The description of the individual node is given below: Datasets: Datasets retrieve data from the AOT query. It acts as a bridge between AX and the SSRS report. Only the fields added in the datasets can be used in a report. Designs: It defines the layout of the report. Images: It contains the images that you want to display in the SSRS report. Data Methods: It contains the business logic which can then be used in the report. Parameters: It is used to apply filtering to the data in a report.
First of all, we will create a dataset. Right click Datasets à Add Dataset to create a new Dataset. Name it “CustTable”.
Select the data source and open the properties window. Make sure the Data Source Type is set to Query. Then select the Query field. An ellipse button appears. Click it to open a dialog.
This dialog lists all the queries present in the AOT. Select CustTableListPage and press Next.
Select the fields you want to display in the report and press OK. Only the selected fields in this dialog can be shown in the report.
There are two types of designs that can be created in a SSRS report: Auto Design: Visual studio automatically creates a design based on the dataset provided. Auto design is the preferred method because it is easy and usually fulfills the requirements for the majority of scenarios. Precision Design: It is used when you need custom placement of fields or the layout of the report is too complex.
In this demo we will use Auto Design. Now right click the Designs node à Add à Auto Design. A new design is added. Rename it to Design. It is recommended that you set the name of the Design to either ‘Design’ or ‘Report’
Now drag CustTable form the Datasets node and drop it on the Design node. A table will be created which contain all the fields present in the data set. These fields will appear in the same order in the report. So if you want to arrange the fields, right click the field and select either move up or move down.
The final design will look as shown below
Now we have to define the layout of the report. Visual studio provides built in templates. Select the Design and open the properties window. Select ReportLayoutStyleTemplate in the LayoutTemplate field. Give a suitable title to the report.
Select the CustTableTable under the Design node and open the properties window. Select TableStyleAlternatingRowsTemplate in the Style Template field.
Report is now completed can be viewed. To preview the report, select the Design node, right click it and select preview. A preview window opens.
Select Report tab. The report appears as shown below:
To view this report from AX, it needs to be added in the AOT and deployed at the report server.
Open the solution explorer and right click the project. Select Add QueryBasedDemo to AOT. This will add the report to the AOT. It will also add the project in the AOT with same name so if you want to modify the report in future
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herself looking me over. “You don’t appear to be missing any more body parts. Did you take a vacation?”
“I got better at adventuring.” I said with a halfhearted shrug. “How is your gang doing?”
The mule gave me a glare from under her hat, “Been better. The revolutionaries or… whatever have not been able to breach my casino. Not for want of trying. If they knew about the tunnel entrance they’d probably break through. Good thing they don’t, so I could squirrel away like a mouse for this. I hope you don’t mind, me helping set this up while you were… occupied.”
“Less work for me,” I said not breaking eye-contact with her. “Can we trust you?” I asked as bluntly as I could.
“No.” Her answer was as quick as it was predictable. “But you know what I want. So long as this… meeting of the minds achieves those objectives, well we’ll be… not friends, but it will work.”
“And what are those objectives?”
She raised an eyebrow at the continuing questions, but laughed it off. “Ah I see, playing the part of inquisitor. To chase after answers like a hound to the scent. Very well: Peace. Freedom. Respect. I am tired of these endless petty gang wars: I tried to do something about it by taking out Roy Mustang and taking his water treatment plant, but was foiled, as you recall. I want the city to be free from control by oppressive regimes I have no doubt the Enclave wish to install. And I want vengeance on my foes for daring to oppose me, and I have so many foes.”
“Simple enough.” I said slowly, my eyes never leaving her.
Hers left mine though when one of the Finishers brought in a bowl of fresh, slightly brown apples. She took a knife from her suit, stabbed it into it, brought it to her mouth and took a bite. “In return you have the Baises. The strongest gang left in Dise. Hundreds of ponies strong. And I have been recruiting. Dise may still hate me, but my ponies love me.” She chewed, swallowed, then wiped her mouth with a sleeve. “Are you happy now?”
“For now.”
It was another twenty minutes of tense silence before the next pony arrived. Serenity was napping peacefully under the table when Major Lucky arrived with his own retinue of troops. He still looked ragged from his near-death experience at the train station (Though ghouls nearly always looked ragged). It felt like forever ago, but he seemed to hold the injuries close, given the way he carefully covered the hole in his chest that was created by a minotaur spear with his loose fitting uniform.
He sat sharply down at his seat and his NCA troops behind him snapped to attention. “At ease.” He barked, and they obeyed. “Hired Gun, Molly.” He tilted his head slightly in recognition to both of us.
“We meet again, Lucks,” Molly said, still leaning back in her chair. Across the table her gangers and the NCA troops exchanged glares.
“I am surprised you’re here,” I said to Lucky, who seemed distinctly uncomfortable and stiff at the his seat. “I thought the NCA gave up on Dise.”
“Of course not.” His toned seethed with arrogance. “However our focus was to remove the minotaur threat, but with the bridge gone we could not pursue and were forced to reassess. With the new ceasefire we are looking to help stabilize the city.”
“Looking to capitalize on the chaos?” I asked, but it was less of a question, and more of a statement.
“Just so,” Lucky said sharply in what I had to assume was his drill command voice. “I think we all can agree the status quo of Dise was not working. Why not a new one? We are looking into possibilities.”
“We’ve been over this before, Lucks; Dise won’t bow before foreign overlords. The NCA will never tame the city like an obedient dog,” Molly replied before I got a chance to say anything.
“Nor would we want to.” He looked over at me, pointedly ignoring Molly. “You are interested in our intentions, this is clear, so I will be clear if only because if the help you have provided us in the past. We want to see a stable Dise. Stability allows the NCA to thrive, and continue existing: if that means NCA rule, or if that means another solution, then so be it. The only thing we will not allow for is a system of perpetual gang warfare that existed before. These are the terms of our assistance.”
“I’m glad you listened to reason, Lucks,” Molly said still wearing that smile plastered on her face. “And look, we got more ponies to attend our shindig. And you thought it was going to be a dull affair.”
“Indeed,” Lucky said not even sparing Molly a glance. “Let’s just get this over with.”
The last two ponies who entered I hardly needed to question for their motives, as I already knew them. The Steel Ranger Paladin Lemon Cake entered next. She took one look at her chair and shoved it aside, preferring to stand a stark imposing figure in her newly cleaned and shined armour as two Applejack Rangers flanked her. We had already made our deal, so what was there to discuss.
Not long behind her came High General Steel Wing in his shiny black Pegasus power armour. Now, I understood why the two of them wore power armour to the meeting, but it looked quite awkward as he took a seat at his chair. It was easy to see the tension between him and the Rangers across the table. With him came three enclave troops, and Flash, Flare’s brother. At this point I had to ask.
“Where is Flare?” I just sort of assumed he was going to be a part of the negotiations.
The High General looked down the table at me, “Specialist Flare is a well-regarded field agent who has redeemed himself in my eyes. However, he is not required for planning or negotiation purposes.” I was about to ask but Flash cut me off. “His brother is here due to his recent defection from the traitors. He may have unique knowledge.”
That was about as much as he could say when the entrance to the room burst open, and music started blaring. Striding towards the table, flanked by photographers, and flashing lights. She was wearing a red and black dress that looked deceptively heavy, no doubt from armor plates I was sure were sewn into the fabric. She strode by with more confidence than she had earlier that day, grabbed her seat, spun it, and took her place at the head of the table across from me. Say what you want about the Finishers, but they had a sense of style that was unmistakable.
She rose one hoof and instantly the rest of the Finishers in the rest of the room left in a simple orderly fashion leaving water, food, and a few writing supplies on the table. When the door closed Photo Finish lowered her hoof and said. “And so we are here.” That was my cue to kick Serenity awake to make sure she didn’t miss anything. She whined, but she’d appreciate it later.
“Let us get on with it,” Major Lucky said brusquely. “Time is not necessarily in our favour.”
“Then we shall,” Photo Finish said. “Dise is in chaos, it has come to our attention that those currently seeking to lead it cannot be trusted. You have all been briefed on the details, and if you have any issues with that speak no—”
“Pony megaspells,” the High General said before Photo Finish could, finish her sentence. “I am to believe The Watchers are committing these crimes with necromancy? I have no love lost for the Watchers, but this is frankly difficult to swallow.”
“Open wide, little birdy,” Molly responded. “I saw it with my own eyes, black and dark and evil and burning. Like looking into the eyes of a dragon. Nearly got executed as I tried to take this knowledge home.”
“So you claim,” the General said. “A lovely excuse to explain why you were so easily captured as the city fell into chaos. To think you were even invited here, as if we could trust the word of a ganger who—”
“Oh it’s true,” Major Lucky said, which was a bit of a shock. “Molly is a murderous mobster, but she is telling the truth. Ask Hired Gun if you want.” He waved his hoof towards me. “She warned me and Major General Hailstorm about it, told us about a chip in the head. We found a pony in our ranks it had been done to, and lo and behold. Further tests confirm immense magic in them.” Just them talking about it made me feel the fire in the veins burning and smoldering. “Therefore we chose to help. We need Dise stable, and with ponies who could do that… they can’t be trusted.”
“That is…” The Enclave General paused, seemingly lost in thought.
“Most likely the truth,” Lemon Cake said. “Watcher personnel were heavily involved at the Facility, and I was witness to a megaspell chamber there first hand. With all this other evidence, as fanciful as it may be.”
“Nopony will believe it,” the High General said, “true though it may be. It is my understanding you all wish to rule Dise when this is over, but that truth won’t do.”
Of course, it was unbelievable, how could anypony believe ponies were experimented on, megaspells planted into their bodies, then sent back to live their lives like nothing happened? If we tried to use that to justify taking power we would just been seen as opportunists and ambitious. We couldn’t hold anything like that.
“The answer is obvious,” Major Lucky explained. “We blame the Enclave.” The High General scoffed openly. “Foreigners from a northern war, equipped with a super weapon that kept the city at heel. They infiltrated The Watchers to corrupt them in a naked power grab.”
The idea put a sour taste in my mouth. Maybe there was no right answer, but the idea of letting the Watchers go free, to let people think they were only guilty of being too naïve made my blood boil. They had done too much to me, to my family, to even think that was an acceptable answer. They would pay in blood for what they did, Clean Cutt especially, and they could just try and keep me silent. I didn’t speak my reservations though, that would come later.
And I didn’t need to as a different fight was brewing.
“How convenient,” The High General seethed. “You would blame those who destroyed my home, who betrayed me, and in the same stroke ensure nopony would ever trust us again. I see through your games. You have no hope of holding this city without us, and I won’t allow you to use this underhanded tactic to sully our name.”
“You’re being absurd,” Major Lucky growled back. “Nopony will trust you to lead them because you are untrustworthy.” If there wasn’t a fight before, there was about to be one. The High General slammed his hoof on the table and started to say something, but Lucky just sat there and spoke over him. “Pegasi will never be trusted in power. You betrayed your own kind sixty years ago to come here, and people haven’t forgotten. Then you betrayed yourselves again. Not to mention the atrocities your kind perpetrated in the north. And the events at Bitter Steel. These won’t be forgiven. This excuse will change nothing, you will never be allowed anywhere near the leadership of Dise.”
“As if you’re much better.” Molly laughed. “The lot of you. The NCA left Dise in its time of need; the Enclave Remnants, well the less said the better; and you.” She waved a hoof at Paladin Lemon Cake without looking. “What have Steel Rangers done for Dise? You’re the worst of them all. If we play it well we can all win some good will, but not that good.” She stabbed herself another apple from the table and took a bite.
“Dahling, you are hardly vun to talk,” Photo Finish said with a flick of her mane. “So unpopular the citizens of your city arrested you and tied you up. Nopony will ever trust someone like—”
“Like me.” Molly stopped eating her apple and shot a glare at Photo Finish from across the table. For the first time, she took her hind hooves off the table and sat up straight, like a cat who spied an easy kill. “Now I agreed to attend your little meeting of the mice because I am a kind and generous soul who only wishes to help. But I think you came to insult me. So, tell me, what did you mean someone like me.”
“Dahling, I only meant your position as a gang leader no—”
“Just some ass,” High General Steel Wing scoffed.
“You fucking bird!” Molly was on her hooves having whipped her dagger and the apple with it at the table. As the dagger imbedded itself in the middle of the Enclave Symbol, Molly was grabbing at her shotgun.
“Stop this madness!” Lucky was shouting, suddenly on his hooves, but nobody was listening.
“We are trying to come to—” Photo Finish tried to say, but someone had kicked the bowl of apples in the chaos and it hurtled into her face.
“How dare you!” The High General said before starting to bark orders to his men.
This was getting ugly. Lemon Cake was backing up, edging to the door. Photo Finish was grabbing her face with her hooves, blood seeping through as her mares started to move her away. Molly and Steel Wing were going to kill each other, and I wasn’t certain Lucky was going to stop them.
But somepony had to.
I grabbed the bottom of the table and heaved. The table spun through the air and slammed into the wall with a crack. As it slid down the wall onto its side, I stood up. The shouting was done, for the moment, and all eyes were on me. There were advantages to always being the largest pony in the room.
“We don’t have to like each other.” I growled. “It’d be fucked up if we did. But we need to work together. This ends two ways. Either The Watchers and everything they represent rules Dise. Or we do. We find a way to work together. We grit our teeth. Make it through. We grow the fuck up and put our squabbles aside.” My glare went from pony to pony in the room, never blinking or stopping on one pony for too long. “Or we walk out that door right now.
“I don’t know about all of you. But I am tired of fighting. Of hurting. Of losing the ones I loved. My friends. We have the chance to end it. And we can. Or we can keep these petty squabbles. The in-fighting. We can do what The Watchers have been making us do. Fight each other. Never being able to see the cause. So let’s work this out.”
Lucky stared at me grimly before looking over at the rest of the ponies. “You speak nice. But it’s clear our goals don’t align. We can’t all rule Dise, and the NCA won’t abide by more chaos.”
“Why not?” My breath was shallow, and my voice hoarse. I hadn’t realized I had yelled most of my speech. “We don’t need one leader. We can meet. Like we are right now. Vote on changes.”
The High General looked sternly at me. “We have tried Democracy above the clouds. It is prone to corruptions and politicking.”
“Meeting in a room and lying is better than lying to shoot each other.” I said. It was as good an argument as I had. “We meet, we vote. If we can accept these rules… it’ll be a better way than before. It has to be.”
Molly was seething, it was plain to see it in her face, but she took a deep breath and took her seat again, though there was no table to accompany it. “Works for me.” That is the thing that shocked me the most of this whole endeavor. “These meetings are exciting. All the fun of shouting at you dogs without having to get my shotgun dirty.”
“I hate to say it,” Major Lucky said taking his seat as well, “but Hired Gun is right. That is a system like some of the cities in the NCA. We can provide advice on the rules and regulations.”
“And who, pray tell, will ensure they are applied properly? Who backs it up?” Steel Wing demanded, shooting daggers at Molly. “She nearly killed me, and I am to trust her word.”
I shot a glance over at Photofinish who was wiping off blood from her nose. She looked confused at my stare but then nodded. “I vill.” All eye turned to the flamboyant mare. “I have under my control all the Ponitrons in Dise. Unlike you vall I have no… quarrels. The Finishers have acted alone and for myself with no involvement in the petty battles outside our walls. And so we will remain.”
The seemed to appease Steel Wing enough that he nodded. “All of them? Does that not change up our battle plans? That is an army; with that we could wrest control of the city easily.”
“But not without bloodshed,” Photo Finish added. “We must take zis vun step at a time, and we mustn’t overplay our hand. If we can take out the enclave, the Watchers vill fall as they have no means of combat.”
“I am amazed,” Paladin Lemon Cake said, walking away from the door. “You managed to calm things down. And all I heard about you was about how you riled things up. This might work yet. Though I have one question.” When I nodded she knew to continue. “Has your filly been there the whole time?”
I looked down to see Serenity sitting there enveloped in pink magic to hide her sounds. With the table no longer on top of her, I was surprised it took people that long to notice her, and when she realized everyone was looking at her she let the magic drop. “Uh, hi,” Serenity said shyly, moving towards me. “Um…” She shrunk as everyone continued to stare at her. “This was a lot less boring than Momma said it was going to be.”
---
By the time the meeting was over, hours had passed. We had discussed a lot, and not all of it was in a logical order, but together we hammered out a plan, an excuse, and what we were going to do when it was all over. There were a few more shouting matches, and some egos had to be soothed, but it was better than I expected if I am being truthful.
We decided to start our operation just before dawn. Using the rising sun to hide their advance, the Enclave Remnant would carry in wagons and vertibucks. Together with select members of the NCA and some of Molly’s Gangers (and me), they were going to infiltrate and take over the Raptor as quickly and quietly as possible. The goal was going to be take out their senior leadership, especially Colonel Sky Fall, then force the remainder to surrender, a repeat of what I had accidentally done with Blackwater.
From there Photo Finish would use the Ponitrons to broadcast a message, while at the same time advancing block to block from the northern gate to the far south. The goal was not to fire on anyone unless they fired back. With each block secured, the remainder of the ponies would try to round the populace up and get the message out about Dise’s new ownership and the treachery of the Enclave and the Watchers. If anyone opposed, they’d be sectioned, but nobody was to be killed unless they were a direct threat.
The goals were simple and well-defined, and made enough sense to me. I was not master of battlefield strategy but if we wanted to hold the city we needed to take out our biggest threat, the Raptor. Then, hopefully, we could convince the populace to accept us. It was hard convincing the others not to try and exonerate The Watchers to make things easier: they deserved everything that was coming to them. But, if everything went well, we would have full control of the city by the end of the day tomorrow.
Then we would start rebuilding.
That was almost as daunting as the prospects of the fight tomorrow. Not just rebuilding the physical buildings that had been destroyed, and Celestia knows there was enough of those, but the trust that the city could be at peace. Ever since the balefire bomb that blew up over the train station, things have fallen deeper and deeper into systematic chaos, and to think that it could climb out of that hole? It was hard even for me to believe. But I had to believe.
After the meeting was over, I quickly slid out, not wanting to get caught up a moment more. I wanted to see Flare before things got out of control with preparation, to make sure he was doing okay, to ensure that he was going into this with a good head on his shoulders. Enough had happened to him after he lost his wing…
We were directed to the eastern section of Parasite Mound. More decrepit than the main body, this part of town was mostly destroyed buildings and large empty areas where buildings once stood but had completely picked over for scrap. It had been empty once, but now it was filled with tents. Some out in the open, others inside buildings or the canvas used to cover up holes in the more secure buildings.
The tent city seemed split between Enclave, Ranger, and NCA given their flags flying all over the place, and the tents themselves never mixed. I didn’t know where Molly’s gangers were; most likely the majority were still holed up inside her Casino in the city proper. I started towards the Enclave section of the city when I spotted an intersection in the road that split the makeshift camp.
There in the middle of the road was a roaring fire with skewers of rats and apples on a spit above the fire. Around the fire was mostly children by the looks of it, some older than Serenity but most younger, sitting around on old tires, bricks, and other objects looking towards a stallion on the far side of the fire. The stallion, with his flamboyant movements and sly grin, was unmistakably Flare.
“Hired!” He waved his one wing at me when he saw me move up, “I was just about to tell another story, come and take a seat.”
I moved closer watching the eyes of the foals on me. Unicorn foals, earth pony foals, pegasus foals, at least one zebra which was a surprise, and a curious foal who was covered head to toe in a hooded cloak and their head down so I couldn’t see their face. These foals didn’t care about the petty fighting of their parents; they were united in their desire for a good story.
“Another time maybe. The meeting ended and I—”
“It can wait,” Flare said sternly, waving towards the fire. “I’m sure Serenity would love a story, just take a seat.” I was about to object, but I looked down to Serenity with her big round eyes, and how could I say no?
“Fine.” I groaned as I took a seat on the ground across from Flare, Serenity beside me. “But make it quick.”
Flare gave me a wink and started his tale. “Now this tale takes place not so long ago, and not so far away. There was a small town, and a shocking murder most foul! The accused was dragged before the local mayor and told to plead his case. Now she was the mangey sort, with spiked armour and dilated eyes that darted around nervously. A known ganger that held territory not far from town, and this is the story she told.
“‘Yer honour, I am a scoundrel but ‘tain’t true, I ain’t no heckin’ murderer! The pony were a merchant and had this fancy gun I wanted ya dig? So I spoke to his partner, and we agreed to split the prize fifty, even stevens. He’d lead him outta town and I’d hold’em up real simple right. But something twekered in his head! He right shot his partner as soon as I tried’a threaten him. Now I ain’t no murderer so I fled, ya see. I wanted the gun but it weren’t worth that. I left the fancy piece on the ground when I fled.’
“The mayor was annoyed at this, but he wanted to get to the bottom for the murder so he had the dead pony’s partner taken before him. When questioned, the partner had this to say ‘Sir, I did not murder this pony, and I have never met him before the attack. I was going about my business as I normally do, helping my partner lead a trade deal, when that scoundrel held us up demanding that gun. I admit I panicked and reached for my weapon to defend myself and that is when she shot my partner. I scared her off, but I am a poor shot and she escaped.
“Now normally this would be enough for the mayor, as one pony was an upstanding citizen and the other was little more than a raider. However, there was a puzzle piece missing that gnawed at the mayor. Both sides spoke of a gun the mugger wanted but when his guards searched the crime scene there was no gun to be found. He put out a notice that anyone who knew about the weapon was to report to him. A few days later a farmer appeared in his office, and said he knew of the murder
“‘I saw the murder. More than that, three days before the murder, I saw the mugger and the partner in a back alley in town, exchanging caps. I was worried so I followed them when they left town. The mugger and the partner both jumped him at the same time. There was a scuffle and all three started to draw their weapons. Multiple shots went out and before I could intervene the merchant was dead. Both ponies looked panicked and fled the scene. If you looked at the gunshot you would be able to tell who killed him, as the partner had a pistol and the mugger had a shotgun.
“Now the mayor took all this information and thought about it long and hard throughout the night. If the farmer was right both were guilty, even if both didn’t shoot. The next morning he arose and brought all three to his office to announce the punishments for the crime. Do you know what he did?”
Serenity was the first to answer: “Let them go because it was an accident?”
Another foal laughed. “The partner was to blame! He should be punished; he betrayed his friend!”
“The mugger was crazy,” a filly yelled back. “Just like you, stinkbutt; he should go.”
“The mugger was cool, the partner was a jerk!”
“The merchant was dumb for going out without a guard,” one pegasi scoffed.
“The mayor hung them both, I bet!”
“You’re all dumb. The farmer was punished.” This caught the attentions of all the foals, as they looked to see which voice in the mass said that. Eyes were drawn to the quiet foal in the brown hooded cloak. “He knew about the weapon. When the mugging took place, he hid away and shot the merchant. When the others, fled he stole the gun. That’s why it wasn’t there.” His voice sounded oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place where I knew it from.
All at once the foals’ heads turned to Flare who was sitting there with a mischievous smile on his face. A pegasi filly asked him: “Well Mr. Flare, who was it? Who was the killer, we gotta know.”
Flare waved his hooves towards the fire and laughed, “Nobody knows who the killer was. Not you, not the mayor, not me. But this is a lesson for us all fillies and colts. A story is only as good as the pony telling it.”
---
Flare seemed to get a kick out of his story, but he did stop storytelling when I told him it was serious. He took the news gracefully and even volunteered to join the assault of the Raptor with me. Which is what I expected. We had been through so much together, what was one more fight in the grand scheme of things, really? Well, it was a lot, but still.
The three of us left the camp and returned to our hotel room to prepare for the adventure that next morning. Ideally we would get some sleep, but I still had a promise to keep. And when we were all together I told my companions my plan.
“Are you sure this is wise?” Platinum Haze asked. “We understand you made this promise to Baptisia, but this can be done after the battle. It would be best if you got sleep before.”
“Ideally yes,” I said taking a seat on our bed, looking back at the three of them. “But Wallkirk is… a problem. He gave me control of the Ponitrons. But I can’t be sure he won’t take control back. Or if he can. I can’t risk it. I need to remove him. And I need to do it before the attack.”
“You’ll be going into dangerous territory; you’ll need backup. Just in case.” Flare patted his chest. “Just let me go get my armour and I’ll see what I can do. Might be able to carry your ass out of the fire one more time.”
I had to laugh. “Flare you can’t even lift me.”
He blanched somewhat and said defensively, “I can so!” I laughed some more.
“I think it would be better,” Platinum Haze said bringing the conversation back around to the topic at hand, “if Serenity and I stay here. We have a safe place, and we are not equipped to fight this battle.”
“Awww, but I wanna help Momma.”
“You can help here,” I said resting a hoof on Serenity’s head. “If anyone gets hurt, you can help the Finisher medics. Platinum Haze, too. You don’t need to be a fighter to help people,” I said soothingly, or as soothing as my voice would allow.
“Are you sure Momma? What if you need us.”
“Then you’ll come for me. You always do.” Serenity scrunched up her face a little before nodding. She was still injured, and it was a bad idea to drag her into these things at the best of times.
“So that’s it then?” asked Flare. “We go off to deal with Wallkirk, come back, hit the Raptor, and end this once and for all? At least Curly Fries is around so when it all goes wrong I can blame him to his face.” He chuckled, as did Serenity who never tired of Curly Fries jokes.
“Just need to get our equipment.” I looked over to Platinum Haze. “Did you do the thing?”
She got to her hooves and nodded at me, “Follow me.” And so, I did. As I said before I loved to watch Haze leave so I had no issue following her as she made her way into the bathroom of our little hotel room. With the two of us in there it was more than a little cramped, but we made do the way we always do.
In her magic glow was my barding. It had seen a lot of wear and tear throughout our adventures, but after a wash, and whatever Haze did to it, it looked good as knew. Hell, it seemed to glow a little bit in the dim light of the room we were in. When I went to grab it Platinum haze leaned down to kiss me.
My face flushed and my body damn near melted. I needed this. I needed her. “You know,” I said pulling away slightly. “We have time. I could kick them out. Have the room to ourselves. Take off some stress before the fight you know…”
“My sweet Silver,” she said in a tone that I knew meant she did not approve. “This is not the time. When this is all done… I mean.” She blushed. “I have thought about it obviously. But…” She clearly had a speech prepared so I enjoyed it when she stumbled over her words at the thought. “Later, I promise.”
“Fine,” I said trying my best to copy Serenity’s tone when she wanted something. “I guess.”
She gave me another quick kiss to calm my whining and sighed. “Before you go. Just remember what we discussed. You will never be me, nor I you. But if it comes down to it, know there are ways to achieve your goals other than violence. I am impressed by what you managed to accomplish, but it could all be taken away… just don’t make the same mistakes the Destroyer did. Don’t destroy what can be salvaged.”
“I love you Haze.” That had nothing to do with what she said, but I felt like saying it. “I… I won’t make any promises. But I’ll try. Okay?”
“Okay…” She sighed once more. “Stay safe, and strong. If anypony can do this, it is you; have no doubt about that.”
It was my turn to give her one more kiss. But then I had to turn away and take another step forward. Towards my encounter with Wallkirk. Towards the enclave raptor waiting for me. Towards the Watchers. Towards Clean Cutt. For good or ill, things were about to change, and this time I was the one who held the power. I was done being everypony’s puppet, it was my turn.
I took another step, and never turned back.
Level Up!
Skill Note: Nil!Sen. Elizabeth Warren Elizabeth Ann WarrenWoman to undecided Biden: 'Just say yes' to 2020 bid Raising taxes on the wealthy is 'extremely popular,' says Dem pollster 64 percent say Democratic Party supports socialism, says poll MORE (D-Mass.) raised $3.45 million between April and June.
The money raised in the second quarter brought Warren's total cash on hand to $11.03 million, according to Politico.
Ninety-eight percent of the money raised in the quarter came from donations of $100 or less, the news outlet added.
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Nearly 9,400 people in Massachusetts donated to the campaign in the period.
Warren touted the accomplishment on Twitter and said she is "deeply grateful" for everyone in the state who is "part of our grassroots team."
"This isn't just my fight — it's yours, too," she tweeted earlier this week.
We’re almost done tallying our Q2 fundraising, but here’s 1 incredible stat: Nearly 9400 ppl in MA donated to our campaign in Q2. #mapoli pic.twitter.com/RVI90VyE51 — Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) July 12, 2017
I'm deeply grateful for everyone in MA who is a part of our grassroots team. This isn't just my fight - it's yours, too. Thank you! #mapoli — Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) July 12, 2017
During the first three months of 2017, Warren brought in a massive $5.2 million fundraising haul.Cartoon Network UK Study Suggests Girls Defy Stereotypes
After the premiere of Cartoon Network’s new Powerpuff Girls series this week, a UK survey has revealed that today’s girls are becoming less stereotypical. The survey of seven to 15-year-olds found that 84 per cent of girls loved sport, 10% are involved in a martial arts related activity and 59% played video games. The national study also found that girls prefer football to netball.
Results from the survey also states that blue was the favourite colour for 53% of respondents, and when asked what qualities a girl should have, 28% of the girls said they should be tough.
Charli XCX, singer and The Powerpuff Girls ambassador, while at The Powerpuff Girls UK premiere launch event said:
“I remember when I was 15 and having all kinds of crazy things going on in my brain. As a young girl, that age can be a time of self-doubt, a time where you let your insecurities show, a time where you’re basically just a bit unsure. Strong role models are super important during those phases of anyone’s life. The Powerpuff Girls are 100 per cent the strongest and coolest kind of role models to have around. The show flips gender stereotypes on its head and is accessible and fun for kids but also for people my age. I used to love it when I was younger but I feel like I’m even more obsessed with it now. I see myself in the characters for sure. As all girls should. Strong, fierce, sassy and cute are all the best ways to be, and we all have that deep down inside us even if we don’t quite realise it yet.”
http://www.licensing.biz/news/read/young-girls-are-defying-stereotypes-according-to-new-cartoon-network-survey/043786
Thanks to The Daily Nick for the information: http://nickalive.blogspot.co.uk/Continuous Linting in Android
Matt Compton recently described how to create custom Lint detectors for Android. This is a great way to enforce your team’s code design patterns, but it can be a big undertaking.
For example, when we built our custom.jar file that included all of our custom Lint checks, we had to ensure that each member on our team built the.jar and added it to his or her local ~./android/lint directory. We also had to trust that each developer actually ran the Lint checks periodically as part of their normal development process. That’s a lot to ask, especially when we already have so much to think about. We found that the best way to enforce our custom Lint checks (as well as the built-in checks) is to run Lint as part of our continuous integration build process.
Running Lint on Travis
I should note that I’ll talk about running things on Travis CI, but because we are using Gradle, most of this should apply to Jenkins as well.
Let’s start by refining our build.gradle file to describe the behavior we want when running Lint. The Android Gradle plugin lets us specify a number of lint-related parameters. Here, we will choose to generate an HTML report, choose to abort (i.e. fail) the build when Lint detects an error, and also treat all warnings as errors.
apply plugin: 'com.android.application' android {... lintOptions { htmlReport true html
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't realize [it] because they sample me so much," he said.
Hayes credited his role on "South Park" with expanding his fan base, and said that he had almost passed on the job.
"I started to walk out. I thought it was a Disney thing. I [had] never heard of this thing," he said. But his agent persuaded him to tape some episodes.
"Toward the opening I started having trepidations -- 'Oh my god, what have I done? I've ruined my career.' But when it aired, the ratings went through the roof," he said.
A 1992 visit to the royal family in Ghana was a life-changing experience for Hayes, he said.
"I went back on speaking engagements and encouraged African-Americans to go to Africa [to] interact socially, culturally and/or economically," he said.21% Think Justice Department Should Charge Zimmerman With a Hate Crime
Most Americans don’t believe George Zimmerman was motivated by racism and do not believe he should be charged with a hate crime for shooting black teenager Trayvon Martin. But as with nearly every question regarding this case, there is wide racial disagreement.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 24% of all American Adults believe Zimmerman’s actions that led to Martin’s death were motivated primarily by racism. Fifty-four percent (54%) think the Hispanic Neighborhood Watch volunteer was chiefly motivated instead by a concern about burglaries in the neighborhood. Twenty-two percent (22%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording,click here.)
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on July 15-16, 2013 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
ORDavid Morier's painting " Culloden " depicts the Highland charge in 1746. It shows the Highlanders still wearing the plaids they normally set aside before battle. They would fire a volley, then run full tilt at the enemy, brandishing their weapons and wearing only their shirts.
The Highland charge was a battlefield shock tactic used by the clans of the Scottish Highlands which incorporated the use of firearms.
Historical development [ edit ]
Targe and broadsword from the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion
Prior to the 17th century, Highlanders fought in tight formations, led by a heavily armed warrior elite who carried heavy battle axes or claymores (two-handed swords whose name comes from the Scottish Gaelic claidheamh mòr "great sword").
However, with the introduction of muskets and cannon, such formations became vulnerable. As a result, in the 17th century, Highlander warriors developed a lighter, one-handed basket-hilted broadsword that protected the hand. This was generally used with a shield or targe strapped to the weak arm and a dirk or biotag "long knife" held in the other hand.
The Scottish and Irish warrior Alasdair Mac Colla is sometimes credited with inventing the Highland charge during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms[1] to meet a particular set of battlefield challenges.[2] It was initially known as the Irish charge, due to it first being implemented in Ireland, by Montrose's Irish brigade, before the Irish used it in Scotland again under Montrose.The use of the charge greatly resembled older Celtic fighting styles of battle in which one side would rush at the other in an attempt to break the line of battle.[3][4]
The charge [ edit ]
The charge required a high degree of commitment as the men were rushing into musket range and would suffer casualties from at least one volley. Speed was essential, so the Highlanders preferred to employ the charge downhill and over firm ground; they removed clothing from their lower body for the same reason. They ran forward in clusters of a dozen (often blood relatives) which formed a larger wedge shaped formation. Once in effective musket range (60 yards) those with firearms would shoot; gun-smoke from this mass discharge having obscured enemies' aim, the Highlanders obtained further protection from the expected return volley from the opposing force by crouching low to the ground immediately after firing. Then, firearms were dropped and edged weapons drawn, whereupon the men made the final rush on the enemy line with a Gaelic battle cry. On reaching striking distance the Highlander would attempt to take the opponent's sword or bayonet point on his targe while lunging in low to deliver an upward thrust to his enemy's torso.
Bayonet technology and the charge [ edit ]
The Highlanders are of such a quick motion that if a battalion keep up his fire to be sure of (hitting) them, they are upon it before our men can come to the second defense, which is the bayonet in the muzzle of the musket.[5]
Before the adoption of ring attachments for bayonets, the attachment consisted of a plug inserted into the barrel, which meant a musket could not be fired or reloaded with a fixed bayonet. During their charge Highlanders made a relatively instant transition from firearms to swords as they swiftly closed with the opposing force. Those enemy soldiers with plug attachments (some carried a pike) had only moments to fix bayonets while under psychological pressure from the onrushing Highlanders brandishing swords and roaring their war cries. At the Battle of Killiecrankie Lowland Scots who were veterans of the Dutch wars were overwhelmed by Highlanders of clan Cameron; the Highlanders secured a complete victory by a charge which killed 2000 redcoats for the loss of 800 Highlanders.[6][7][8]
The ring bayonet reduced the effectiveness of the Highland charge, but it remained an example of shock tactics, with the key factor being psychological; rather than being an attempt to cut through a solid enemy line, the charge aimed at causing some enemy troops in the opposing line to break ranks before contact, thereby leaving openings which could be exploited to 'roll up' the rest.[9] This happened at the Battle of Tippermuir and the Battle of Falkirk Muir.
The final and least successful use of the Highland charge was in 1746 during the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745, the Battle of Culloden. The battle pitted the Jacobite forces of Charles Edward Stuart against an army commanded by Prince William, Duke of Cumberland loyal to the British government. The under-nourished and unpaid Jacobite force was badly outnumbered and outgunned by well-trained regular troops who maintained discipline when charged.[10][11][12]
Culloden [ edit ]
To the dismay of his military advisors, Charles Edward Stuart insisted on offering battle to the pursuing army of Cumberland on the open moorland of Culloden with the intention of fighting defensively, a decision that most historians have seen as playing into the hands of the government forces. The Jacobites failed to take advantage of the opportunity of attacking before the enemy had positioned their artillery and were ready for action. Cumberland's artillery bombarded the Jacobite army, which was stationary and exposed, until up to a third of Charles's men were dispersed or made casualties (including a groom decapitated while holding Charles Edward's horse). At this point – and without orders from the by now unnerved Jacobite command – Clan Mackintosh in the centre of the Jacobite line began to charge. Donald Cameron of Lochiel led the Camerons to join them and some other clans followed in a spontaneous, uncoordinated and disorganized charge in which many failed to use their firearms. Despite canister shot and volleys, the charge reached – and in places broke through – the Government front line (though many Highlanders were without targes to protect from bayonets). However, Coehorn mortar shelling and devastating enfilade musket fire from the deeply echeloned government forces killed those who had made a breakthrough, while the others, after suffering heavy casualties, fell back in a retreat that quickly became a rout.[13][14][15][16]
Celtic ancestry and the tactical offensive [ edit ]
Grady McWhiney argued that, due to a high proportion of Celtic ancestry, Southerners during the American Civil War had a predilection for attack but lacked self-discipline and patience; this led to them repeatedly making reckless attacks that lost battles. He drew comparisons between the battles of Telamon (225 BC), Culloden (1746) and Gettysburg (1863). According to this thesis, the South lost the Civil War because Southerners made risky charges like their Celtic ancestors at a time when the rifled musket had shifted the balance against offense (as shown by the casualties suffered in attacks like Pickett's Charge).[17][18] Paddy Griffith was the proponent of an almost exactly countervailing view; he contended that lack of discipline among Civil War volunteers on both sides meant that potentially successful shock actions failed due to lack of commitment; rather than pressing assaults home, troops routinely went to ground at about sixty yards from the enemy line or entrenchment and engaged in short range firefights.[19][20]
See also [ edit ]We saw Cloud Atlas over the weekend and greatly enjoyed the movie. A times, especially early on, it can be a tad confusing. But as the movie progresses everything starts to come together and you realize the depth and breath of theme and story line – our actions have consequences, both good and bad throughout time – in the past and present, as well as future epochs. Everything and everyone are linked. Here is the superb trailer for the movie:
Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, Jim Sturgess, Jim Broadbent, David Gyashi, Hugo Weaving, Ben Whishaw, and Keith David were all terrific, but for Alison and I it was Doona Bae that stole the show in her powerful portrayal of Sonmi 451 in the apocalyptic future sequences of the movie.
I strongly recommend seeing Cloud Atlas and especially recommend staying for the credits to see how many varied roles each of the actors played in the movie. Some will startle you. If Cloud Atlas does not at least win the Oscars for Make-up, Costume Design, and Special Effects, it will be a crime. Doona Bae should also win for Best Supporting Actress. Enjoy – it is quite a trip.
AdvertisementsFemale activists in Myanmar, also known as Burma, say they’re receiving death threats from extremist Buddhist monks with the Ma Ba Tha, the nationalist group that controls much of the country. The activists are attemping to teach fellow Burmese women about sexual health, an effort that’s turning them into enemies of the state.
The Guardian has a fascinating story today about one piece of the struggle for women’s rights in Myanmar: the fact that Burmese has no word for “vagina.” That makes it extraordinarily difficult to communicate about women’s health issues or articulate if something is wrong. A local paper that recently printed the word “vagina” in English also faced a barrage of angry emails. There are also powerful social taboos dictating that anything having to do with a woman’s genitalia is unclean:
Garments that have come into close contact with a woman’s lower half, such as the traditional htamein (a wraparound skirt worn by most women in Myanmar) or underpants, are considered unclean, even after they have been washed. They are also believed to have the ability to rob men of their hpoun – a concept that could roughly be translated as “masculine power”. As such, it is taught that these items of clothing should never be hung in a place where men will have to walk under them. It is also unacceptable to wash men’s clothes in the same bowl or machine as women’s garments, for fear of contamination or loss of power. “It’s not right that people should tell us we’re dirty just because we menstruate. It is discrimination,” says 19-year-old Thu Thu, an activist from Shan state.
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Activist organizations are increasingly running workshops to teach women about sexual and reproductive health and women’s rights. That’s drawn the ire of the Ma Ba Tha, they told the Guardian; the organization is known in English as the Committee to Protect Race and Religion. The Ma Ba Tha has broad political and social control in the country: they recently backed a law preventing Buddhist women from marrying non-Buddhist men. It was one of four laws dealing with “race and religion” protection; all of them are seen as efforts to crack down on both women’s rights and to discriminate against the Rohingya, the country’s small Muslim minority.
One activist who asked not to be named told the Guardian that she and other people she works with have found their “names, photos and phone numbers” put on posters and displayed at Ma Ba Tha monasteries. They’ve received death threats, intimidation and public humiliation from the monks, she says. Human Rights Watch recently reported that supporters of the Ma Ba Tha recently held a massive, jubilant rally, celebrating the passage of the race and religion laws and signaling the monks’ growing power.
Contact the author at [email protected].
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: 67B5 5767 9D6F 652E 8EFD 76F5 3CF0 DAF2 79E5 1FB6Financial Industry Regulatory Authority halts trading in tech company with no assets, no revenue and just one employee
Financial regulators on Friday suspended trading in Cynk, the social networking company with no assets, no revenues and one employee, whose value on the stock market had mysteriously soared to $6bn in a matter of weeks.
Fuelling talk of another dotcom bubble, shares in the until now unknown Belize-based tech firm soared as much as 25,000% from the middle of June before being suspended Friday morning, before trading began. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority halted trading in the company, citing an "extraordinary event.”
In a statement, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) statement said the suspension had been made “because of concerns regarding the accuracy and adequacy of information in the marketplace, and potentially manipulative transactions in Cynk's common stock."
The stock’s runaway rise had made the profitless company more valuable than Domino’s Pizza, JetBlue or Spotify – even as a chorus of critics cited mounting evidence that there was little substance behind Cynk. Valued at 6¢ a share back in June, Cynk finished trading on Thursday valued at $14 and had reached as high as $21.
The rise has made a paper billionaire of Marlon Luis Sanchez, the chief financial officer, chief accounting officer, secretary, treasurer and director. Sanchez, a partner in Sanchez Medical Services, a company that “provides comprehensive medical services to the southern California market”, is also the primary spokesperson for the Medical Tourism Industry counsel in Tijuana, Mexico. Calls to the office of Sanchez Medical Services went unanswered.
Cynk’s main business is a website called introbiz.com, which markets itself as somewhere to “buy and sell the ability to socially connect to individuals such as celebrities, business owners, and talented IT professionals”.
The front page features a host of stars, including Angelina Jolie, Channing Tatum, Johnny Depp, Benedict Cumberbatch and Peter Dinklage, although there is no evidence the stars have any ties to the business. There seems to be very little activity on the site.
According to a regulatory filing made last November, Cynk has yet to officially launch, and plans to introduce a new model for social networks "that we believe will require some acceptance". The plan seems to involve being paid for making meetings happen.
“Cynk Technology Corp believes its planned social network may disrupt an inefficient model of meeting people that is currently based on vague notions of social capital by making it clear ‘I want to meet this person, and I will make it worth your while’,” the company said in its filing with the SEC.
“We believe that people will pay for introductions that are meaningful, since it can save or create significant value to someone's life such as to find the right executive, nanny, software developer – or even the right squash player. Instead of paying for a lunch that neither party wants to eat, parties can get down to business knowing that their time has been valued,” the company said.
Some companies, Cynk concedes, may be unhappy with their employees taking money for paid introductions. In those cases, money could be given to a charity. Cynk is also likely to “fly under the radar” for some time, according to the filing. Cynk concedes that there are plenty of other social networks out there, not least LinkedIn which has emerged as the major business-focussed social network.
“However, Cynk Technology Corp believes a social network that generates revenue is a compelling reason to get people to join,” the company said.
So far Cynk and its one employee have not made any money, at least not from their primary business. Sanchez was awarded 210m shares “for acceptance of position and responsibilities” on 17 April 2013. The shares were valued at $.0068 each, or $1,428,000 (£834,000) at the time. Assuming he still holds those shares, and that he would have been allowed to sell them and able to find a buyer, on Thursday they were worth an astounding $2.9bn (£1.69bn).
Cynk’s extraordinary rise started about three weeks ago with a barrage of Twitter accounts tweeting about a massive surge in the stock’s price. The volatile penny-stock market is notorious for sudden share price rises and falls that leave the owners who bought in high holding the bag and facing large losses.
Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, a global brokerage company based in New York, said: “After the 1990s tech bubble, the 2000s housing bubble, and the financial crisis, you’d think that investors would be keenly aware of excessive risk taking. Turns out you’d be wrong, at least in several areas.”It's time to end chemical trade secrets
It's time to end the chemical secrecy
(NaturalNews) After weeks of silence on the issue, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally decided to go public with the list of ingredients used to manufacture, the chemical dispersant used by BP in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. There are two things about this announcement that deserve our attention: First, the ingredients that have been disclosed are extremely toxic, and second, why did the EPA protect the oil industry's "trade secrets" for so long by refusing to disclose these ingredients until now?As reported in the New York Times, Brian Turnbaugh, a policy analyst atsaid, "EPA had the authority to act all along; its decision to now disclose the ingredients demonstrates this. Yet it took a public outcry and weeks of complaints for the agency to act and place the public's interest ahead of corporate interests."On the toxicity question, you could hardly find a more dangerous combination of poisons to dump into the Gulf of Mexico than what has been revealed in Corexit. The Corexit 9527 product has been designated a "chronic and acute health hazard" by the EPA. It is made with, a highly toxic chemical that has long been linked to the health problems of cleanup crews who worked on thespill.A newer Corexit recipe dubbed the "9500 formula" contains, a detergent chemical that's also found in laxatives. What do you suppose happens to the marine ecosystem when fish and sea turtles ingest this chemical through their gills and skin? And just as importantly, what do you think happens to the human beings who are working around this chemical, breathing in its fumes and touching it with their skin?The answers are currently unknown, which is exactly why it is so inexcusable that Nalco and the oil industry giants would for so long refuse to disclose the chemical ingredients they're dumping into the Gulf of Mexico in huge quantities (over a million gallons dumped into the ocean to date).But it gets even more interesting when you look at just how widespread this "chemical secrecy" is across Big Business in the USA... and how the U.S. government more often than not conspires with industry to keep these chemicals a secret.Armed with the accomplices in the FDA, EPA, FTC and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, powerful corporations have been keeping secrets from us all. It's not just the toxic chemicals in Corexit, either: Large manufacturers of consumers products -- such as Unilever, Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson ---- ingredients which are usually kept secret from the public.Similarly, virtually every perfume, cologne and fragrance product on the market is made withthat their manufacturers refuse to disclose, claiming their formulas are "trade secrets."Throughout Big Business in America, the toxic chemicals used in everyday products such as household cleaners, cosmetics and yard care remain a dangerous secret, and the U.S. government actually colludes with industry to keep these chemical ingredients a secret by, for example, refusing to require full disclosure of ingredients for personal care products. The FDA offers us virtually no enforcement in this area, depending almost entirely on companies to declare their own chemicals are safe rather than requiring actual safety testing to be conducted.This is why the following statement is frightening yet true:. We are all beingby the toxic chemicals in personal care products, foods, medicines, fragrance products and other concoctions created by powerful corporations that use toxic chemicals throughout their product lines... but who refuse to disclose those ingredients in the public.Thanks to the widespread use of secret chemicals in foods, medicines and personal care products, we arethat have already reached the shores of public health. The rates of cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes and infertility that we're seeing right now are a reflection of the devastating health cost associated with ongoing the ongoing chemical contamination of our population. Even public water fluoridation policies are a kind of "water contamination disaster" where chemicals from an undisclosed source are dumped into the water supply (on purpose, no less!).What's doubly disturbing about all this is that many of the chemicals used in foods, medicines, household cleaners and personal care products end up in the Gulf of Mexico as well because they get flushed down stream. So now the Gulf isn't just polluted with crude oil and dispersant chemicals; it's also heavily contaminated with all the chemical runoff from the products made by large corporations that refuse to disclose the actual chemical ingredients, claiming they're trade secrets.As this Gulf of Mexico oil disaster clearly demonstrates, it's time to end the chemical secrecy maintained by Big Business. We must demand thatso that the curtain of chemical secrecy is lifted once a for all.Neither oil companies nor consumer product companies should be able to hide behind the excuse of "trade secrets" to avoid disclosing the actual chemicals contained in the products they sell. As consumers, we must demandfrom these companies or refuse to buy their products.Legislatively, we must demand new laws that requireon all consumer products so that ordinary people can see what's contained in the products they buy.In a world where one person's chemical runoff impacts every other person, there is no justification for chemical secrecy. We all have the right to know what we're putting on (or in) our bodies, and if companies refuse to be honest with us, we should boycott their products and publicly shame them for engaging in deceptive, secretive behavior.Because the truth is that consumer product companies don't dare want you to know what's actually found in their products. And that's because most of their products are. If the average perfume product listed its chemical ingredients on the label, for example, product sales would plummet as consumers realized just how many of those ingredients are linked to cancer and liver disorders.Big Business wants us all to remain ignorant... blinded to the truth of what poisons they're slathering on our skin or dripping down our throats. But it's time to halt this dark era of chemical secrets in our modern world. It's time to demand transparency, clean up our waterways and stop poisoning ourselves and our planet.A proposal to add the bitcoin “B” to the Unicode computing character standard was accepted this week.
Submitted by tech blogger and pencil-and-paper bitcoin miner Ken Shirriff, the proposal was approved during a quarterly meeting held by the Unicode Consortium, the organization backing the decades-old computing standard.
Members of the Consortium include Apple, Google, Huawei, Microsoft, Oracle and a variety of other institutional and individual contributors. The organization was not immediately available for comment when reached.
Shirriff’s 14-page proposal was the second to be considered by the Unicode Committee, and brings to a close a process that began in fits and starts as far back as 2011.
Submitted in March of that year, the first proposal, entered by Sander van Galoven of the Netherlands, was ultimately turned down by the committee.
According to committee minutes published at the time, the 2011 proposal was rejected on the grounds “that the use of the bitcoin symbol in (running) text” had not been demonstrated and because Bitcoin.org was using the symbol as a logo.
In 2014, the Bitcoin Foundation began putting together a working group to develop a Unicode proposal, though no submission developed as a result of that process. The Foundation would later endorse Shirriff’s proposal.
In an interview with CoinDesk, Shirriff said that he saw a need for a submission that drew from an understanding of how exactly the Unicode Consortium goes about approving proposals, explaining:
“It seemed that nobody else in the bitcoin community really understood the Unicode process and because I had gone through it earlier with a totally unrelated character, I had some familiarity with how it worked. So I decided I should just do it myself.”
He cited contributions from volunteers on the bitcoin subreddit as well as the Bitcoin Talk forum for providing sufficient evidence to back the proposal, citing the need to establish its common use as a text icon. He also pointed to past experience with the Unicode Committee in getting a symbol from an obscure character set approved as a result of restoration work on a 1960s IBM mainframe.
From here, the approved proposal is set to be enshrined in a future Unicode standard release, meaning that eventually the symbol can be used on almost any computer.
The Consortium’s latest version, Unicode 9, is scheduled to be published sometime next year.
Bitcoin symbol image via ShutterstockStory highlights White House press secretary calls the agreement "a welcome development"
The deal will continue funding through March 2013
Some GOP aides wanted to keep pressure to reach a deal and keep a key bargaining chip
Current funding is due to expire at the end of September
Congressional leaders announced a deal Tuesday on a six-month bill to fund the federal government, thereby removing the possibility of a government shutdown -- and the political spectacle that would go with it -- before the election.
"It will provide stability for the coming months," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told reporters. "It will be free of riders. This is very good because we can resolve these critical issues that directly affect the country as soon as the election is over and move on to do good things."
"Leader Reid and I have reached an agreement by which the House and Senate will approve a six-month continuing resolution in September to keep the government operating into next year," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement. "During the August district work period, committee members and their staff will write legislation that can be passed by the House and Senate in September and sent to President Obama to be signed into law."
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney called the agreement "a welcome development." In a statement, he said, "The president has made clear that it is essential that the legislation to fund the government adheres to the funding levels agreed to by both parties last year, and not include ideological or extraneous policy riders. The president will work with leaders in both parties to sign a bill that accomplishes these goals."
Current funding for federal agencies is due to expire at the end of September.
Tuesday's announced deal, on what is known as a continuing resolution, would continue funding through March 2013, two months after the presidential inauguration, giving both parties time to avoid another messy spending fight.
"I think it's the right thing to do," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, told CNN before the announcement. "Thank God we're not going through another threatened government shutdown from the Republicans."
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Several members of the conservative Republican Study Committee, who had previously pushed for a lower spending level in spending bills, reversed course in the last couple of weeks and told House GOP leaders they could support a six-month measure at the spending level agreed to in last summer's debt deal.
That level -- $1.047 trillion -- had been a key point for Senate Democrats who insisted that it not drop below that level.
Some conservatives believe that if Republicans win the White House and take control of the Senate in November, they can get bigger spending cuts and policy changes in next year's government funding bills.
Not all House Republicans support the move. Some GOP aides believe that removing the pressure to reach an agreement on spending at the end of the year -- the same time Congress needs to deal with the expiration of tax cuts and automatic spending cuts -- could mean giving up a key bargaining chip in negotiations with the Democratic-led Senate.
Lawmakers from both parties complain when Congress drops the regular appropriations process, which adds scrutiny to the spending of tax dollars. But continuing resolutions have become a reality in recent years as partisanship has prevented the type of compromise needed to pass appropriations bills.
"This is not our preference," Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee, told CNN. "The chairman believes we should do our work in regular order. It's the responsibility to do the fiscal and budget work of the Congress every year."It was extraordinary, and ordinary: This is what America did to people, what it always has done.
My parents brought us to India every few years as children. I relished time with relatives; but India always felt alien, impenetrable, frozen.
Perhaps it was the survivalism born of scarcity: the fierce pushing to get off the plane, the miserliness even of the rich, the obsession with doctors and engineers and the neglect of all others. Perhaps it was the bureaucracy, the need to know someone to do anything. Or the culture shock of servitude: a child’s horror at reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in an American middle school, then seeing servants slapped and degraded in India.
My firsthand impression of India seemed to confirm the rearview immigrant myth of it: a land of impossibilities. But history bends and swerves, and sometimes swivels fully around.
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India, having fruitlessly pursued command economics, tried something new: It liberalized, privatized, globalized. The economy boomed, and hope began to course through towns and villages shackled by fatalism and low expectations.
America, meanwhile, floundered. In a blink of history came 9/11, outsourcing, Afghanistan, Iraq, Katrina, rising economies, rogue nuclear nations, climate change, dwindling oil, a financial crisis.
Pessimism crept into the sunniest nation. A vast majority saw America going astray. Books heralded a “Post-American World.” Even in the wake of a historic presidential election, culminating in a dramatic change in direction, it remained unclear whether the United States could be delivered from its woes any time soon.
“In the U.S., there’s a crisis of confidence,” said Nandan Nilekani, co-chairman of Infosys Technologies, the Indian software giant. “In India,” he added, “for the first time after decades or centuries, there is a sense of optimism about the future, a sense that our children’s futures can be better than ours if we try hard enough.”
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My love for the country of my birth has never flickered. But these new times piqued interest in my ancestral land. Many of us, the stepchildren of India, felt its change of spirit, felt the gravitational force of condensed hope. And we came.
Exact data on émigrés working in India or spending more time here are scarce. But this is one indicator: India unveiled an Overseas Citizen of India card in 2006, offering foreign citizens of Indian origin visa-free entry for life and making it easier to work in the country. By this July, more than 280,000 émigrés had signed up, according to The Economic Times, a business daily, including 120,000 from the United States.
At first we felt confused by India’s formalities and hierarchies, by British phraseology even the British had jettisoned, by the ubiquity of acronyms. We wondered what newspapers meant when they said, “INSAT-4CR in orbit, DTH to get a boost.” (Apparently, it meant a satellite would soon beam direct-to-home television signals.)
Working in offices, some of us were perplexed to be invited to “S&M conferences,” only to discover that this denoted sales and marketing. Several found to their chagrin that it is acceptable for another man to touch your inner thigh when you crack a joke in a meeting.
We learned new expressions: “He is on tour” (Means: He is traveling. Doesn’t mean: He has joined U2.); “What is your native place?” (Means: Where did your ancestors live? Doesn’t mean: What hospital delivered you?); “Two minutes” (Means: An hour. Doesn’t mean: Two minutes.).
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We tried to reinvent ourselves, as our parents had, but in reverse. Some studied Hindi, others yoga. Some visited the Ganges to find themselves; others tried days-long meditations.
Many of us who shunned Indian clothes in youth began wearing kurtas and chappals, saris and churidars. There was a sad truth in this: We had waited for our heritage to become cool to the world before we draped its colors and textures on our own backs.
We learned how to make friends here, and that it requires befriending families. We learned to love here: Men found fondness for the elusive Indian woman; women surprised themselves in succumbing to chauvinistic, mother-spoiled men.
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We forged dual-use accents. We spoke in foreign accents by default. But when it came to arguing with accountants or ordering takeout kebabs, we went sing-song Indian.
We gravitated to work specially suited to us. If there is a creative class, in Richard Florida’s phrase, there is also emerging what might be called a fusion class: people positioned to mediate among the multiple societies that claim them.
India’s second-generation returnees have built boutiques that fuse Indian fabrics with Western cuts, founded companies that train a generation to work in Western companies, become dealmakers in investment firms that speak equally to Wall Street and Dalal Street, mixed albums that combine throbbing tabla with Western melodies.
Our parents’ generation helped India from afar. They sent money, advised charities, guided hedge-fund dollars into the Bombay Stock Exchange. But most were too implicated in India to return. Our generation, unscathed by it, was freer to embrace it.
Countries like India once fretted about a “brain drain.” We are learning now that “brain circulation,” as some call it, may be more apt.
India did not export brains; it invested them. It sent millions away. In the freedom of new soil, they flowered. They seeded a new generation that, having blossomed, did what humans have always done: chase the frontier of the future.
Which just happened, for many of us, to be the frontier of our own pasts.By virtually every indicator, 2007 was a dismal year for American workers. Job growth slowed, unemployment jumped and wages lost what little ground they had gained against inflation since 2003. There is one sliver of good news: the percentage of American workers who belong to a union rose for the first time in three decades.
The Labor Department reported that the number of workers belonging to a union grew by 311,000 to 15.7 million. That means union members increased from 12 percent of the American work force in 2006 to 12.1 percent last year. In the private sector, unions’ share of workers inched ahead from 7.4 percent to 7.46 percent. While the rebound is tiny, and might yet prove to be a statistical mirage, it is the first recorded increase in organized labor’s ranks since the 1970s, when almost one in four workers belonged to a union.
There is little doubt that American workers need unions. Wages today are almost 10 percent lower than they were in 1973, after accounting for inflation. The share of national income devoted to workers’ wages and benefits is at its lowest since the late-1960s, while the share going to profits has surged. The decline in unionization has been a big part of the reason that workers have lost so much ground.
The future of organized labor is not cause for great optimism. Employers have become more aggressive about keeping unions out. Competitive pressures from globalization, deregulation and technological change have resulted in the loss of many union jobs.
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Indeed, unionization rose last year partly because of the slow pace of job creation in nonunionized sectors of the labor market. The jump in unionization rates in the construction industry, for example, was partly attributed to the steep decline in residential construction, where there are fewer unions, while the more heavily unionized commercial construction sector remained strong.
Still, the uptick offers hope that the renewed emphasis on organizing workers by some of the nation’s largest unions — like the service employees’ union, the Teamsters and others that split off from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to form the Change to Win coalition — might start paying dividends despite the difficult odds.To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Beware guys – this serial puddle splasher could be coming to a town near you.
Police are hunting the evil person who deliberately drives around soaking people in his Toyota 4×4.
The man seems to take extreme pleasure in going out for fun every time it rains.
MORE: Cop buys car seat for young girl instead of giving struggling dad a fine
This is what the car looks like – do you recognise it? (Picture: MPS Camden)
For the moment, he seems to have only struck in the Kentish Town area of north London, but you never know where he could hit next.
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He’s already struck ‘countless times’ over the past few months, soaking dozens of pedestrians as he purposely drives close to the kerb and
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iren, that side was covered.
A few different rooms to sit in, spacious, stripped wooden tables, a bright (today) beer garden (where Sheffield truly excels for me).
Sheffield is a city that reveals its beery charms slowly, and this was another cracking pub. Well worth the walk.
Next, my highlight of an excellent day.
The Bath Hotel – 66-68 Victoria St, Sheffield S3 7QL
My first Thornbridge pub. And a thing of beauty. The frontage is deceptive, but the stained glass front windows should have given me a warning of the delights within.
The pub has an almost odd shape to it which adds to its charm, it tapers off to a narrow edge making it a wedge shape, but inside it crams 3 rooms, loads of wood, so much stained glass, buckets of “original features” and a small yet perfectly formed bar into its diminutive footprint.
Don’t ask me about beer notes, there was plenty of cask and keg to choose from. I had a big Thornbridge pale (not Jaipur) and it was simply gorgeous – maybe this is where Untappd would come into its own. But I don’t use it.
A pub with soul to spare, various events too, Poetry evenings, Jazz nights….a bit of everything. This took a walk to get to and it felt like it was on the outskirts of town (when it really isn’t) But, I’m so glad we did. Just a thing of beauty. If you come to Sheff, this is simply a must try.
And a real fire for those cool Yorkshire summer evenings!
The Devonshire Cat – 49 Wellington St, Sheffield S1 4HG
Having been in the company of Jim & Laura from Abbeydale for most of the day, it seemed fitting that we should end up in what is – effectively – the Abbeydale Brewery Tap.
This is a large open plan space, with judicious use of seat back dividers to break it up and give a feel of separate spaces. It was getting late, so a couple of nice pales were in order. On drinking a nice sharp pint of Abbeydale’s Deception, I picked up on some of the conversation about Abbeydale doubling up the hoppage on their more sessionable beers….Salford was at the front of my mind at this point….
Then we hit some stronger stuff. Black Mass, there was something barrel aged going on too…things were starting to get hazy….(with a beer fest to launch the next evening this was getting silly…..but….)
A cracking ending.
HUGE thanks to Steve for walking us around. Malcolm and the Wakefield crew, Jim & Laura for the great company and chatter. Twas a joy.
(The Final?) Huddersfield Food & Drink Fest post to come, then 2 months off.
Hasta la vista.As some have noticed, I’m starting to reblog posts of transgender writers who express unbridled contempt for women under their veneer of woman-identification with the tag ‘naked male supremacy.’
If you take away the makeup, the clothing, the hormones, and the pronouns, what remains is a male-socialized, male-bodied person who has been trained to understand women and girls as inferior servants who are deserving of rage and violence when they demand equal treatment.
These activists excuse their misogyny with this circular logic: “I am a woman, I don’t hate myself; therefore, I don’t nate women.”
I invite you to reblog and tag offending posts so we can contain and document this behavior.
Ps, I’m well aware this isn’t “all trans people.” But it’s become acceptable to behave this and it’s time to reverse it. This is a first step.You are looking at the artist concept sketch for the Krampus Lid.
New $60,000 stretch goal!
All steins will be upgraded to a special Krampus Lid at no extra cost. The Special Krampus Lid is a 3D sculpt designed by Mitch O'Connell. This awesome upgrade will be cast in metal to stand up to the extreme use of an average beer drinker. And did I say " This is a free upgrade! " YEAH!
New $85,000 stretch goal!
We have one last Stretch Goal........ Krampus Lid ULTRA! Not only will a metal sculpture of Krampus be on top of the base but now the base itself will be tricked out. Mitch O'Connell has designed the base to included bits and pieces of his art from the stein. A separate mold has to be made for this and at the soaring heights that we have risen (over $80,000) we can afford to have this done. The Krampus Lid ULTRA Stretch Goal is $85,000. We can do this! Soon the Krampus Stein Kickstarter Project will be history. You will not be able to get any once this happens, within the next few days is the last chance to own a 2015 Krampus Stein.
Thanks to all that have made this a truly successful Kickstarter Champagne!
Cheers from
Munktiki/Münk Stein
Krampus Close-ups
Krampus Close-up
A new era of mugs by Munk Stein is about to arrive with your help. The first is Krampus Stein with an extremely detailed relief rendition of Mitch O'Connell's Fantastic Krampus Print. Our first beer stein, in hopefully a continuing line of steins, comes in 2 Styles, Painted Style and Raw Style. Krampus Stein is 9 3/4 inches tall and holds 30 ounces of your favorite beer. The fitted lid helps keep out unwanted pests and debris, a plus for any beer lover. Help an old art form stay alive with new and current art by supporting this project.
Munk Stein is an off shoot from the parent company Munktiki which has been making tiki mugs and ceramic oddities since 2000. Their work has appeared at galleries, bars, shops and in the hands of private collectors though out the world. You can visit Munktiki's online shop at www.munktiki.com
Krampus Poster
Mitch O'Connell has illustrated for every major publication you can think of, has had his art exhibited in galleries and museums around the world and his imagery is merchandised up the rear. His love of tattoos, especially traditional American flash, is apparent in his 3 sets of sold-out tattoo flash, "Stewed Screwed and Tattooed," "Done While Drunk," and "From the Bottom of the Barrel." Many of the designs were collected in the bestselling Last Gasp book, "Mitch O'Connell Tattoos," now in it's 5th printing. Those designs were also brought to life by thousands of talented tattooists on thousands of satisfied customers. He curated shows at Chicago's "Tattoo Factory Gallery" for two years, including the famous "Tura! Tura! Tura!" exhibit, a tribute to Tura Satana. Most recently he curated "Ghoul Power!" a huge artistic tribute to Detroit's very own beloved tv horror host, The Ghoul. He has judged shows at Northeastern Illinois University and participated in their "Inked: Tattoo Imagery In Contemporary Culture" exhibition. He also was a guest speaker and contributing artist at the Baltimore Museum of Fine Arts, "Baltimore Ink: Patterns On Bodies" exhibition.
Currently he is hard(ish) at work on his 4th set of flash and his second book of tattoo designs.
http://www.mitchoconnell.com/
http://mitchoconnell.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/mitch.oconnell
Mitch O'Connell's Newest Book
http://www.amazon.com/Mitch-OConnell-Worlds-Best-Artist/dp/0867197730
Awesome Bonus STUFF!!!
Send a friend a Krampus card and set your drink on a Krampus Coaster. The Natural Drink Krampus Coasters are 4" Round and a 110 pt. thickness. Protect your table with these classic pulp board coasters.
Woodruff Syrup
B.G.Reynolds' Hand-Crafted syrups are made in Portland, Oregon by bartender and owner of Hale Pele, Blair Reynolds. Made by a bartender for bartenders, they feature all-natural ingredients and flavorings, unique blends of sugar, and cocktail recipes on each bottle.
Woodruff Syrup is a traditional German recipe that uses sweet woodruff leaves as a flavoring. To cut the tartness of some beers small amounts of woodruff syrup are used. B.G. Reynolds Woodruff Syrup is a special limited release to celebrate the release of Krampus Stein by Munk Stein. So fill your stein with something tart, throw in a dash of Woodruff Syrup to taste, and enjoy with friends!
Ingredients: Sugar, water, woodruff, extractives, citric acid
Krampus T-Shirt
Style it up in a Krampus T-shirt. Krampus T-Shirts are 100% cotton with a hand screened Krampus in red. Let us know your size to insure the best fit.
Krampus Rewards Chart
Use this chart to help find the reward that works best for you.HackerNest Tech Socials (http://hackernest.com/cities/) are a fun, relaxed way to connect with your local tech brethren. Atmosphere: chill, friendly, unpretentious, agenda-free (no sales pitch, yo), and brimming with UltraSmart(TM) people.
We believe that strong, supportive tech communities should exist everywhere - not just in hotspots like San Francisco and New York. In 2011, we started running Tech Socials in Toronto (http://meetup.com/hackernest), where our monthly attendance grew to over 350+ technologists literally 100% from word-of-mouth.
The typical Tech Social schedule:
- 8:00pm: folks arrive, grab drinks, socialize
- 9:00pm: quick announcements, thank sponsors
- 9:10pm: back to chatting
- 11:00pm: go home!
Drinks on us. That's right: free beer/wine/water.
ID required if you look under 25.
Sponsors ([masked]):
Perimeter Development Corporation (http://perimeterdevelopment.com/): Specializing in adaptive re-use, infill, re-development, mixed-use and new greenfield projects
Sponsors (http://hackernest.com/sponsor_info/) make this growing movement possible, so we treasure and build deep, long-term relationships with the companies that endorse us. We're always looking for new friends (https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&[email protected])!
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Sweet Tooth (https://www.sweettoothrewards.com/): We get loyalty.
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HackerNest (http://hackernest.com/) is an international nonprofit uniting local tech communities (http://hackernest.com/cities/) through unpretentious Tech Socials (http://hackernest.com/cities/) and hackathons (http://hackernest.com/construct/). We cram lots of smart, accomplished people into a room with free drinks. Our relaxed, down-to-earth events attract a diverse and highly technical membership. Strict no-douchebag policy (http://hackernest.com/faqs/for-attendees/).With the 2016 Mazda CX-5 facelift, the Hiroshima-based outfit put a twist on a clean-sheet design. Mazda wiped the smile off most of its models’ faces when it adopted the Kodo - Soul of Motion styling language and nobody is missing the Japanese manufacturer’s styling from 10 years ago because the Kodo is responsible for the brand’s reawakening.
SUV
AWD
Mazda subtly classed up the CX-5’s act on every level. Unlike most mid-cycle refreshes, the 2016 Mazda CX-5 facelift is more about the interior than the exterior.
Despite its dimensions, driving the CX-5 inside a congested city is a trouble-free affair.
FWD
The 2.2 turbo diesel motor is an interesting lump, an oil-burning engine with extremely clever engineering built into it.
It all started with the CX-5, the first Mazda nameplate to receive the treatment and the best all-rounder in the lineup. Preceding our thorough analysis of the 2016 Mazda CX-5, it is mandatory to highlight that the Ford days are over.Mazda is more or less by itself now in a sea of big fish automakers. Heck, the Japanese company went a whopping five years without posting operational profit. Until 2013. Care to guess why 2013 saw Mazda bounce back?The arrival of the CX-5 crossover at the end of 2012 and the launch of the all-new Mazda6 and Mazda3 in 2013 are to thank for that. The CX-5 shouldn’t be taken lightly though. It’s not just another crossover.It’s the first Mazda model to implement the highly efficient SkyActiv technologies and it’s a commercial success story. The Mazda3 may lead in terms of volume but here is a figure that makes the CX-5 top dog: whereas the 3 managed to sell 272 more units in 2014 compared to 2013, the Mazda CX-5 trumps that with 19,578 more units.Demand for the compact crossoveris growing by 24 percent or so every year, which means only one thing in our book: the proverbial selling like hot cakes isn’t just an idiom in the context at hand. Not at all.But are these figures backed up by a thoroughly good product, one that sells this well because it has genuine good points that convince customers to buy the Mazda CX-5? Yes, they are, and then some. Mazda is a maverick manufacturer that does much with little. Not only does it keep the affordable roadster flame flickering with the MX-5 Miata, but the organic driving dynamics trickle down to its more down-to-earth offerings like the CX-5.Even though the CX-5 is the athlete of the non-premium compact SUV segment, don’t expect any Jinba Ittai from this model. The apex-loving CX-5 is a poised machine on the road, only bettered by the. Off the beaten path, the CX-5 can hold its own, albeit other all-wheel drive systems like Subaru’s Symmetricalare more capable for offroading.The first zoom in Zoom-Zoom can be attributed to the exterior makeover. As a design statement, the Kodo - Soul of Motion theme is strong on this model without feeling like designers changed styling cues just for the hell of it.Take the front and rear LED lights as a prime example of that. The shape of the headlamps and taillamps is more or less the same as before; only interior layout and lighting tech are classified as upgrades.Then there’s the redesigned front bumper design that offers a tauter, bolder look. LED fog lights with black-painted trapezoidal bezels, a redesigned five-point radiator grille with five horizontal fins painted metallic grey, and an oversized Mazda logo are the main aesthetics revisions.Coupled to the muscular black plastic cladding on the wheel arches, the pumped up fender arches, rearward A-pillars, pointy C-pillars, sharply raked rear windshield and shark fin antenna, the CX-5 is exuding unrestricted harmony.It’s a good-looking vehicle, one that attracts understated nods of appreciation from passers-by and traffic participants. A word of warning though: the paint job of our test car is a pain to keep clean.Even the smallest droplets of rain that evaporate on the Titanium Flash Mica-painted body shell defile the gorgeous proportions of the 2016 Mazda CX-5 facelift. In our book, colors like Soul Red Metallic, Blue Reflex Mica and Arctic White Solid suit the crossover’s curvaceous yet dynamic physique better.Lower your eyelids and concentrate on the smallest of details. Yes, that’s right, the lever of the handbrake is no longer there, being exchanged with an e-brake.There’s a remodeled center armrest, a cubby that fits the key fob perfectly, a rubbery surface underneath the HVAC unit for your smartphone and two USB ports: one for media playback and one for charging duties.The dominant refinement is the 7-inch touchscreen media system located at the top-center of the dashboard. Compared to the button-laden 5.8-inch monitor of yesteryear, the new unit is bigger and better integrated within the dashboard. It doesn’t look like an afterthought anymore, and it isn’t small in proportion to its recess.Controllable via the BMW iDrive-like rotary knob located south of the gear shifter, the Mazda MZD Connect infotainment system is a breeze to use. Mind you, as a safety precaution, the touchscreen controls are disabled when the car isn’t stationary.Most of all, the interior of the updated Mazda CX-5 is more welcoming due to the pursuit of high-quality materials and better ergonomics for all passengers. Other than the eye-candy provided by aluminum and satin chrome trim pieces, the sponginess of the plastic used for the upper and lower levels of the dashboard enhance your tactile senses. For a non-premium compact crossover, it actually feels upscale.Though it doesn’t have the same wheelbase as thesedan, 2,700 mm (106.2 inches) are adequate for the tallest occupants you can find. With the driver’s seat in my driving position, I still had a bucketload of knee room. Furthermore, I found even the central rear seat satisfactory for my 1.83 m (6 feet) thanks to the CX-5’s small transmission tunnel and high roofline.Then there’s the unique 4:2:4 three-way split folding rear seats, which can be folded almost flat into the floor if you simply pull levers located on the sides of the boot compartment. Without the hidden compartment underneath the boot floor that can be equipped with a space-saver wheel, it’s possible to squeeze 464 liters (16.4 cuFT) of stuff in there.The clever 4:2:4 folding seats will let you fit skis and snowboards as well by folding down only the middle rear seat. If your agenda includes a day-long IKEA shopping spree, the total capacity of 1,620 liters (57.2 cuFT) is ample enough for most of your bits and bobs.The practicality of the interior is rounded off nicely by door bins and cup holders large enough to accommodate 1-liter bottles. The exterior is able-bodied, and the interior is a smart place to be in, but how does the 2016 Mazda CX-5 facelift feels like to drive in the city?Our automatic-equipped and diesel-fed test car does a great job in congested cities, be it narrow streets or stop & go traffic. If anything, the six-speed automatic is a better bet than the six-speed manual for two reasons: this type of car doesn’t make sense with a manual and the automatic makes the best of the available 175 horsepower and 420 Nm (310 lb-ft) of torque.It is the run-of-the-mill torque converter type, a transmission that is not to be hurried like a double-clutch unit. If you’re the type of driver that emphasizes on comfort more than spiritedness in the act of driving, you’ll make a great team with the six-speed slushbox. When the i-Eloop stop&start system cuts the engine off at the lights, you’ll have to shift into neutral if you don’t want your right foot to become sore.The reason for this soreness is that the brake pedal has to be pressed harder than normal to engage the stop&start system. If you press it normally, like in a manual-equipped Mazda6 with i-Eloop, the engine won’t stop and you won’t save any fuel whatsoever. That’s a bit of a shame if you consider that i-Eloop improves fuel economy by 2 mpg on average.This is possible thanks to great all-round visibility, electric power steering, and a plethora of driving aids. The threadlike pillars won’t pose any problem for the driver when negotiating an intersection or when backing up into a tight space.Parking sensors back and forth and a rear parking camera come as standard on higher-spec models like our Revolution Top. In a nutshell, the 2016 Mazda CX-5 facelift is a breeze to drive and navigate in the urban jungle.The downside in terms of city driving is the Mazda-specific hard dampers. Don’t blame the 19-inch alloy wheels for the jittery ride on potholed roads. Although the suspension is uncommonly capable for a vehicle in this segment, the ride feels a bit firm in town. Fret not though - you won’t need to put the chiropractor on speed dial.Mazda says that the facelift benefits from better sound insulation and NVH solutions. With the windows up, the climate control set just so on automatic and the Bose stereo playing a summery tune, it feels like you are cocooned inside an inviting, cozy place that fills you with good karma.On the long haul, the suspension’s tuning starts to make sense. If not for some muffled tire roar and wind noise from the generous side mirrors, the CX-5 would be an ideal long-distance partner. The handling impresses for a vehicle of this type, albeit hard deceleration will make the nose dive in such a way that your instincts will tell you to press the brake pedal harder to stop as intended.The CX-5 is gifted with sharp reflexes and the ability to carve the corners like a compact hatchback. It’s a funny feeling to drive the CX-5 hard on twisty roads. The suspension keeps its composure even on damp surfaces while the electric power steering system sends sufficient feedback to your fingertips to feel what’s going on with the front axle.An honorable mention though: the all-wheel drive system of the CX-5 gives you supreme control of the car when carrying speed into a corner. But if you feed it too much throttle after entering a corner, it’ll wash the front axle into safe and predictable understeer.Going for a front-wheel drive, manual-equipped isn’t recommended for this type of vehicle. A compact crossover without all-wheel drive and a good set of rubber shoes is like a summer without sunny weather. Offroading capabilities aside, the trade-off ofis that you won’t feel the rear wheels working together with the front at finding traction and grip in the twisties.Over 61 percent of the chassis and body shell is made of high-tensile steels, including 1,800 MPa ultra-high tensile steel for the bumper beams. In addition to the unbelievable structural rigidity, these materials are also lightweight.Let’s compare our 2016 Mazda CX-5 facelift in 2.2 Diesel CD175 AT AWD Revolution Top specification with the 2015 BMW X3 2.0 xDrive20d AT. We’re talking about 1,570 kg (3,461 lbs) vs. 1,820 kg (4,012 lbs).That’s right - the X3 is the better handling of the two, but the CX-5 feels ballerina-light on its feet thanks to a curb weight advantage of 250 kilograms (551 lbs). SkyActiv isn’t just marketing, but a synonym for intelligent engineering.In the US and Europe, the choice of engines includes an entry-level 2-liter SkyActiv-G petrol, a 2.5-liter SkyActiv-G petrol and our pick of the bunch - a 2.2-liter SkyActiv-D turbo diesel. The 2-liter may feel asthmatic at times, which is why the only way to go, if petrol is your favorite, is the punchier 2.5-liter four-cylinder.Some of the secrets to the cleanliness and fuel efficiency of the petrol-fed powerplants are the ultra-high compression ratio of 14:1, special pistons, and a 4-2-1-type exhaust system.On the turbo diesel front, we’re still not happy with Mazda’s decision to go for a 2.2-liter instead of a 2-point-Oh. The 191 cubic centimeters between the previously mentioned displacements can make a great difference in yearly taxation in most European countries.Ever wondered why Mazda hasn’t taken up the hybrid trend? It’s the SkyActiv technologies that keep the status quo in Mazda’s favor. With 175 horsepower and 420 Nm (310 lb-ft), the 2.2-liter is gutsy, but it’s also one of the most technologically advanced turbo diesels currently produced.The SkyActiv-D engine met Euro 6 emissions standard some 3 years before the standard took effect. It doesn’t employ costly exhaust aftertreatment systems, and it doesn’t use Adblue to cleanse the muck before it gets out the exhaust tips.The secret to this wizardry is an ultra-low 14.0:1 compression ratio. Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to the world’s lowest diesel engine compression ratio.This not only reduces weight and mechanical friction, but makes the engine less rattly than normal turbo diesel motors. Speaking of forced induction, a two-stage turbocharger ensures optimum torque throughout the rev range.The automatic may be 0.6 seconds slower to 62 mph (100 km/h) than the manual, but once you’re over 1,800 rpm you won’t care about that, thanks to the linearity of the torque delivery.A healthy reserve of get-up-and-go is the product of the turbocharger’s design, in which one small and one large turbo are selectively operated.In-gear throttle response is impressive for a humble oil burner, as is the 30 to 80 mph (50 to 130 km/h) pull on the highway. The 2.2-liter SkyActiv-D engine makes overtaking a breeze.If, God forbid, you’re put into an imminent crash situation, the 2016 Mazda CX-5 is laden with front, side and curtain airbags, pretensioned seat belts and seat frames designed to eliminate contact with the ribcage.A blind spot alert system, Smart City Brake Support and Lane Departure Warning complement the highly rigid body shell. It’s no wonder that both the NHTSA and Euro NCAP awarded the Mazda CX-5 5-star overall scores.And now for the real ace up the 2016 Mazda CX-5’s sleeves - its pricing. $21,795 in the States and €22,590 will get you the no-frills 2.0 SkyActiv-G, FWD and not much in the way of gadgets.Despite the entry-level stigmata, these trims come as standard with goodies like air con, tire pressure monitoring, power mirrors and a basic stereo system.We recommend the upper-mid trim levels and higher-output engines coupled to the automatic and all-wheel drive system to get a taste of the CX-5’s true potential. Pricing? €36,590 for the range-topping model we tested or just shy of $30k for the equivalent US-spec model.Compared to established competition like the Honda HR-V, Ford Escape/Kuga, Jeep Cherokee, Toyota RAV4 and Subaru Forester, the 2016 Mazda CX-5 has a serious pricing and standard equipment advantage regardless of trim level. The verdict?It may not have the social status or premium quality of a BMX X3,or Range Rover Evoque, but the CX-5 is a cracking compact crossover that will exceed expectations. As a family hauler, the Japanese crossover will serve you remarkably well, as it will satisfy the enthusiastic driver.We sure hope the CX-5 will continue to avoid the fate of older, Ford-based Mazda models - good all-rounders, but hideously under appreciated. It’s still a little too hard around the edges to best some of its rivals, but the 2016 Mazda CX-5 deserves to be near the top of your shortlist.For many fliers Sunday, it was holiday travel woes, round two.
As of 6:30 p.m. ET, more than 3,000 U.S. flights were delayed and more than 190 were canceled, according to FlightAware.com
The line for security screening at Chicago Midway International Airport on Sunday morning was so long that reporter Denise Whitaker of CNN affiliate KOMO measured it: 1.2 miles.
Traveler Sarah Crowder called it the worst she's seen, prompting the Chicago Tribune's Brian Cassella to call on the Transportation Security Administration to "do better."
Sunday is one of the busiest travel days of the year, as millions of people return home after the Thanksgiving holiday.
"This happens sometimes," Chicago Aviation Department spokeswoman Karen Pride said, according to CNN affiliate WLS. "There was a period of time earlier this morning, between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., that lines were long because that is when most people are traveling for the holiday period."
On Wednesday, the weather was widely blamed, as snow snarled traffic for parts of the country.
A major winter storm on the rise is impacting millions of travelers on the East coast. CNN's Brian Todd reports.
But conditions were much better Sunday in many areas, with "warmer and more tranquil conditions" in parts of the country including the East Coast, CNN meteorologist Todd Borek said. The temperatures were in the upper 40s in Chicago.
While a lot of attention goes to the airports -- where the interconnected flight travel system can have a domino effect -- the vast majority of Thanksgiving travelers hit the road.
Ninety percent of travelers were expected to go by road, AAA said, helped by the lowest gas prices in five years.
In all, more than 46 million people were expected to travel 50 miles or more for Thanksgiving, marking the highest volume since 2007.The occupational pensions of army generals and top Whitehall mandarins will be classified as welfare spending in the tax transparency statements that George Osborne has promised every taxpayer.
Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is writing to millions of tax-paying households with detailed figures on how the government spends their income tax and National Insurance contributions. Welfare is recorded collectively as the single largest expenditure, consuming nearly one pound in every four.
This presentation has been criticised as a politically motivated departure from Treasury officials’ original plan to break down social security into the components paid to different parts of the population, such as elderly, disabled and unemployed people.
By revealing that payments specifically earmarked for the unemployed, for example, represented only 3% of the total, this approach may have set back Osborne’s case for a fresh £12bn in benefit cuts.
Now experts are drawing attention not only to the lack of differentiation in the welfare chunk of spending but also to the inclusion of substantial elements of spending that would not normally be considered welfare, notably personal social services and public sector pensions.
The Treasury said: “The headings in our tax summaries are based on internationally recognised (UN) definitions.” But in a briefing note published on Tuesday, the Institute for Fiscal Studies detailed how the welfare total included £28.5bn of “personal social services”.
“This is a number that in many analyses one would want to report separately from other welfare spending,” the IFS said. “Unlike other elements of ‘social protection’ it is not a cash transfer payment and in many ways has more in common with spending on health than spending on social security benefits.
“Another £20bn of the spending counted under welfare is pensions to older people other than state pensions. That includes spending on public sector pensions – to retired nurses, soldiers and so on. This is not spending that would normally be classed as welfare.”
Declan Gaffney, a social security researcher, said the inclusion of public sector pensions was bizarre. “The Treasury needs to clarify exactly how it arrived at these figures, and publish the workings – spelling out exactly whose pensions it included and why.” After a day of confusion, in which the Cabinet Office originally led the Daily Mirror to believe that MPs’ and ministers’ pensions would be classed as welfare, the Treasury belatedly clarified that, because the parliamentary pension scheme is funded, it would not be included with the unfunded scheme which covers their civil servants.
Gaffney has used IFS tables to calculate a more conventional figure for total welfare less state pension expenditure, and concludes that the government’s choice of definition inflates the published welfare spending total by around 40%.
A spokesman for PCS, the civil service union, said: “Tens of thousands of civil servants work hard to deliver social security support and they know how important and necessary it is. For their pensions to be hijacked as part of the government’s latest political attack on our welfare state is absolutely disgusting and it exposes just how far ministers will go to poison the well of public opinion.”Beijing-based bitcoin exchange provider OKCoin has announced its latest strategic bid to move beyond Asia’s markets and serve the global bitcoin community by announcing the planned launch of its new international exchange website.
The move will find the China-based company accepting USD deposits and processing USD withdrawals via OKCoin.com. OKCoin will also host servers for the new offering outside of China and provide English-language customer service.
Speaking to CoinDesk, OKCoin CTO Changpeng Zhao said:
“The international site will be skewed very heavily to international users in the user experience. The customer credibility – we need to establish that over time, but I think that’s going to come in a superior product.”
Zhao went on to say that the international site is going to be separate from the Chinese site, with separate order books. The company does not plan to register for money transmission licenses in the US immediately, meaning that the move finds OKCoin looking internationally, but not formally courting American customers.
The official unveiling took place during Changpeng Zhao’s speech at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Chicago today and follows the 20th June launch of the company’s algorithmic trading tools, a product that aims to help the company better target Wall Street investors.
International differences
Zhao said the two sites – OKCoin.cn and OKCoin.com – aim to satisfy the differing regional preferences of both groups of exchange users.
For example, Zhao noted that Western users prefer clean interfaces, those more comparable to Google, while China-based users, he said, favor more links on one page.
The former Blockchain head of development said:
“It’s those little things that actually matter, and we’re still trying to figure out how to best satisfy both worlds. At the moment, we don’t want to have two separate products, but later we may have different versions for different regions.”
He added that future products may account for regional trading preferences, noting that futures remain a popular product in China, while options are not as widely used.
China looks west
The Chicago conference played host to three notable Asia-based companies on Saturday, including OKCoin and Huobi, both of which had representatives speak as part of the event.
OKCoin CEO Star Xu and Huobi CEO Leon Li were both expected to lead these discussions, however, Li was replaced by Wendy Wang, while Xu was replaced by Zhao.
BitOcean, a China-based bitcoin ATM manufacturer that recently launched an initiative that will find it opening a Japan-based bitcoin exchange, also attended the event.
Yuan and dollar image via ShutterstockYou can breathe a deep, assisted breath of relief: James Earl Jones will voice Darth Vader once again in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The character (and actor)'s return to live action comes after several appearances on the animated series Star Wars Rebels in the emotional second season from 2015-2016.
Darth Vader was largely assumed, but only officially confirmed as appearing in Rogue One yesterday. The Sith Lord kind of has to be involved when you look at the storyline, the timeframe, and the mission involved: This movie takes place shortly before the events of the original Star Wars, now known as Episode IV - A New Hope, when the still-nascent Rebel Alliance sets out to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire's terrifying new weapon. It's the first of the new stand alone films, those that aren't being given an Episode number. The Episodic "saga" films will continue to focus on the story of the Skywalker family, while the stand alone films will cover other characters and eras from throughout Star Wars history.
Jones was confirmed in an interview between Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and EW, where it was also revealed he'll only be in the film for a small amount of time. "He will be in the movie sparingly," Kennedy warned excited fans, "But at a key, strategic moment, he's going to loom large."
It's somewhat natural - just as much as Vader needs to be present at some point in the film, he could also be considerably overpowering, especially when you don't have a Jedi to balance him out. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hits theaters December 16, 2016.Guitars, pianos and hand drums are all items you can now check out with your library card in Kitchener.
A new instrument lending program was launched Monday at the Kitchener Public Library, thanks to a 150-instrument donation from Sun Life Financial.
It's all part of the library's mission to transform from book lender to cultural hub, CEO Mary Chevreau told CBC K-W.
"I see the instruments as just another expansion of our literacy mission," Chevreau said.
"We also are looking at literacy in a broader, more of a renaissance term of literacy. So we're looking at digital literacy, of course very seriously here, but also cultural literacy and arts and music."
Library patrons have said they want the opportunity to create their own content, Chevreau said during Monday's launch.
"We need to be transitioning and transforming all the time," Chevreau said.
Instruments and instructions
Sun Life Financial vice president philanthropy and sponsorships Paul Joliat said the company wants to make the arts more accessible. The program already runs in Toronto and Vancouver and Joliat said they wanted to bring it to Kitchener because this is where the company's head office is located.
Guitars are ready to be checked out at Kitchener Public Library. (Carmen Ponciano/CBC) Musician Bob Egan, formerly of Blue Rodeo and now KPL's manager of community development, was the driving force behind getting the instrument lending program up and running.
The library will not only offer the instruments, but will also have all the resources to help people learn how to play them, including how-to videos on the KPL website.
"There's no other activity that youth can engage in that has the developmental benefits, the cognitive benefits, that learning an instrument does and playing with other people," Egan told Craig Norris, host of The Morning Edition, Monday before the official launch.
Sample of instruments available for people to check out, there are 150 in total and also includes full-size keyboard pianos <a href="https://twitter.com/KitchLibrary">@KitchLibrary</a> <a href="https://t.co/K5mrwIi9wd">pic.twitter.com/K5mrw
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in the Hunter Valley and the larger Bayswater station nearby, is so alarmed it raised the issue directly with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
The Daily Telegraph has obtained a briefing note handed to the PM's Office and to Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg on September 6 which says the strikes have "the potential to provide significant interruption to coal suppliers". AGL has also requested "support from the federal government as it appears that negotiations have stalled and may subsequently impede coal delivery".
More at The Daily TelegraphA capable shortstop with elite hitting potential is a difficult commodity to come by, and many teams would hold on to that player for dear life. The Colorado Rockies figured that guy would be Brendan Rodgers, the number 11 ranked prospect in baseball according to Baseball Prospectus. Trevor Story would then go off for 27 home runs in less than 100 games last year before a wrist injury ended his season in late July. With Rodgers still a couple years away from being ready Story can cement himself as the Rockies shortstop of the future if he keeps up his torrid pace from last year.
Do We Really Know Trevor Story?
Just like any hitter, Trevor Story’s pop is given a boost by playing in the thin air of Coors field, but the difference in his home and road splits in 2016 was staggering. At home he hit the ball like Troy Tulowitski in his prime, owning a.313/.393/.693 slash line and a.381 Isolated power. But his road stats paint a picture of an above average power hitter and not much else. His splits on the road were.235/.292/.454, and while his Isolated Power was still well above average at.219 it is still a giant drop off from his ISO at home. These are troubling splits that could hurt interest in Story on the trade market, so it will be important to keep them in mind as Brendan Rodgers gets closer to the Bigs.
Trevor Story looked like an elite shortstop last year, at home at least, but so far this season he looks lost. Three weeks into the year he owns a.135/.262/.327 slash line and has struck out 41% of the time. There is no way that those numbers can stay that low throughout the whole season, but it is sketchy how low they are through 16 games. Story did only play in 97 games last year so his numbers still have to be taken with a grain of salt until we see a larger sample size. Trevor Story is going to have to prove that he can sustain his 2016 numbers before I label him the Rockies shortstop of the future. And Brendan Rodgers will be waiting in the wings to try and claim that title.
What can the Rockies do?
What do you do when you already have elite production coming from a spot that is being eyed by an elite prospect? Well one of them has to go if you want to maximize your teams talent. If Story stays the same player from last year and Rodgers maintains his prospect status, then they could both pull in elite talent in trades. The Rockies will always be in need of pitching. Especially if they want to compete with the gnarly rotations that feature Clayton Kershaw and the MadBum out in the NL West. No free agent pitcher wants to pitch in Coors field, so it is critical for the Rockies to build their pitchers through trades and the draft. And one of these guys is going to help bring in that talent the Rockies most desperately need.
All statistics are from Fangraphs.comDraft is widely considered to be the most skill-testing form of Magic. Old school pros will occasionally show up to a Pro Tour after taking a break and dominate draft like they have not missed a beat. Because of the sheer number of variables and decisions faced in a draft people who make superior picks and decisions have their advantage compounded over weaker players. Some commonly-accepted Limited concepts are faulty, but they persist nonetheless.
You should take a slightly weaker card over a stronger card if it sends a better signal.
Understanding signals is a crucial component of draft but it is the signals that you receive rather than the ones you send that really matter. Simply put, in a draft, packs one and three flow clockwise. Pack two, counter-clockwise. Therefore, anticipating what is open on the right is almost always more important than on the left.
Sending signals is one of the least important considerations when deciding on a draft pick. I suspect that this is one of the most controversial drafting myths because I often hear people –including accomplished players—use signaling to justify taking a weaker card over a stronger card. Additionally there are situations wherein the player to your left will draft differently than your expectations despite crystal clear signals either, because he or she opened a bomb rare or is disregarding the signals you are sending. If you open Raise the Alarm, Devouring Light, Triplicate Spirits, and Frost Lynx in an M15 draft, do not take Frost Lynx. Accept the possibility that white will be dry in pack two, count your blessings, and take Triplicate Spirits. Send clear signals when possible, of course, if it’s at a low cost to the power level of your deck.
Your first few picks determine what colors you should commit to.
Whether or not you have commitment issues outside of Magic it’s something that we all struggle with during draft. Should you abandon your first pick and see what other possibilities await or hang on for dear life as you take mediocre card after card to remain loyal? For the first pack of a draft it is important to not become too attached to a particular color and focus on the signals you are receiving. By the first couple of picks of pack two you should solidify yourself into a color combination or risk a potential train wreck.
If you open a nigh-unbeatable bomb in pack one, two, or three like Pack Rat it is acceptable to commit to that color despite signs that it may not be available. Cases in which you should commit to such a card as Pack Rat are few and far between as there are only two or three cards on that level in each set. My normal drafting routine is to keep an open mind for the first pack. Each pack should provide indicators of what colors are available and which are not, try looking for a pattern to cement your commitment to a certain color. In some scenarios I am willing to make an extreme commitment if I am only comfortable with one or two archetypes in a format and in a tournament situation. At Pro Tour Avacyn Restored I took a Fleeting Distraction with my first pick over Silverblade Paladin on the grounds that blue/green was by far the best deck in AVR draft (I 3-0’d the draft).
You should always draft in a mutually beneficial way with the player who is passing to you.
Players tend to enjoy cooperative drafts where players next to each other avoid being in overlapping colors. To clarify I do not mean collusion, rather that people seek to deduce what the adjacent players are drafting and stay away from their colors. There is a myth that if you draft the same color(s) as the player to your right that you will both finish the draft with poor decks. This detrimental conflict can be the case if you overlap with the person passing to you in packs one and three; however if you overlap with the person on your right exclusively in pack two it will likely be beneficial.
Imagine a hypothetical situation:
After pack one of a draft you have eight great white cards supplemented by a couple of average late-pick blue and black cards. In the first pack you see zero powerful red cards, indicating that red is not open in this draft. Your plan is to end up in white with either blue or black. On the surface this may seem like the logical conclusion; however whenever I am in this situation I implement a much different strategy. Because red was not being passed to your left in pack one it is extremely likely that red will be flowing to the right in pack two. In this imaginary scenario I would switch into red for pack two even with the expectation that red will be dry in pack three. Ideally pack two will yield several powerful red cards; pack three, powerful white cards and the final product of the draft will be a fantastic white-based deck splashing red. There is an additional benefit to this strategy in that the person to our right will likely have a terrible deck. We are not guaranteed to play this opponent so this is only a small consideration when deciding to switch colors. In a team draft this strategy is even more beneficial because the person to our right is guaranteed to impact our finish.
If it’s apparent that two colors are open and flowing throughout pack one then I will gladly draft those two colors and cooperate with the people around me. I only like to use this strategy when I am drafting predominantly one color after pack one.
When playing to win a PTQ or Grand Prix it is in your best interest to take risks during the draft to end up with a “3-0” deck.
Hoping to get lucky is certainly necessary sometimes but it is important to remain logical. In a Limited PTQ Top 8 or Grand Prix, players regularly express their interest in drafting a high variance strategy with the goal of simultaneously increasing their chances to go undefeated or winless. If you are fortunate enough to have discovered an under-the-radar strategy then it is worth considering taking the risk regardless of your skill level. The most famous recent wild draft strategy is the Spider Spawning self-mill deck from Innistrad block. Spider Spawning quickly became popularized from draft videos and event coverage, but prior to the general populace becoming aware of its existence players who were in the know had a distinct advantage. But that’s no reason to abandon good strategy. If you have made it to the Top 8 of a PTQ or Day Two of a Grand Prix you must have at least fundamental understandings of how to play Magic well. It’s foolish to add variance to a game that already has plenty. Draft a solid deck and capitalize on good draws or punish bad ones—don’t risk your tournament on poor drafting.
If your deck is aggressive you should play first, if it is controlling you should draw first.
This decision is not so simple, especially in sideboarded games. In a slow controlling deck the decision to play or draw should be based on the specifics of your deck. It may seem intuitive to draw first with a slow deck that aims to win in the late-game. But Limited Magic has evolved over the past five years. Tempo matters more than ever. Control decks remain viable strategies in Limited with the caveat that they have respect for aggressive decks.
If your deck has cheap removal and creatures, yet lacks substantial card advantage, you may draw first. If your deck has card advantage spells similar to Sign in Blood, Divination, or Read the Bones I would almost always play first. One scenario in which I prefer to go second is in sideboarded games between two aggressive decks. An aggro mirror match will usually involve trading resources early and often until the battle of attrition ends in a topdeck. Another factor that influences my decision to draw is that I anticipate my opponent sideboarding in a way that slows down his or her deck—reducing my fear of being punished by going second. With this knowledge I enjoy sideboarding out a land as well. Generally speaking I exclusively choose to play in the first game and then make a more educated decision in sideboarded games.
Drafting is probably closer to a fine art than a hard science although there are plenty of applications for both personal preference and probability calculations. Whether you agree, disagree, have something to add, or have suggestions I look forward to hearing your opinion.
Thank you for reading,
-Jacob WilsonAmidst endless questions about the future, Calgary Flames GM Brad Treliving was asked if he was bracing for “hurt feelings” this summer.
While it might seem an odd concern in a billion dollar industry, it was a pointed question aimed directly at the situation involving Troy Brouwer.
After all, Brouwer will almost certainly be one of the odd men out this summer when the Flames to submit their protected list June 17 for the Vegas Golden Knights expansion draft.
Brouwer likely won’t be one of the seven forwards shielded from the upstart franchise, which is obligated to take one player from every NHL roster.
The acquisition of Curtis Lazar at the trade deadline for a second round pick came with a public assurance from GM Brad Treliving that Lazar was a reclamation project he planned to protect.
Thus, the list of seven forwards protected will likely include Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Mikael Backlund, Michael Frolik, Micheal Ferland, Sam Bennett and Lazar. First and second-year players like Matthew Tkachuk are exempt.
Brouwer, Matt Stajan and perhaps Brett Kulak are the likeliest targets for Vegas.
The three defencemen to be protected are Mark Giordano, Dougie Hamilton and T.J. Brodie.
And so, one year after Brouwer made a four-year commitment to an organization housed in the city where he was already building a home in, his future could be up in the air.
That’s where the hurt feelings could come in.
With three years left on a deal paying the 31-year-old winger $4.5 million annually, Vegas may very well take a pass on Brouwer, especially since he finished the season on the Flames fourth line.
Of note, Knights GM George McPhee traded for Brouwer in the summer of 2011 and as GM in Washington later gave him a three-year extension. One year later he scored a career-high 25 goals. He knows what Brouwer is all about and may see it as a no-brainer to add a veteran of his sort.
He may also balk at Brouwer’s contract.
If so, how do you repair the relationship once he returns to Calgary in the fall, knowing the club went from courting and overpaying him as an unrestricted free agent to being open to losing him for nothing?
It’s business.
While the exposure might sting and provide his family with some tense moments when the Vegas squad is announced at the NHL Awards Show June 21, he’s a true pro who can handle it.
Stajan might be the more attractive pick as he only has one year left on his contract at $3.12 million and is a solid candidate to be the first captain in Golden Knights history.
Either way, no team is excited about losing a player, especially those with the character and experience Stajan and Brouwer possess.
A Stanley Cup winner in Chicago with 102 playoff games to his credit, Brouwer was brought in for much more than the 20 goals a year he had averaged the last seven campaigns.
While there were hopes he’d fit on the top line with Gaudreau and Monahan the chemistry wasn’t there.
Instead, Brouwer played the season in the bottom six, which partially explains why he had the worst statistical season of his career with 13 goals and 25 points.
When you are the team’s big free agent signing to the tune of $18 million, expectations are lofty.
Most fans were frustrated by his inability to impact many games, which is why he was asked just before the playoffs if he saw the playoffs as a chance at redemption. After all, management said a big part of his signing revolved around his playoff expertise.
“Our team is in the playoffs, our penalty kill is better, our power play is better – a lot of the things I was brought here to do we’ve been able to do,” said Brouwer, taking exception to the question.
“Whether my personal statistics are down a little bit I don’t really care – the team is in the position we were hoping to be in at the start of the season. I’m not worried about personal accolades or anything like that. I’ll let you worry about that for me.”
He was a fixture on the top power play unit with Gaudreau and Monahan where he got 11 of his 25 points as a net-front presence.
“Statistically, maybe I would have liked to do a little more than I was able to – not my best stats this season,” admitted Brouwer, softening his stance after the playoffs.
“But I feel I was brought in for a lot of reasons.”
Exposing him to Vegas does not mean the Flames are giving up on Brouwer – he provides things the team can use more of – size, experience and leadership.
Perhaps what he can bring will be too attractive for Vegas to pass up.
If not, he’ll get another crack at improving his numbers in Calgary, where he hopes to stay regardless of any optics.
PROBABLE FLAMES PROTECTED LIST
FORWARDS
Johnny Gaudreau
Sean Monahan
Mikael Backlund.
Michael Frolik
Micheal Ferland
Sam Bennett
Curtis Lazar
DEFENCEMEN
Mark Giordano
Dougie Hamilton
T.J. BrodieFlorida's leading grocer Publix is facing a federal lawsuit after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says it didn't allow a Nashville man to work in one of its Tennessee stores because he wouldn't cut the dreadlocks he wears as part of his religion.
The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Nashville, Tenn., says Publix broke the law when it hired Guy Usher, 28, but then forced him to quit a day before he was set to start because store managers said he needed to cut his hair above his shoulders.
Usher wears his hair in long dreadlocks as part of Rastafari, an Africa-centered religion that developed in 1930s Jamaica.
"Management officials have a responsibility to consider all reasonable requests to accommodate employees' religious beliefs and practices," Katharine W. Kores, a district director for the EEOC, said in a prepared statement.
The EEOC said it tried to reach a pre-litigation settlement before filing the lawsuit, but couldn't. Now it is asking for an injunction to prohibit Publix from "discriminating against employees based on their religion in the future, as well as back pay, compensatory, and punitive damages."
Usher applied to one of Tennessee's 41 Publix locations in January for part-time work. The lawsuit says he was going to be hired as a cashier or produce clerk. Usher was offered the job and told his manager he would not cut his hair, but could wear it back in a hat.
When the manager said he would still have to cut it, Usher called back citing the federal equal-employment opportunity laws. After passing a drug screening, Usher reiterated to managers he was not comfortable cutting his hair because of his religion — that's when Publix withdrew its offer, according to the lawsuit. Rastafarians usually do not cut their hair in adherence to a passage in the Old Testament.
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"At Publix, we value and appreciate the diversity of all of our associates," the chain said in a statement. "We work to provide environments where known religious beliefs and practices of our associates and applicants are reasonably accommodated."
However, the store said it would be "inappropriate" to comment on Usher's case because it is pending litigation.
"Please know that we are dedicated to the employment security of our associates and that we regularly provide accommodations to associates due to their religious beliefs, as required by law," the statement said.
This isn't the first time the Lakeland-based grocery chain has been under heat for its grooming mandates. The store also doesn't allow men to have beards, prompting a popular internet petition last year.
Publix employs more than 188,000 people across seven states. It was founded in Winter Haven in 1930 and now has more than 700 locations in Florida.
Contact Sara DiNatale at [email protected] Follow @sara_dinatale.SWLing Post reader, Frank, writes from Germany:
First let me say that I enjoy your blog a lot.
After a 2005-13 hiatus, I have rediscovered a childhood hobby and your reviews have helped me find my way to the post-Sony portable shortwave radio markets.
First, I obtained my “childhood dream” radio (Sony ICF 2001D), because at the time I made these recordings I was still in school and 1300 DM would have equaled over 1 year of pocket money, so a Supertech SR16HN had to do. I thought I got some fine results with this Sangean-Siemens re-branded receiver then, using a CB half-length antenna, a random wire, and much endurance.
I kept regular logs throughout the years, wrote to 50 international and pirate stations for QSL and compiled this cassette.
A few years before I got that trusty SR16HN, however, I recorded a few number stations (such as G3, Four Note Rising Scale etc) with an ordinary radio cassette recorder, and in 1991 I put them onto this tape as well. The other recordings are done with the same radio placed right in front of the SR 16HN.
Feel free to make use of these recordings. Most of it are the well-known international state-owned shortwave stations of the past; plus European pirates; plus number stations; and at the end, a few (off-topic) local Am and FM stations interval signals.
As I said, this collection I made shortly after the Wende/reunification period, when all former-GDR state broadcasters changed their names, sometimes more than once.
Please continue your good work on the blogs! Weather permitting I am often outside cycling and always have the tiny Sony ICF 100 with me (which I call my then-student’s dream radio of the later 90ies).Home » Applications Google open-sources Sky Map, collaborates with Carnegie Mellon University ApplicationsNews Google open-sources Sky Map, collaborates with Carnegie Mellon University
Sky Map, the popular astronomy app for Android which has been downloaded over 20 million times, is going open source. The application was originally created by Googlers in Pittsburgh to showcase the power of Android smartphones. Google has decided to donate Sky Map to the community, and they’re going to be doing it in two ways.
One, through collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, Sky Map development will now be driven by students at the university, with Google engineers remaining as advisors. Two, Google has decided to open-source the app so that the public can take the code and use it as they wish.
If you’re a developer and would like to modify the Sky Map code, check out the Sky Map open source project page on Google code. To download Sky Map, head over to the Android Market or scan the QR code below.
Source: Google Research BlogPoll numbers may show a tough road to the White House for Republican Donald Trump, but he appears to have a reliable base of support in the nation’s military communities.
Voters in counties with strong ties to the armed forces favor Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton 49% to 34%, according to an analysis of NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll data from June, July and August. Over that same period, Clinton led Trump nationally 47% to 41% in that polling.
NBC News
The Republican nominee’s edge in those 89 counties largely located near military bases, categorized as military posts in the American Communities Project, may come as a surprise to those who have watched the campaign closely.
An NBC News|SurveyMonkey poll released Wednesday showed that Trump leads Clinton by 19 points – 55 percent to 36 percent – among current and retired military service members. But the ACP analysis shows a similar double-digit lead for Trump in communities where non-military support staff and family members live and work as well as troops and veterans themselves. The two candidates will participate in the first joint appearance of the general election campaign Wednesday night at NBC News' Commander-in-Chief forum sponsored by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Related: Watch the NBC News Commander-in-Chief Forum
Why is Trump leading in military communities? He has a few big points in his favor built into them.
First, America’s military post counties have been reliably Republican in previous elections. They’ve sided with the Republican candidate for president by double digits in every election since 2000.
Second, they hold large numbers of a key voter group for Trump, whites without a college degree. More than half their 25-or-older population is made up whites without a bachelor’s degree. That’s about six points higher than the national average and much higher than counties that lean heavily Democratic, such as the urban suburb counties that sit around major cities.
NBC News
In the 2016 presidential campaign in particular that’s a big difference. Trump has built his campaign on appealing to white voters without a bachelor’s degree, and polling has shown he’s done well with them, even at the expense of losing college-educated whites.
Military-heavy counties usually have fewer voters with college degrees because they hold lots of young people who passed on college because they weren’t interested in it or couldn’t afford it. Many in those military communities may be in the military to earn money to help with college after service. Regardless of the reason, however, the net impact is fewer white voters with college degrees and that is a net plus for Trump.
In the broader sense of the active duty military overall, only 7% of enlisted members have a bachelor’s degree and about 70% of active duty military is white, non-Hispanic. That’s a good set of demographics for Trump.
The military post communities are particularly important to the GOP for another reason: age. They are younger than the nation as a whole. The median age in the United States is 37.4 years. In the military posts the average median age is 34.9 years. For a party that has struggled to win over millennial voters, these counties represent a bright spot.
As the election nears this demographic lens may be the best way to look at the nation’s military voters.
Trump may have a rough relationship with large parts of the national security establishment or some military brass. But those are only small parts of the overall military vote. About 72% of the active duty military is between the ages of 18 of 30, according to the Department of Defense. That’s a lot of young voters.
So the nation’s military post counties are counterweights to the younger liberal voters in college towns around the country that lean heavily Democratic. They are incubators for the next generation of the GOP – younger, reliably Republican and looking very safe for Trump in November.Buy Photo Muncie Animal Shelter Superintendent Phil Peckinpaugh (center) and others meet at 3106 N. Granville Rd. (Photo: Kurt Hostetler / The Star Press )Buy Photo
MUNCIE -- Local authorities got more than they bargained for Wednesday, when they determined a Muncie man was living in a Granville Avenue storefront — with more than 600 animals.
It should be noted that 541 animals found in the building were mice, but the remaining 91 members of the menagerie included a foot-long alligator, two hedgehogs, two pythons and five corn snakes.
Not to mention the 15 guinea pigs, 15 hamsters, four turtles, 29 rats, a frog, three hermit crabs, seven lizards and six small birds.
And a parrot who identified itself as "Pretty Bird," and asked police and Muncie Animal Shelter officials, "What are you doing?"
Posed the same question by a reporter, the shelter's superintendent, Phil Peckinpaugh said the animals — all 632 of them — were being seized and taken to the shelter.
Given the unsanitary conditions of the storefront, and a number of alleged code and ordinance violations, Peckinpaugh was prepared to pursue a seizure warrant to claim the animals.
It was very dirty, just a hodge-podge," the shelter superintendent said of the storefront, in the 3100 block of North Granville. "There wasn't much organization to it at all."
However, their owner — identified by Peckinpaugh as Dan Goronzick — agreed to surrender the animals.
The superintendent said Goronzick — who he described as being "very cooperative" — had entertained hopes of opening a wholesale mouse-selling business. (The storefront raided on Wednesday is not affiliated with a pet store in the same strip mall, authorities said.)
The events leading to the Wednesday afternoon raid began a few hours earlier, when the city's building commissioner, Craig Nichols, was inspecting an adjacent storefront in the strip mall, where a boutique is planned.
Nichols quickly detected the stench emanating from the unit next door housing the animals, and an investigation was under way.
"It's just a mess," Nichols said of that storefront. "I don't understand how he thought something like that was going to fly."
The building commissioner issued an order for Goronzick to vacate the premises.
Possession of the alligator specifically violates a city ordinance concerning exotic pets, Peckinpaugh said. Department of Natural Resources officers came to the site to inspect the four turtles, but apparently determined no related citations would be issued.
A veterinarian also came to the scene to assess the state of the animals' health.
Peckinpaugh said it "sure appeared" that Goronzick had been living in the building with his animals. "He couldn't provide any (other) type of address," he said.
The superintendent said Wednesday evening he was in touch with animal organizations from across the state, hoping to find "safe haven and sanctuary" for the Muncie shelter's 632 new guests.
Save haven for 541 mice, 46 of them babies?
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"There are a lot of groups out there that deal specifically with mice," he said.
Wednesday's raid came too late for 78 other mice, who were found dead in the storefront.
Peckinpaugh acknowledged he was "overwhelmed" upon entering the northside building Wednesday.
"I knew the rest of my afternoon was booked," he said. A large Muncie Sanitary District box truck was brought to the scene to carry some of the scores of animals — including the snakes and the talkative parrot — to the shelter.
He planned to spend the evening in part doing research on the Internet. Among other topics to be studied was what to feed an alligator.
Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. You can also follow him on Twitter @DouglasWalkerSP.
CLOSE Muncie Animal Shelter employees carry out hundreds of animals that were found in a storefront property where a man had been living with the animals. Muncie Star Press
Read or Share this story: http://indy.st/1nt1PhjEmail Share +1 4K Shares
This is my last column for the Washington Blade.
Since 2013, it has been a pleasure to reflect on many momentous LGBT events. During my four-year tenure, the Supreme Court struck down DOMA and Prop 8. Pope ‘who-am-I-to-judge?’ Francis was sworn in. Athletes started coming out of the closet and breached one of the last homophobic barriers. The Supreme Court ruled we were full human beings entitled to full marriage equality.
When the inevitable backlash began, it was good to have an outlet for my fury. Lil Kim gave Kentucky a bad name. North Carolina rescinded gender-neutral bathroom ordinances. Then there was the heartbreaking news out of Orlando. All this happened in the context of endless war, racist violence, wealth disparity, retro-misogyny and a seemingly endless presidential campaign.
I have been grateful for the opportunity to write this column and am grateful to you, my readers. The discipline of a deadline made me write more regularly, if not always gratefully. Many of the ideas in my monthly columns found their way into my stand-up. And some lines in my stand-up – “If the Internet were in 3D it would look like ISIS” – should have been a column in the first place and not so much a series of jokes.
But this is my last column. Cue the weeping, the wailing and the keening. “Nooooo, don’t go!” Keep it up. “We won’t know what the old lesbians are thinking without you!” Cue the gnashing of the teeth, the rending of the garments unless they’re Eileen Fisher.
This is my last column for the Blade — wait for it — without a woman elected president of the United States.
Hope that buildup didn’t sound as coy as Trump saying he will accept the outcome of the election “if I win.” He said he meant it as a joke, but we saw his joke skills at that Holy Friars Club Roast in NYC. He is dead serious when he claims that the election will be rigged. That is: it is so unnatural for a woman to be president, her election would perforce, be rigged.
Truth be told, and it so rarely is, the election is rigged. I was at that secret meeting. Back in the ‘80s, all the different lesbo-feminista families got together at an old hunting lodge in the Poconos. The patriarchy wasn’t going down fast enough. Or at all. We were sick and tired of it. We debated for days. We finally decided on the plan.
First, we needed a woman president. We decided to run a battle-tested woman, probably a grandma, well-known, but not beloved. Her EQ could only go up. The kind of dame who never gives up, will wear you down, and make you beg to be water-boarded. That kind of dame.
We’d lure the media into creating the biggest, whitest slab of primo patriarch, clueless capitalist, trigger alert, vulgar showman to run against her. Of course we knew we ran the danger of his appeal to actual voters. We fought about strategies. We agreed to have a three-minute tape of him bragging about his sexual exploits. We knew there would be one. We were willing to use it. Billy Bush was the bonus. Turns out those three minutes have had the combined effect of 1,204 Take Back the Night Rallies, 793 Slut Walks and 27,119 performances of “The Vagina Monologues.”
We are encouraged but we caution each other not to get complacent as we near the completion of Phase 1. We remind each other that the polls are artificial intelligence. We have a huge get-the-sisters-out-to-vote plan. We are eager to begin Phase 2. It’s all in the emails.
So hell no, this is not my last column. I’ve been working for this moment for more than half my life. Oh Hill, yes.
Kate Clinton is a longtime humorist. She writes regularly for the Blade.The most important step when making barbacoa is choosing the list of ingredients that will accompany the meat while it slow cooks. Get this right and you’re on your way to melt-in-your-mouth meat that is perfectly seasoned and tastes amazing.
For this let’s go with paprika, but not just any paprika. Look for the kind that says hot smoked on it. This will give it a bit of a kick and takes things up a notch. Another way we’ll add the heat to this dish is with a chopped red chile, as well as some chipotle chilis. Look for the kind that come packaged in adobo sauce so we can use some of that sauce as well.
Now that we’re all set with the spiciness, it’s time to give it another level of flavor by adding some robust herbs and seasonings to the mix. For this let’s go with some tried and tested herbs like bay leaves, cloves, and oregano. This will go nicely with the peppers without adding to the spiciness of the meat which we’ve already established.
Garlic and onions is always a safe bet when slow cooking meat, and they work nicely in this dish as well. A little salt and pepper finishes things off nicely and is a classic combination that is pretty much a necessity here.
This meaty dish can be used in a number of ways. You could bake up some Paleo bread so you can enjoy it as part of a sandwich, or make a Paleo friendly tortilla so you can have a burrito just like you’d get at Chipotle with barbacoa on the inside, fajita veggies, and salsa.
It’s so much fun to make your own food in a healthier way so you don’t have to be tempted into eating foods that work against you. Chipotle is a great restaurant, but they aren’t in the business of catering to the Paleo diet, so you have to take matters into your own hands. Use their creations as inspirations for things you can make at home using your own hand-picked ingredients.
If you eat this as shown over a bed of the cabbage slaw you won’t be disappointed. It brings up memories of pulled pork sandwiches served with cole slaw as the topping, but with a totally different flavor profile thanks to the beef instead of pork, and the bevy of spices and seasonings that make it something totally different.
One last tip is to make a bigger batch than you need so that you can have leftovers. It keeps well in the fridge and works as the perfect snack or meal that reheats quickly.
RELATED: Paleo Beef RecipesHBO has given a second-season order to freshman comedy The Brink starring Jack Black and Tim Robbins. The renewal comes a day before the options on the cast wer e set to expire after the pay cable network had secured a weeklong extension last week. It follows a small ratings uptick for the Sunday episode, which drew 1.06 million viewers in Live+Same Day viewing. The pickup also comes two weeks after the death of the series’ executive producer Jerry Weintraub at age 77.
The Brink, whose road to HBO’s schedule started with an email to Weintraub containing the script by former Weeds executive producer Roberto Benabib and his brother Kim Benabib, took only four to five months from that day until the project received a series greenlight in February 2014 — an unusually quick turnaround. “They don’t know how long I’m going to live, that’s why they picked it up so quickly,” Weintraub quipped at the time. Last month, he attended the show’s premiere (photo above).
Written by the Benabibs, The Brink is described as an epic dark comedy focusing on a geopolitical crisis and its effect on three disparate and desperate men: U.S. Secretary of State Walter Larson (Robbins); Alex Talbot (Black), a lowly Foreign Service officer; and Zeke Tilson (Pablo Schreiber), an ace Navy fighter pilot. These three compromised souls must pull through the chaos around them to save the planet from World War III.
Aasif Mandvi, Maribeth Monroe, Geoff Pierson, Esai Morales and Eric Ladin co-star on the series, executive produced by Roberto Benabib, Weintraub and Jay Roach, who directed the pilot. Kim Benabib and Susie Ekins co-executive produce; Robert Lloyd Lewis, Dave Holstein,
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parent elements:
const CurrySoup = () => [ < li key = "a" > 2 tablespoons vegetable oil < /li>, < li key = "b" > 2 large onions, finely chopped < /li>, < li key = "c" > 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped < /li>, < li key = "d" > 2 tablespoons curry powder or paste < /li>, < li key = "e" > 500 ml vegetable stock < /li>, ] const Chicken = () => [ < li key = "f" > 1 chicken, about 1.5 kg, jointed into 6 pieces < /li>, ] const ChickenCurrySoup = () => [ < Chicken key = "chicken" />, < CurrySoup key = "curry-soup" />, ] const CookBook = () => [ < ul key = "recipe-curry-soup" > < CurrySoup /> < /ul>, < ul key = "recipe-chicken-curry-soup" > < ChickenCurrySoup /> < /ul>, ]
The other new return type is the string. Now it is valid to return a string value in a component without wrapping it into a span or div tag.
const Greeting = ({ username }) => `Hello ${ username } `
Both new return types reduce the size of intermediate DOM nodes we were used to use before.
There are Portals in React!
React 16 has portals now. They are a way to render elements outside of the component where the portal is created. The portal only needs to know about a DOM node in your application where it should render the given elements.
import React, { Component } from'react' ; import ReactDOM from'react-dom' ; class App extends Component { render () { return ( < div className = "App" > { ReactDOM. createPortal ( < Modal />, document. getElementById ('modal' ) )} < div className = "content" > { this. props. children } < /div> < /div> ); } }
In your application, you would only need a DOM element with the id attribute “modal”. Afterward, the Modal component would be rendered outside of the App component. Portals give you a hook into the outside HTML.
What are the use cases for Portals? One pain point prior React 16 was it to render modals. Often a modal was deeply nested in the component tree, because it was opened and closed in one of these components, even though, from a hierarchical DOM node point of view, the modal should be at a top level of your component tree. Because of this constraint, developers often had to apply CSS styles to make the modal float above the remaining application even though it was deeply nested in the component tree. Thus portals came along in React 16 to enable developers to render elements, in this case a modal, somewhere else, in this case up at a top layer component level. Still, it would be possible to control the model from a deeply nested component by passing the proper props to it and by opening and closing it.
React's new Error Boundaries
There is a new lifecycle method in React: componentDidCatch. It allows you to perform error handling for your React components. In the lifecycle method you get access to the info and error object: componentDidCatch(error, info).
Let’s see it in action. Imagine a component that shows and updates your user account:
const updateUsername = username => ({ user : { username, }, }); class Account extends Component { constructor ( props ) { super ( props ); this. state = { user : { username : 'Robin', } }; } render () { const { username } = this. state. user ; return ( < div > < input type = "text" onChange = { event => this. setState ( updateUsername ( event. target. value ))} value = { username } /> < p > Username : { username } < /p> < /div> ); } }
What happens when you would reset the user object? Consider a case where you would want to update your user object in your backend by doing an API request but by accident you set the whole user object to null in the local state of your React component. You can simulate it by using a button that resets your user object in React’s local state to null.
const updateUsername = username => ({ user : { username, }, }); class Account extends Component { constructor ( props ) { super ( props ); this. state = { user : { username : 'Robin', } }; } render () { const { username } = this. state. user ; return ( < div > < input type = "text" onChange = { event => this. setState ( updateUsername ( event. target. value ))} value = { username } /> < button type = "button" onClick = {() => this. setState ({ user : null })} > Reset User < /button> < p > Username : { username } < /p> < /div> ); } }
You would get an error message saying: “Cannot read property ‘username’ of null”. The whole application crashes because the username property is destructured from the user object. By using componentDidCatch you can prevent it and display a proper error message when an error is caught in your render method. You can use the componentDidCatch lifecycle method directly in your Account component. However, a nicer way to keep it reusable and maintainable in your application would be to introduce a so called error boundary.
class MyErrorBoundary extends React. Component { constructor ( props ) { super ( props ); this. state = { error : null }; } componentDidCatch ( error, info ) { this. setState ({ error, info }); } render () { return this. state. error? < h1 > Uuuups, something went wrong. < /h1> : this. props. children ; } }
That way, you can use it for your Account component but for every other component too:
const App = () => < div > < MyErrorBoundary > < Account /> < /MyErrorBoundary> < /div>
When you reset your user object by accident now, the error message should be visible instead of the Account component and instead of crashing your whole application. By using error boundaries, you can keep your component error handling in React at strategic places. Don’t clutter your whole component tree with error boundaries, but place them at important places where it would make sense to replace a component or a subset of components with an error message.
When you are in development mode, the error boundary is only visible for a couple of seconds. Afterward, you will see the real error for developing purposes. In production mode, it will keep showing the rendered output of the error boundary though. In order to mimic a production build with create-react-app, you can install pushstate-server on the command line, build your application and serve it with pushstate-server on localhost:9000:
npm install - g pushstate - server npm run build pushstate - server build
There is one more important fact for error handling in React components. The new lifecycle method componentDidCatch gives you a great way to send your error reports to your favorite error tracking API. Personally, I use Sentry to push all my occurring errors to one centralized service.
Return null in React's setState
There are two ways in React’s local state to update the state with this.setState. The first way of doing it is using an object:
const { counter } = this. state ; this. setState ({ counter : counter + 1 });
Due to this.setState being executed asynchronously, you would want to update your local state with the second way by using a function instead of an object:
this. setState ( prevState => ({ counter : prevState. counter + 1 }));
Now you wouldn’t run into any stale state in between when computing your new state. But that’s not the change for React 16. In React 16, you can return null in your this.setState function to prevent updates. Before you had to check a condition outside of your this.setState block:
if ( this. state. isFoo ) { this. setState ( prevState => ({ counter : prevState. counter + 1 })); }
Now you can return null instead of an object:
this. setState ( prevState => { return prevState. isFoo? { counter : prevState. counter + 1 } : null ; });
That way, you operate again on the current state at the time of the execution, because this.setState is executed asynchronously. If your condition depends on the current state, it can become important to have access to it in this.setState and to be able to abort the update.
Custom DOM attributes
Unrecognized HTML and SVG attributes are not longer ignored by React. Instead you are allowed to give your DOM nodes any attributes now. Still you should camelCase your attributes to follow React’s conventions of using attributes in HTML. My open question for this would be now: Am I able to use the deprecated webkitallowfullscreen and mozallowfullscreen attributes in React for my Vimeo component now? Yes, I can! I only need to specify “true” explicitly for those attributes.
const VideoPlayer = ({ id }) => { return ( < iframe src = { `https://player.vimeo.com/video/ ${ id } ` } allowFullScreen = "true" webkitallowfullscreen = "true" mozallowfullscreen = "true" /> ) }
I upgraded my projects to React 16 already. You should try the same. It is effortless if you didn’t had any warnings before. In my projects, I only had to adjust the Enzyme setup to React 16 by using enzyme-adapter-react-16. Thanks to all React contributors for your efforts to improve the library yet keeping it with a backward compatibility.
I would like to hear your thoughts :-) Find me on Twitter and Facebook Did the article help you? Share it with your friends on social media, support me as my Patron, and become a full-stack developer with my booksWhy have President Donald Trump’s public displays of contempt for free speech and a free press sparked relatively few protests? Perhaps because many of those liberal voices now shouting against his immigration order sort-of share Trump’s underlying illiberal attitude to free speech. These anti-Trump protesters simply want to suppress or sanitise different sorts of speech – starting with that of the president himself.
Contrary to historically ignorant claims, Trump is no throwback to 1930s-style book-burning fascism. Far from it — his disdainful attitude towards free speech marks out Trump as a man of his times. spiked readers will be aware of the 21st-century problem of ‘generation snowflake’ – the hyper-sensitive millennials who want protection from speech they deem too offensive or hateful. Student activists in the US or UK once fought for more free speech on campus. Now they are now more likely to campaign for bans on anything from ‘transphobic’ feminist speakers to right-wing tabloid newspapers, and to demand political Safe Spaces where opinions that might make them ‘uncomfortable’ are barred. Just this week protesters at the University of California at Berkeley stopped the right-wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart News addressing students, an attack on free speech (in the birthplace of the campus Free Speech Movement) that they justified on the ground that he backs ‘Trump’s possessive fascist government’. One of the forms of speech barred from their Safe Space is apparently irony.
The ‘snowflake’ phenomenon is sometimes talked about in ‘What’s-wrong-with-young-people-today?’ terms, as if it was an incomprehensible characteristic of modern youth, like the latest trends in tattoos or piercing. It should be clear by now that this threat to free speech has much deeper roots, reaching into the heart of contemporary Western culture. The election of President Trump means that there is a 70-year old snowflake in the White House. The ‘leader of the free world’ is as intolerant of speech he finds offensive as any ban-happy college radical. And this presidential snowflake is empowered, not just to protest against a speaker on campus, but to attack the First Amendment to the US Constitution and try to limit the freedom of the press.
Despite their mutual animosity, Trump displays key characteristics of an anti-free speech snowflake activist. He is a thin-skinned, self-obsessed screecher who interprets any political or intellectual disagreement as a personal assault. His response to ideas he finds offensive is not to challenge them, but to try to silence them. His is a fearful, subjective view of the world in which his feelings count more than facts or fundamental principles. That’s why his administration is effectively running an official Twittermob against Trump’s critics. None of this has anything to do with fascism. It is ‘snowflakeism’, endorsed with the seal of the President of the United States. Of course many previous US presidents, like people in power everywhere, had mixed feelings about freedom of speech, especially when applied to their opponents. The pattern was set by the Founding Fathers of the American republic, most of whom, in the words of one historian, displayed an ‘unbridled passion for a bridled liberty of speech’. However, few have been as willing as the new president to display their contempt for the First Amendment in public. The First Amendment, passed in December 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, enshrines the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and the freedom to petition government for the redress of grievances. The amendment’s central point on freedom of expression states baldly that ‘Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press’. Some 225 years later, those 14 words still set the global standard for the legal protection of free speech. Over the past half-century, the US Supreme Court has often interpreted the First Amendment relatively liberally, to give protection to forms of speech that would once have been deemed beyond the pale, from anti-war protesters to the Ku Klux Klan. American libel law has also been liberalised: it is virtually impossible for a political or public figure to sue for defamation, unless they can prove that their critics acted out of malice and knowingly lied. However, such liberal interpretations of the First Amendment appear increasingly out of step with the times, when speech in the US and across the West is dominated by a creeping culture of conformism and the slogan of the age is ‘You Can’t Say That!’. This is what emboldens the student ‘snowflakes’ to attack free speech on campus. And it has encouraged the new snowflake in the White House to make public his own low opinion of freedom of expression and seek to impose his personal version of political correctness. During the 2016 presidential campaign, candidate Trump made no secret of his dislike of press freedom and his wish to revise American libel laws to curb the media’s ability to attack him. Trump expressed admiration of English libel law – long seen as the most restrictive in the civilised world. He would happily amend US law along similar lines to enable him to sue his critics into silence. As Trump announced from a campaign platform in Texas last February: ‘I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.’ He warned the liberal New York Times and Washington Post in particular that his planned legal changes would mean whenever they attacked him in ‘a hit piece which is a total disgrace we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected. We’re going to open up libel laws, and we’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before.’ No doubt many other rich and powerful people in America, some of whom are currently using privacy suits to try to gag media critics through the back door, would like to see libel law amended along Trump’s lines. But substitute, say, Fox News for the New York Times, and his assault on the ‘negative, horrible and false’ media also chimes with radical criticisms of ‘too much’ media freedom.BAGHDAD/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Iraq’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador on Saturday to demand that Turkey immediately withdraw hundreds of troops deployed in recent days to northern Iraq, near the Islamic State-controlled city of Mosul.
Iraq's President Fouad Massoum speaks during a news conference at the Foreign Ministry in Baghdad March 31, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad
The ministry said in a statement the Turkish forces had entered Iraqi territory without the knowledge of the central government in Baghdad, and that Iraq considered such presence “a hostile act”.
But Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the troop rotation was routine and that Turkish forces had set up a camp near Mosul almost a year ago in coordination with Iraqi authorities.
“This camp was established as a training camp for a force of local volunteers fighting terrorism,” he said in a speech to a labour union that was broadcast live by NTV news channel.
Islamic State militants overran Mosul in June 2014. A much anticipated counter-offensive by Iraqi forces has been repeatedly postponed because they are tied down in fighting elsewhere.
Iraq has urged the international community to provide more weapons and training in its battle against Islamic State, but rejects most forms of direct intervention, mistrusting the intentions of foreign powers.
Davutoglu said the camp, located some 30 km (19 miles) northeast of Mosul, was set up at the Mosul governor’s request and in coordination with the Iraqi Defence Ministry.
“It has trained more than 2,000 of our Mosul brothers, contributing to the freeing of Mosul from the Islamic State terrorist organisation,” he said.
Iraqi President Fouad Massoum earlier described the deployment as “a violation of international norms and law” and called on Turkey to withdraw, echoing a statement from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s media office a day earlier.
A senior Kurdish military officer based north of Mosul told Reuters that additional Turkish trainers had arrived at a camp in the area overnight on Thursday escorted by a Turkish protection force.
A small number of Turkish trainers was already at the camp to train the Hashid Watani (national mobilisation), a force made up of mainly Sunni Arab former Iraqi police and volunteers from Mosul.
The United States was aware of Turkey’s deployment of Turkish soldiers to northern Iraq but the move is not part of the U.S.-led coalition’s activities, according to defence officials in Washington.
U.S. officials made several statements last week on plans to send more U.S. troops to Iraq, prompting powerful Iraqi politicians and militias to protest against the presence of any foreign troops in Iraq without explicit permission from parliament.
Powerful Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim armed groups have pledged to fight a planned deployment of U.S. forces to the country. Turkey has in recent months been bombing Kurdish militant positions in northern Iraq.If you are looking for a quick snack before or after the gym that is high in protein then look no further. This egg white bites recipe is so delicious and simple to make and packed with protein, since you use a muffin tin to cook them you really don’t need to put alot of effort into making these. I often will make them while getting ready for the gym or before a work out and then eat them on the go since they are conveniently sized. Each of these egg white bites has roughly 8 grams of protein per Egg white bite.
You can use Egg Beaters Egg Whites(egg whites in a carton) instead of the eggs this recipe calls for.
Ingredients 10 Egg Whites
1 Egg
1 Tomato, Seeded and chopped finely
1 tsp Dried Basil
1 Onion, Finely chopped
Black Pepper – To taste
Non-Stick Spray
Handful of Spinach
Directions In a bowl, whisk egg whites and the egg. Spray muffin tin with non-stick pray add spinach to muffin tin Pour egg mixture equally in a 6-muffin pan. Top each portion with 1 teaspoon of tomatoes and 1 teaspoon onions, and top with basil and pepper. Bake in oven at 350 degrees F. for 8 minutes or a little longer if you like the more well done
Egg White Bites Recipe Nutritional FactsAs a fast-growing country, China consumes many things at an alarming rate–things like gasoline, coal, and pork. China is one of the world’s biggest pork producers and consumers (it consumes approximately half of all pork produced worldwide and even has a secret strategic pork reserve ), but there is no shortage of tainted meat concerns in the country.
IBM has already brought its analytics technology to fruit and vegetable companies worried about outbreaks; now the technology giant is moving onto China’s massive pork supply.
They can relate pork chops back to a single animal.
IBM recently deployed a pilot pork monitoring and tracking system at six slaughterhouses, six warehouses, and 100 supermarkets in the Shangdong Province, a major pork production hub. The system monitors temperature, humidity, GPS, and other geographic information to ensure that high-risk pork shipments don’t end up in a customer’s mouth unless they have been inspected.
Here’s how the system works: Every pig that goes through the slaughterhouse is tagged in the ear with a bar code and scanned. As the pig moves through the processing center, all of its parts retain that bar code. “As they package pork chops, they can relate pork chops to a single animal and maintain traceability all the way through,” explains Paul Chang, a food safety expert at IBM.
Say, for example, there’s flooding in a certain area. This can often lead to E. coli outbreaks. With the tagging system, IBM can trace back potentially contaminated pigs to a single farm–or even just recall items from a single contaminated pig. Or if sensor suggests that something is off with a pig’s storage temperature, suppliers know to inspect that pig before sending it off for consumption.
The whole thing is a little gruesome–certainly not as happy-go-lucky as the video above of IBM’s analytics being used to track tomatoes from farm to table. But China won’t stop eating pork anytime soon. And for now, at least, suppliers are excited about the opportunity to use analytics. “We’ve seen suppliers fairly aggressively pursuing this because at this stage, it creates a bit of competitive advantage for them. They can command premium prices,” says Chang.Layoffs of nearly 300 people at the Nabisco bakery on Chicago's Southwest Side take effect today. The smell of Oreos wafting through the air in Marquette Park was once something neighbors could simply enjoy. Now, those Oreos – and the jobs that go along with them – have become a call to action.
Nabisco looms large over Kedzie Avenue, south of 73rd Street. For Tony Briseño, who was born and raised in Chicago, the bakery represented opportunity.
“We want our jobs. We want them to stay here. And we want to be able to provide for our families,” Briseño said.
When Briseño got word in January that he was part of the first round of layoffs, it was difficult to take.
“I just recently got married last July, and I bought a house. I have kids. So I’m devastated,” Briseño said. “How am I going to pay my bills? The morale at the company – everybody’s just walking around like zombies, you know? They’re nervous, they’re scared. I mean, who wouldn’t be?”
When Nabisco announced plans to lay off 600 people in Chicago and move production lines to Salinas, Mexico, it got a swift response. In a year when trade deals and the globalized economy are big campaign issues, presidential candidates pounced.
“No more Oreos! No more Oreos!” chanted Republican front-runner Donald Trump at a rally earlier this year.
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton also denounced the layoffs, with Clinton stopping by to meet with affected workers. Union members protested Irene Rosenfeld, CEO of Nabisco’s parent company Mondelez outside a conference downtown. And the bakery workers’ union is calling for a boycott of Oreos made in Mexico.
But neighborhood advocates aren’t just thinking about laid-off workers. They’re thinking bigger.
“The loss of jobs is not only a loss of jobs for Nabisco,” said Ghian Foreman, executive director of the Greater Southwest Development Corporation. “Where do those people go eat lunch? Where do they go to the bank on their lunch break?”
Foreman wants to see Nabisco jobs stay in Chicago. He says there was a time when the bakery had a closer relationship with the community, before a series of mergers, acquisitions and corporate spinoffs.
“Mondelez Nabisco made the choice that they made. I invite them to come sit down with us, and let’s think through it. Let’s think through the long-term relationship,” Foreman said. “I don’t get along with my wife every night, but if I think long-term, then it ends up working out!”
Foreman also thinks it’s important to look at how communities can adapt if companies leave town.
“I think that we’ve seen things like in the West Loop for example, where first, housing came in and now you have big companies like Google coming in,” Foreman said. “So, to kind of look and say, what happened, what are other models we can look at – while at the same time, not just saying, ‘Hey, forget about industrial.’ Those are jobs, those support a lot of people.”
Foreman says the Southwest Side has a lot to offer manufacturers, including Daley College, which has a big training program.
Still, news of layoffs could make people worry whether manufacturing jobs are a thing of the past. Dan Swinney argues manufacturing isn’t dead; it’s just changing, with more and more of the jobs in the United States requiring advanced skills.
“We’re totally confident that manufacturing is viable in this country and can continue to compete and grow,” Swinney said.
Among other initiatives, Swinney’s nonprofit Manufacturing Renaissance helped start a for-credit training program at the Austin Multiplex high school campus on the West Side.
“In Chicago, there’s 20,000 jobs in manufacturing going unfilled. These are jobs that pay on average $70,000 a year. One of our major objectives and one reason we’re located here at the Austin campus is that if you can’t fill those jobs, companies can’t compete. Which means if we don’t have people to fill those jobs, we’re going to lose those jobs and we’re going to have more and more plant closings,” Swinney said. “On the other hand, you want young people to have access to those kind of jobs so they can be responsible citizens and integrate into society, so that’s one of our major focuses.”
Swinney doesn’t just worry about filling empty positions. He says small, privately owned manufacturing businesses – which make up the vast majority of companies – have owners who are getting older with no clear successor to take over.
Swinney says the city needs more training programs for young people, and for older workers facing layoffs – like Nabisco mixer Tony Briseño, who’s wondering what’s next.
“I love this city. I was happy when I got this job. I thought I was going to be here till I retired, enjoy my life, and have a good future,” Briseño said.
Last week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and 18th Ward Alderman Derrick Curtis introduced a resolution calling on Mondelez Nabisco to reconsider the layoffs, which account for half its local workforce. The company says the Chicago bakery will still be one of its largest production sites, but that moving certain lines to Mexico will save tens of millions of dollars.
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MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.25.207.149 with HTTP; Fri, 19 Jun 2015 09:56:16 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <CA+C_h83Mkmd26vvDDQq+H-OY3pRGcXUMqy5eeyZEGL0nuLWc2Q@mail.gmail.com> References: <CA+C_h81idGxeHsffwENRP-kp5uOhop_jJrTHoFH355MCP0P49w@mail.gmail.com> <CADHYb1_0NSDSv86eiu3scNLd5f7rFqqLwjZ=m1bsDnKerEZjQw@mail.gmail.com> <CAE6FiQ_wjnNTu_Mn3oWQdZbX7wxtrOnmjKneWYQ9BuYcN4gdYA@mail.gmail.com> <CA+C_h83Mkmd26vvDDQq+H-OY3pRGcXUMqy5eeyZEGL0nuLWc2Q@mail.gmail.com> Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 12:56:16 -0400 Delivered-To: [email protected] Message-ID: <CAE6FiQ8fgwC_F4tx60VB_5H2j8-ofEDwj1RmZV5QxOFR-U=kLA@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: For approval: Pope tweet From: John Podesta <[email protected]> To: Lauren Peterson <[email protected]> CC: Teddy Goff <[email protected]>, Nick Merrill <[email protected]>, Katie Dowd <[email protected]>, Kristina Schake <[email protected]>, Christina Reynolds <[email protected]>, Jenna Lowenstein <[email protected]> Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=047d7bd8fdf268feb20518e1cd1a --047d7bd8fdf268feb20518e1cd1a Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Like it. On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 12:39 PM, Lauren Peterson < [email protected]> wrote: > How's this? > >.@Pontifex <https://twitter.com/Pontifex> is right=E2=80=94climate change= is a > moral crisis that disproportionately harms the neediest among us. We need > leadership, not denial. -H > > On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 11:12 AM, John Podesta <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> I'm ok. We are kind of slow on the draw here so might try to do somethin= g >> more forward leaning like encyclical + Pope's September visit to US & UN >> add critical momentum to Paris conference. Other way to take this is t= o >> thank him for pointing out that the people at the bottom will get clobbe= red >> the most by climate change. >> On Jun 19, 2015 9:20 AM, "Teddy Goff" <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Adding Podesta here too for his review. I vote #2, but defer to the >>> non-Jews on this thread if anyone thinks "amen" might rub people the wr= ong >>> way. >>> >>> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 9:14 AM, Lauren Peterson < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> I believe these are the two we landed on as far as people's favorites. >>>> Sounds like we're ready to move forward with this today, though will >>>> confirm before posting. Nick, I know we have another signed tweet with= you >>>> on Juneteenth, so hoping to add this to the pile if folks are ok with = the >>>> below options. >>>> >>>> ### >>>> >>>> Real problems take real solutions. Thank you, @Pontifex >>>> <https://twitter.com/Pontifex>, for shining a light on the crisis of >>>> climate change. -H >>>> >>>> There's only one thing to say about @Pontifex >>>> <https://twitter.com/Pontifex>'s bold statements on climate change & >>>> renewable energy: Amen. -H >>>> >>> >>> > --047d7bd8fdf268feb20518e1cd1a Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable <div dir=3D"ltr">Like it.</div><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br><div class=3D= "gmail_quote">On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 12:39 PM, Lauren Peterson <span dir= =3D"ltr"><<a href=3D"mailto:[email protected]" target=3D"_bla= nk">[email protected]</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class= =3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padd= ing-left:1ex"><div dir=3D"ltr">How's this?<div><br></div><div><span sty= le=3D"color:rgb(41,47,51);line-height:20px;font-family:"Helvetica Neue= ",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">.</span><a style=3D"color= :rgb(0,87,184);line-height:20px;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helv= etica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;text-decoration:none!important" href= =3D"https://twitter.com/Pontifex" target=3D"_blank"><span style=3D"color:rg= b(102,154,212)">@</span>Pontifex</a><span style=3D"color:rgb(41,47,51);line= -height:20px;font-family:"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-se= rif;font-size:13px">=C2=A0is right=E2=80=94climate change is a moral crisis= that disproportionately harms the neediest among us. We need leadership, n= ot denial. -H</span><br></div></div><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br><div cla= ss=3D"gmail_quote"><span>On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 11:12 AM, John Podesta <sp= an dir=3D"ltr"><<a href=3D"mailto:[email protected]" target=3D"_bla= nk">[email protected]</a>></span> wrote:<br></span><div><div class= =3D"h5"><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex= ;padding-left:1ex;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;= border-left-style:solid"><p dir=3D"ltr">I'm ok. We are kind of slow on = the draw here so might try to do something more forward leaning like encycl= ical + Pope's September visit to US & UN add=C2=A0 critical momentu= m to Paris conference.=C2=A0 Other way to take this is to thank him for poi= nting out that the people at the bottom will get clobbered the most by clim= ate change. </p><div><div> <div class=3D"gmail_quote">On Jun 19, 2015 9:20 AM, "Teddy Goff" = <<a href=3D"mailto:[email protected]" target=3D"_blank">tgoff@hil= laryclinton.com</a>> wrote:<br type=3D"attribution"><blockquote class=3D= "gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-lef= t-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid"><di= v dir=3D"ltr">Adding Podesta here too for his review. I vote #2, but defer = to the non-Jews on this thread if anyone thinks "amen" might rub = people the wrong way.=C2=A0</div><div class=3D"gmail_extra"><br><div class= =3D"gmail_quote">On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 9:14 AM, Lauren Peterson <span dir= =3D"ltr"><<a href=3D"mailto:[email protected]" target=3D"_bla= nk">[email protected]</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class= =3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;padding-left:1ex;border-= left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid">= <div dir=3D"ltr">I believe these are the two we landed on as far as people&= #39;s favorites. Sounds like we're ready to move forward with this toda= y, though will confirm before posting. Nick, I know we have another signed = tweet with you on Juneteenth, so hoping to add this to the pile if folks ar= e ok with the below options.=C2=A0<div><br></div><div>###<br><div><br></div= ><div><div style=3D"font-size:12.8px"><span style=3D"font-size:12.8px"><spa= n style=3D"color:rgb(41,47,51);line-height:20px;font-family:"Helvetica= Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px">Real problems take r= eal solutions. Thank you,=C2=A0</span><a style=3D"color:rgb(0,87,184);line-=
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's indictment did not pertain to Russian interference in the campaign, Mr. Papadopoulos's did, and that the two indictments were released in tandem sends a strong message that the full scope of illicit activity will be examined.
Mr. Mueller has made his move, and Mr. Trump will likely retaliate as he always does, with self-preservation and revenge outweighing even feigned loyalty to the law. Mr. Trump may have surrounded himself with dangerous men for whom the law was an abstraction to be abused. They will not go down quietly – and neither will Mr. Trump.
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Sarah Kendzior is a St. Louis, Mo.-based commentator who writes about politics, the economy and mediaFOR NEWBIES:
1) Just what is this Kickstarter thing?
Kickstarter is amazing, It’s like the National Foundation for the Arts except the patrons get to choose who they support. No more listening to the same song for 6 months in a row, it’s a way to let the crowd have a say in what they want produced… and in this case I’m focusing on trying to really show what’s possible and set an example, blaze a trial etc., so that others can follow.
2) I’d like to contribute, but setting up ANOTHER account is such a pain…
I totally get it… but kickstarter got this one right… It’s all handled through amazon.com and you don’t need any new account. All you have to do is click on the big, green “BACK THIS PROJECT” button on the right enter your pledge. It’s totally easy… and once you’ve made the initial contribution it’s trivial to go back later and change it to another amount. If you have ANY interest in the project at all you should totally contribute $1 right now – then you’ll automatically get all the free stuff we’ve been sending out to everyone the minute it is posted.
3) Wait a minute, you’re at, like, 1200% funding already…
Yep, we made 100% funding in our first 6 hours -- and we’re expanding scope as fast as we receive more. “Creating Origami’s” gonna happen, that’s a given.
But now we’ve committed to releasing other books of “lost classics” (the first two of which we’ve already started development on – see the FAQ for more details) and are also looking into setting up a foundation for not only preserving the art but leveraging new technologies to make it easier for new designers to get their work seen and published.
This project is much bigger than a single book at this point…. It’s about the community that has sprung up around the effort and our responding to that community’s need, and a chance to really contribute to something that will help our community expand. Check the FAQ below for details...
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming!
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
The original version of JC Nolan’s seminal book, ”Creating Origami”, was written and released in 1995 to a small audience of attendees at the annual OUSA (Origami USA) convention in New York City. It had been created over the course of a 3 year period, where after being discouraged by the lack of existing information on the design process for people who wanted to do their own models, Nolan decided if a book on the subject hadn’t been done before, he’d do it himself.
At that time origami was thought of as a craft, not an art form. And with the unusual nature of the book a publisher was nearly impossible to find. The initial printing was very small, being published and financed by a close friend. Unexpected by JC, the book was a hit and the talk of the convention. When he arrived (a day late) at the weekend long event he was astonished to learn that the book had already sold out.
Since then, "Creating Origami" has become a sought after rarity in the origami community but one infrequently found:
"J.C. Nolan's book is really only an illusion...
It is an excellent book and one of the hardest to locate. Sometimes, if you post that you're interested in buying a copy, someone will list their copy on eBay.
However, I've found it very difficult to even locate it via Inter-library loan...
The anemone and clown fish is truly great and was ahead of its time. JC was also one of the first to use the computer to create diagrams, and his diagrams of Patricia Crawford's work, full rigged Ship and unicorn, as well as Fred Rohm's It's Magic (Color change Rabbit on a box) are amazing.
If you find a copy, grab it" - Hank Simon, Origami Forum, UK
Why are we doing this campaign on Kickstarter?
The funds raised by this campaign will go toward the various expenses associated with getting the book updated from its old software format and ready for print: cover design, photography, proofing and the software needed to convert the old format files to current state of the art programs. And if we do well enough we’ll also be able to afford a conversion to Kindle.
From JC -
"Well, to be honest, it stemmed from a moral dilemma. Recently a copy of 'Creating Origami' was listed on eBay for $100 and sold for even more. I was amazed and humbled and hadn’t realized there was still that much interest.
At the time, I was already looking into re-releasing through on-demand publishing, but was feeling daunted by the various costs involved in 'doing it right' as opposed to just 'throwing it out there.' 'Creating Origami' was a real labor of love and I wanted to give it the treatment it deserves.
See, It just so happens that I have a few original copies that I’d hidden away for very special occasions. And I thought, 'Wouldn’t it be great to put those on eBay to help cover the expenses of the re-release?'
But it didn’t feel right selling the originals without announcing that a new version might be on the way. That’s when I got the idea to use Kickstarter. That way I can raise the funds and at the same time let people know in a big way that the book is coming."
If all goes well we hope to have the book ready for release within a few weeks of campaign completion. We are well on our way to making our deadline and if funding comes through we'll have the resources to get it done that much faster.
The Tee Shirts
Mock-up of tee shirts to be released in black and baby pink
The StickersSANDY, Utah -- Phil Jones has backed himself to win a regular place in the Manchester United team next season despite another expensive defensive addition at Old Trafford.
Jones has seen Jose Mourinho sign centre-back Victor Lindelof from Benfica in a £31 million deal this summer, which comes 12 months after the United manager signed Eric Bailly for £30m from Villarreal.
As well as Lindelof and Bailly, Jones also faces competition from Chris Smalling, Daley Blind and Marcos Rojo, once the latter recovers from a knee ligament injury.
But after starting both of United's first two preseason games against LA Galaxy and Real Salt Lake, Jones is confident of his chances of first-team football -- if he can stay fit.
"Whoever I've played under -- [Sir Alex] Ferguson, [David] Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Mourinho -- if I've been fit then the majority of the time I've played," he told reporters.
"If there's competition, there's competition. There are some terrific defenders at the club. That's the way it should be as well. You want to test yourself against the best and with the best and that's what we've got here."
United have recorded two wins so far on their tour of the United States, but after conceding twice against LA Galaxy with a back three and once against Real Salt Lake with a back four, Jones says their defending must get better before the season starts.
"It was a sloppy goal [against Real Salt Lake] and we conceded two sloppy goals the other night, but we've got to look forward," he said. "We've got Manchester City on Thursday and we are looking forward to it."
Lindelof is not the only new face in the dressing room on the tour of the United States after United splashed £75 million on Romelu Lukaku.
Phil Jones is looking forward to the new season. Ian Walton/Getty Images
Jones knows the striker well having played against him in the Premier League, the latest in the 1-1 draw with Everton at Goodison Park in December.
Lukaku scored his first United goal in the 2-1 win over Real Salt Lake at the Rio Tinto Stadium on Monday, and Jones has backed his new teammate to solve the goal-scoring problem that plagued the club last season.
"You can see he's a strong player. He's difficult for defenders to play against," he said. "You have to be cute against him, but he's going to be a handful for a lot of players this season.
"We are lucky to have him. Hopefully he can score a lot of goals for us. He's a terrific striker, he knows where the back of the net is. He adds something different to what we had last season.
"We're definitely a lot stronger this year. We've recruited well, big Rom up front is a threat, a handful. Victor has come in and looks like he's been here for five years now. We're positive and looking forward to it."
United have remaining preseason games against City, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Valerenga and Sampdoria before the UEFA Super Cup and start of the Premier League in August.
Jones added: "Last season was disappointing in the league but we won the Europa League so that wasn't bad. This year we definitely have to start challenging for the title, there's no question about it. But I think we can definitely do it with this squad.
"Hopefully this season every time another team steps out at Old Trafford they know they are in for a tough time. I think we have seen that last season. Albeit we drew too many at home, but we will put that right this season and we are looking forward to it."Steven Strogatz on math, from basic to baffling.
In middle school my friends and I enjoyed chewing on the classic conundrums. What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? Easy — they both explode. Philosophy’s trivial when you’re 13.
But one puzzle bothered us: if you keep moving halfway to the wall, will you ever get there? Something about this one was deeply frustrating, the thought of getting closer and closer and yet never quite making it. (There’s probably a metaphor for teenage angst in there somewhere.) Another concern was the thinly veiled presence of infinity. To reach the wall you’d need to take an infinite number of steps, and by the end they’d become infinitesimally small. Whoa.
Questions like this have always caused headaches. Around 500 B.C., Zeno of Elea posed a set of paradoxes about infinity that puzzled generations of philosophers, and that may have been partly to blame for its banishment from mathematics for centuries to come. In Euclidean geometry, for example, the only constructions allowed were those that involved a finite number of steps. The infinite was considered too ineffable, too unfathomable, and too hard to make logically rigorous.
But Archimedes, the greatest mathematician of antiquity, realized the power of the infinite. He harnessed it to solve problems that were otherwise intractable, and in the process came close to inventing calculus — nearly 2,000 years before Newton and Leibniz.
In the coming weeks we’ll delve into the great ideas at the heart of calculus. But for now I’d like to begin with the first beautiful hints of them, visible in ancient calculations about circles and pi.
Let’s recall what we mean by pi. It’s a ratio of two distances. One of them is the diameter, the distance across the circle through its center. The other is the circumference, the distance around the circle. Pi is defined as their ratio, the circumference divided by the diameter.
If you’re a careful thinker, you might be worried about something already. How do we know that pi is the same number for all circles? Could it be different for big circles and little circles? The answer is no, but the proof isn’t trivial. Here’s an intuitive argument.
Imagine using a photocopier to reduce an image of a circle by, say, 50 percent. Then all distances in the picture — including the circumference and the diameter — would shrink in proportion by 50 percent. So when you divide the new circumference by the new diameter, that 50 percent change would cancel out, leaving the ratio between them unaltered. That ratio is pi.
Of course, this doesn’t tell us how big pi is. Simple experiments with strings and dishes are good enough to yield a value near 3, or if you’re more meticulous, 3 and 1/7th. But suppose we want to find pi exactly or at least approximate it to any desired accuracy. What then? This was the problem that confounded the ancients.
Before turning to Archimedes’s brilliant solution, we should mention one other place where pi appears in connection with circles. The area of a circle (the amount of space inside it) is given by the formula
Here A is the area, π is the Greek letter pi, and r is the radius of the circle, defined as half the diameter.
All of us memorized this formula in high school, but where does it come from? It’s not usually proven in geometry class. If you went on to take calculus, you probably saw a proof of it there, but is it really necessary to use calculus to obtain something so basic?
Yes, it is.
What makes the problem difficult is that circles are round. If they were made of straight lines, there’d be no issue. Finding the areas of triangles, squares and pentagons is easy. But curved shapes like circles are hard.
The key to thinking mathematically about curved shapes is to pretend they’re made up of lots of little straight pieces. That’s not really true, but it works … as long as you take it to the limit and imagine infinitely many pieces, each infinitesimally small. That’s the crucial idea behind all of calculus.
Here’s one way to use it to find the area of a circle. Begin by chopping the area into four equal quarters, and rearrange them like so.
The strange scalloped shape on the bottom has the same area as the circle, though that might seem pretty uninformative since we don’t know its area either. But at least we know two important facts about it. First, the two arcs along its bottom have a combined length of πr, exactly half the circumference of the original circle (because the other half of the circumference is accounted for by the two arcs on top). Second, the straight sides of the slices have a length of r, since each of them was originally a radius of the circle.
Next, repeat the process, but this time with eight slices, stacked alternately as before.
The scalloped shape looks a bit less bizarre now. The arcs on the top and the bottom are still there, but they’re not as pronounced. Another improvement is the left and right sides of the scalloped shape don’t tilt as much as they used to. Despite these changes, the two facts above continue to hold: the arcs on the bottom still have a net length of πr, and each side still has a length of r. And of course the scalloped shape still has the same area as before — the area of the circle we’re seeking — since it’s just a rearrangement of the circle’s eight slices.
As we take more and more slices, something marvelous happens: the scalloped shape approaches a rectangle. The arcs become flatter and the sides become almost vertical.
In the limit of infinitely many slices, the shape is a rectangle. Just as before, the two facts still hold, which means this rectangle has a bottom of width πr and a side of height r.
But now the problem is easy. The area of a rectangle equals its width times its height, so multiplying πr times r yields an area of πr2 for the rectangle. And since the rearranged shape always has the same area as the circle, that’s the answer for the circle too!
What’s so charming about this calculation is the way infinity comes to the rescue. At every finite stage, the scalloped shape looks weird and unpromising. But when you take it to the limit — when you finally “get to the wall” — it becomes simple and beautiful, and everything becomes clear. That’s how calculus works at its best.
Archimedes used a similar strategy to approximate pi. He replaced a circle by a polygon with many straight sides, and then kept doubling the number of sides to get closer to perfect roundness. But rather than settling for an approximation of uncertain accuracy, he methodically bounded pi by sandwiching the circle between “inscribed” and “circumscribed” polygons, as shown below for 6-, 12- and 24-sided figures.
Then he used the Pythagorean theorem to work out the perimeters of these inner and outer polygons, starting with the hexagon and bootstrapping his way up to 12, 24, 48 and ultimately 96 sides. The results for the 96-gons enabled him to prove that
In decimal notation (which Archimedes didn’t have), this means pi is between 3.1408 and 3.1429.
This approach is known as the “method of exhaustion” because of the way it traps the unknown number pi between two known numbers that squeeze it from either side. The bounds tighten with each doubling, thus exhausting the wiggle room for pi.
In the limit of infinitely many sides, both the upper and lower bounds would converge to pi. Unfortunately, this limit isn’t as simple as the earlier one, where the scalloped shape morphed into a rectangle. So pi remains as elusive as ever. We can discover more and more of its digits — the current record is over 2.7 trillion decimal places — but we’ll never know it completely.
Aside from laying the groundwork for calculus, Archimedes taught us the power of approximation and iteration. He bootstrapped a good estimate into a better one, using more and more straight pieces to approximate a curved object with increasing accuracy.
More than two millennia later, this strategy matured into the modern field of “numerical analysis.” When engineers use computers to design cars to be optimally streamlined, or when biophysicists simulate how a new chemotherapy drug latches onto a cancer cell, they are using numerical analysis. The mathematicians and computer scientists who pioneered this field have created highly efficient, repetitive algorithms, running billions of times per second, that enable computers to solve problems in every aspect of modern life, from biotech to Wall Street to the Internet. In each case, the strategy is to find a series of approximations that converge to the correct answer as a limit.
And there’s no limit to where that’ll take us.
NOTES:
Thanks to Tim Novikoff and Carole Schiffman for their comments and suggestions, and to Margaret Nelson for preparing the illustrations.
Editor’s Note: A correction was made to an earlier version of this column, to fix a misspelling of the name of the publisher of Zeno’s Paradox.
Need to print this post? Here is a print-friendly PDF version of this piece, with images.Church's Chicken is an American chain of fast food restaurants specializing in fried chicken, also trading outside North America as Texas Chicken.[1] The chain was founded as Church's Fried Chicken To Go by George W. Church Sr., on April 17, 1952, in San Antonio, Texas, across the street from The Alamo.
The company, with more than 1,700 locations in 25 countries, is the fourth largest chicken restaurant chain behind KFC, Popeyes, and Chick-fil-A, and fourth by revenue behind Chick-fil-A, KFC, and Popeyes.[2][3]
History [ edit ]
Initially, the restaurant only sold chicken, but added fries and jalapeños in 1955.[2] The company had four restaurants by the time of Church's death in 1956. In the 1980s, the chain briefly operated a hamburger franchise called G. W. Jrs in Texas.[4] During the mid-1960s the Jim Dandy Fried Chicken chain purchased the rights to use the Church's Chicken name where its stores were branded with the Jim Dandy "D" logo.
From 1979 through 1986, Church's Chicken sponsored the "Grand Prix" series of chess tournaments under the auspices of the United States Chess Federation.[5]
Rapid expansion followed, and Church's became the second largest chicken restaurant chain in 1989, when it merged with Popeyes.[2] The brands had their supply lines consolidated, but were still marketed as separate chains. Hala Moddelmog was appointed as president of Church's Chicken in March 1996, making her the first female president of a fast food restaurant chain.
Church's was owned by AFC Enterprises, along with Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits and Cinnabon, through the end of 2004, when it was sold to Arcapita (formerly Crescent Capital Investments). Because Arcapita is an Islamic venture capital firm, pork products were removed from the menu after the sale (as pork is not halal) in 2005.[6][7]
Also, American Church's Chicken restaurants switched beverage products to Coca-Cola (some locations serving Coke products and Dr Pepper), while still retaining the Pepsi-Cola contract in Puerto Rico and Canada.[citation needed] On August 10, 2009, San Francisco private equity firm Friedman Fleischer & Lowe bought Church's Chicken from Arcapita.[8]
Texas Chicken In Tbilisi
In some areas, Church's is co franchised with the White Castle hamburger chain.[9] In Canada, Church's Chicken items were once available in Harvey's restaurants, but the co venture was discontinued.[10]
To date, Church's Chicken has over 1,660 locations in 30 countries.[11] There are locations in Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Curaçao, Egypt, Georgia (Tbilisi), Guyana, Honduras, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Laos (Vientiane), Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, Puerto Rico, Russia, St. Kitts, Saint Lucia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Syria, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
See also [ edit ]RAMALLAH, West Bank — For a while now I’ve wondered why there’s been no Third Intifada. That is, no third Palestinian uprising in the West Bank, the first of which helped to spur the Oslo peace process and the second of which — with more live ammunition from the Israeli side and suicide bombings from the Palestinian side — led to the breakdown of Oslo. You get many explanations from Palestinians: they’re too poor, too divided, too tired or that they realize these uprisings, in the end, did them more harm than good, especially the second. But being here, it’s obvious that a Third Intifada is underway. It’s the one that Israel always feared most — not an intifada with stones or suicide bombers, but one propelled by nonviolent resistance and economic boycott.
But this Third Intifada isn’t really led by Palestinians in Ramallah. It’s led by the European Union in Brussels and other opponents of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank across the globe. Regardless of origin, though, it’s becoming a real source of leverage for the Palestinians in their negotiations with Israel.
Secretary of State John Kerry was recently denounced by Israeli leaders for warning publicly that the boycott and campaign to delegitimize Israel will only get stronger if current peace talks fail. But Kerry is right.
Finance Minister Yair Lapid told Israel Army Radio on Monday that if no two-state solution is reached with the Palestinians, “it will hit the pocket of every Israeli.” Israel’s economy depends on technology and agricultural exports to Europe and on European investments in its high-tech industries. According to Lapid, even a limited boycott that curbed Israeli exports to Europe by 20 percent would cost Israel more than $5 billion a year and thousands of jobs. That’s why he added: “Israel won’t conduct its policy based on threats. But to pretend that the threats don’t exist, or that they’re not serious, or it’s not a process happening in front of us, is also not serious.”I’ve been a paramedic on and off for 10 years now. I’ve seen the good and the bad — probably more bad than good, but I’ve opened my eyes to something different.
I’ve seen people in Facebook groups post about how health care professionals treat people with invisible illnesses poorly because they don’t understand. They’re called fakers, drug seekers or attention seekers. I used to be one of those people.
When you’re a new EMT or paramedic, all you want to do is fit in. You want to mesh with your partner and get along. You may get matched up with an FTO (field training officer) who’s been on the road one year too long. They’re burned out, and to them, every patient is another call away from their nap or TV show.
Unfortunately, I became that medic. If someone said he or she had fibromyalgia, for example, I assumed that person was a drug seeker. I thought everyone could walk to the ambulance. If you didn’t have a visible illness, I treated you like crap. “C’mon, you can walk,” I’d say.
It wasn’t until my own health began to decline and I needed help that I began to understand. I went from doctor to doctor trying to explain what the problem was. They looked at me like a faker. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but here’s a depression medication,” I heard. “Try that because it’s in your head.”
I now understand what my patients were going through. I didn’t realize how demeaning it was to be treated like that. I just wanted to fit in with my fellow co-workers.
I’m sorry to those who I treated poorly. I understand now. I don’t work the road anymore, but I still see it in the hospital. I catch myself every once in a while making comments with my co-workers, but I stop myself.
What we need is a little compassion, and that’s something that isn’t taught in med school. I wish more awareness existed. So please continue to educate the medics out there. We really do love to learn.There’s an any-port-in-a-storm quality to Speaker John Boehner’s piloting of the House, and nothing illustrates that better than Republican squabbling over whether and how to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
Why is the Department of Homeland Security about to run out of money? Because back in December, conservatives wanted to use a government funding deadline to pick a big fight with President Obama over his deportation relief policies, and rather than risk a shutdown, or wrest the till back from the hardliners, GOP leaders decided to give them whatever they could cobble together. What they came up with was a harebrained scheme to fund all government operations except for Homeland Security through the end of the fiscal year. Meanwhile, they extended DHS funding through February only, and promised to fight Obama’s deferred action programs in the context of a narrower threat to shut down the department that enforces immigration policy.
The problems with this strategy were obvious from the outset. As I observed at the time, denying DHS an appropriation wouldn’t freeze Obama’s deportation programs, because the agency implementing them is self-financing. In fact, denying DHS an appropriation wouldn’t accomplish very much at all; as a national security hub, most of its functions are considered essential, and thus exempt from the kinds of closure protocols that apply to national parks and Social Security administrative offices.
The upshot is that Republicans are threatening to infuriate DHS employees and their allies, weaken DHS functionality, and, in a losing p.r. campaign, surrender the mantle of national security back to Democrats—all unless Obama agrees to rescind his own executive actions. As muggings go, this isn’t much different than screaming, “Your money or my life!” No less an immigration hardliner than Representative Steve King understands that the plan has always amounted to capitulation.Share. Light on gameplay, but lots of heart. Light on gameplay, but lots of heart.
Episode 1 of Minecraft: Story Mode feels more like Telltale’s The Walking Dead than you might guess. You’ll make tough choices about which members of your group stay and which go, mediate disputes, and yes, you’ll even fend off zombies. Of course, Story Mode’s family-friendly adventure replaces Walking Dead’s despair with a lighthearted sense of humor and camaraderie, written with a lot of heart that kept me invested in this story and its mysteries.
At first, the world is a mystery in of itself. We play as Jesse, the heart of a group of friends and aspiring builders. As for what it means to be a builder in the world of Minecraft: Story Mode? I couldn’t tell you, because almost no time is spent on introducing us to Telltale’s take on Minecraft’s inherently blank-slate universe in Episode 1. Instead we’re quickly tossed directly into the drama. Ten extra minutes of opening scenes devoted to who these friends are, where they live, and other worldbuilding or character moments would have gone a long way towards orienting me into what this blocky world is all about and what its rules are. Are they kids? Adults? Do people in this world have jobs? I’m not sure.
Exit Theatre Mode
These concerns fade into the background once the compelling world-ending plot kicks into high gear. The themes might be heavy - death! destruction! betrayal! - but it’s all presented in more of a light, Ghostbusters-esque vibe. Jesse, faultlessly voiced by actor/comedian Patton Oswalt if you play as a male or Catherine Taber as female, perfectly balances heroics with laughs. The rest of the squad isn’t given enough screen time to grow beyond one-dimensional status, sadly. The episode’s heaviest moment comes when your group makes a discovery that forces them to question everything they’ve always believed in. Pretty heavy stuff, for a game mostly content to get by on laughs.
“ Big Minecraft fans will enjoy it on a much deeper level.
Telltale’s commitment to genuinely forking paths more than ever before is off to an impressive start. On my episode-closing stats screen I found out that only 29% of players had experienced a rescue sequence I assumed was mandatory. The episode ends on a heavy choice, too. Allowing me to truly navigate my own path through this adventure feels great, and does make up for some of Story Mode’s storytelling shortcomings.
Minecraft: Story Mode will work as a traditional “save the world!” adventure for just about anyone, but big Minecraft fans will be able to enjoy it on a much deeper level. Cute in-jokes like punching trees as part of a training montage, gathering nine slime to craft a slime block, and admiring a chicken-torturing device made the Minecraft fan in me smile. I especially liked the couple of time-lapse building sequences that show elaborate structures being erected, and the opportunity to “craft” story-critical items by placing them directly onto a crafting table.
Exit Theatre Mode
Even more impressive is Story Mode’s gorgeous in-game sets. Each looks like it was painstakingly and lovingly created directly in Minecraft itself. It’s extremely authentic and impressive, with lots of huge buildings and vistas to soak in, combined with plenty of tiny street-level details when wandering around town.
Still, I wish there was more to play around with in these spaces. Minecraft’s trademark is its unrestricted freedom and interactivity, yet Story Mode Episode 1 only contains a couple true puzzles. Those that are here really work, though. They’re smartly integrated into the plot and environment, and feature clever solutions. But that isn’t enough gameplay to sustain a two-hour episode, the rest of which is made up mostly of on-rails quick time events.ALL REWARDS SHIP TO UNITED STATES FOR FREE! INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR CANADA, UK, AND AUSTRALIA!
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Gorilla or human, all lives matter. If a Kickstarter could have saved Harambe's life, we would have exceeded that goal with more dollars than the Clinton and Trump's campaigns combined. But, we can't. Because on May 28th 2016, Harambe was shot. Harambe took a shot for you. Now we must take a shot for him. It's what he would have wanted. We have designed these commemorative shot glasses in his honor. Our design and manufacturing is established and we are ready to begin production. We need this funding to continue to fuel the community around Harambe and justice for animals. We understand that this project cannot eliminate animal injustice, but it's a shot in the right direction.
harambee (ˌhɑːrɑːmˈbeɪ)
n
1. A work chant used on the E African coast
2. A rallying cry used in Kenya
Interjection
A cry of harambe
Word Origin:
Swahili: pull together
WE MUST PULL TOGETHER FOR HARAMBE. Since Harambe's humble sacrifice, the internet has been in mourning. The news, reddit, righteous social media accounts and accurate memes covered his story. But no one could cover Harambe from that bullet. Thus, at every party, we must take a shot for the deceased homie. #justice4harambe #shotsforharambeGoogle's controversial decision to shut down Google Reader on July 1st has left its users searching for a new news-collecting homeland, and we now have an idea of the scale of the RSS diaspora. Feedly has announced that more than half a million Google Reader users have signed up for its RSS service following Google's service termination announcement on Wednesday. Feedly also says it's working to keep up with its growth, increasing bandwidth by 10 times and adding new servers. Moving forward, the developers say its main priorities over the next 30 days are to keep the service running, to solicit suggestions from new users, and to add new features on a weekly basis.
The Google Reader shutdown will force users and developers of third-party RSS clients using Reader's services to find a new solution keep their news aggregators running. On Wednesday, Feedly promised that it would clone the Google Reader API to give users a "seamless transition" when Reader shuts down, and other RSS app makers, including the creators of Press and Reeder, have also indicated they are committed to finding a solution.The unproduced 1987 film One Saliva Bubble might be the clue to unlocking one of Twin Peaks’ most polarising new characters
Text Nick Chen
WARNING: spoilers ahead Twin Peaks fans are divided. While most viewers would agree that season three has met and miraculously surpassed expectations, there’s still contention around the character of Dougie. Some people hate him. Really hate him. After all, we’re 12 episodes into the new season and Agent Dale Cooper is still nowhere to be found. Cooper was supposed to be the hero, the audience’s cipher into David Lynch’s impenetrable subconscious. But instead we get Kyle MacLachlan oscillating between Cooper’s evil doppelganger and the blank, adult-baby that is Dougie. We’ve somehow seen more of Michael Cera, Moby and the previously off-screen Diane than a living, breathing Agent Cooper in the real world. For those not caught up on Dougie, he’s effectively a decoy created by Cooper’s doppelganger between seasons two and three. If you recall, season two ended with the ‘Good Dale’ imprisoned inside the Black Lodge, while a menacing lookalike took his place in Twin Peaks. This exchange was supposed to last 25 years – when time’s up, order would be restored. But to cheat the system, the evil doppelganger manufactured a doppelganger of his own called Dougie Jones. (A bit like the guy who created the ScarJo robot, perhaps.) The plan worked: after 25 years, Agent Cooper returned to our dimension and found himself transported into Dougie’s body instead. The problem is that, inside Dougie, Cooper appears to be braindead. The clue to unlocking all this can perhaps be found in One Saliva Bubble, an unproduced screenplay by Lynch and Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost. The pair wrote the film in 1987, and it was nearly Lynch’s follow-up to Blue Velvet. Steve Martin and Martin Short read a draft and agreed to play the leads. “I was casting it,” Lynch said. “We went location scouting, and I was going to shoot it. And then (producer) Dino (De Laurentiis)’s company went bankrupt.”
So instead, Lynch and Frost wrote the pilot for Twin Peaks. But what became of One Saliva Bubble? Well, sifting through a copy of the script (the version circulating online dates back to May 1987) reveals a prototype for the Dougie storyline we’re now all enjoying and/or suffering through. Lynch called it “a nutty film, a sort of family comedy where nothing scary took place”. Elsewhere, he deemed it an “out-and-out wacky, dumb comedy… Mark and I were laughing like crazy when we wrote it.” Trust me, it’s bizarre. As the elevator pitch goes, One Saliva Bubble is a body-swapping caper about a neighbourhood in Kansas populated by Dougies. It begins in a military bunker with scientists fussing over a computer panel. One immature guard cackles at a joke (“So she said to him, ‘poo-poo on your pee-pee’…”) and he in turn produces a single bubble of saliva that floats through the room and shorts a circuit. A satellite then emits a lightning bolt towards the town of Newtonville. Here comes the Twin Peaks-y bit. Just as Dougie emerged from a plug socket (think back – in episode three, Cooper is brought back to Earth via electricity), the laser beam causes the residents of Newtonville to literally find themselves in each other’s shoes. Horton the hitman swaps bodies with Wally the boring family guy. Professor Hugo switches places with the not-so-smart Newt Newton. A white woman and a black man exchange outfits. A group of Chinese acrobats and 35 employees of Heinz ketchup take each other’s positions. And so on. “One Saliva Bubble also contains a few fun nuggets for Twin Peaks obsessives. There are characters called Gordon Cole, Mike, Ike and, most notably, Bob” The ensuing chaos basically foreshadows Twin Peaks: The Return. Specifically, it’s the running gag that no one bats an eyelid at Dou
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Formula 1 bosses have changed the rules to prevent drivers 'blocking' a rival who is trying to pass them.
The move was prompted by an incident involving Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton in Italy last season.
Analysis The FIA's decision to write a rule defining what is acceptable in terms of defensive driving was inevitable - and sensible - after a number of incidents in 2011. Most high-profile among them was Schumacher's behaviour in Monza, but Felipe Massa's decision to turn in on Hamilton in India, which caused a crash and for which the Ferrari driver was penalised, was also relevant, as was Hamilton's own behaviour in Malaysia towards Fernando Alonso - which also earned punishment. The rule takes away the subjectivity surrounding such incidents and should make it easier for the stewards and the drivers to decide what is - and is not - on the right side of the line
The new rule, officially published on Wednesday, forbids drivers from moving back on to the racing line if they have moved off it to defend.
It formally enshrines what had previously been an agreement between the drivers.
The new rule is article 20.3 of the F1 sporting regulations.
It says: "More than one change of direction to defend a position is not permitted.
"Any driver moving back towards the racing line, having earlier defended his position off‐line, should leave at least one car width between his own car and the edge of the track on the approach to the corner."
It is this that so incensed Hamilton about Schumacher's driving in Monza - there was one incident between the second chicane and the first Lesmo corner which prompted the Englishman to get on the radio to his team and say: "I thought you were only allowed to make one move."
Schumacher's Mercedes team received a number of warnings from race director Charlie Whiting during his defence in Italy, and team boss Ross Brawn went on the radio to remind him to "leave room" for Hamilton when he was defending.
The previous rule that forbids drivers from forcing rivals off the track remains.
2012 Formula One schedule 18 March: Australia
Australia 25 March: Malaysia
Malaysia 15 April: China
China 22 April: Bahrain
Bahrain 13 May: Spain
Spain 27 May: Monaco
Monaco 10 June: Canada
Canada 24 June: Europe
Europe 8 July: Great Britain
Great Britain 22 July: Germany
Germany 29 July: Hungary
Hungary 2 September: Belgium
Belgium 9 September: Italy
Italy 23 September: Singapore
Singapore 7 October: Japan
Japan 14 October: Korea
Korea 28 October: India
India 4 November: Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi 18 November: United States
United States 25 November: Brazil
It is article 20.3 and it reads: "Manoeuvres liable to hinder other drivers, such as deliberate crowding of a car beyond the edge of the track or any other abnormal change of direction, are not permitted."
The new sporting regulations also forbid drivers from "leaving the track without justifiable reason", an attempt to stop them taking shortcuts back to the pits during practice and qualifying to save time and fuel - as Sebastian Vettel did in Korea.
And in article 40.12, they lay out circumstances under which lapped cars can unlap themselves during a safety car period.
The epic 2011 Canadian Grand Prix, which ran for four hours and four minutes following a two-hour mid-race stoppage for torrential rain, has led to a new rule restricting the maximum length of races, including stoppages, to four hours.
And the penalties against which teams are not able to appeal have been laid out in the rules.
These are any drive-through or time penalty imposed for a driving infringement during the race, a driver being excluded from the race on the grounds he did not set a time within 107% of the fastest in the first qualifying session; and not having all the wheels on the car three minutes before the race.Actor John O’Hurley — perhaps best known for his role as Elaine Benes’ boss, J. Peterman, on Seinfeld — has opened up about his storied film career, the election of President Donald Trump, and his new 90-minute song and show business retrospective A Man with Standards.
The former Family Feud host is currently starring in the romantic comedy Swing Away, where he plays an “overzealous American capitalist” inspired by Trump.
“I’ve known Donald for a long time,” O’Hurley told Fox 411 in a recent interview, adding that he’s excited to see someone with business experience become president.
“I’m always a fan of giving a businessman a chance to thin the herd in government because we have this slow growth and our government is just getting too big, to be efficient anymore,” he said. “I want the idea of somebody going in there with a pickax and just chipping it apart.”
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
“God bless [Trump] for what his challenges are and the resistance that is up against him right now,” O’Hurley added. “I believe in him, I believe in what he’s doing and I wish him the best.”
Echoing comments made previously by actor Mark Wahlberg and Kiss rocker Gene Simmons, O’Hurley said his political views are no more important than those of someone without his celebrity status.
“I always say, whenever I speak politically or speak my political views, I say just because I’m a celebrity, does not mean my opinion deserves to be celebrated. I am just another bozo on the bus,” the 62-year-old star said.
O’Hurley also opened up about his new one-man show, A Man With Standards, which pays tribute to a time in America in which both high musical and moral standards reigned supreme.
“I grew up in the period of the standards and I also was lucky enough to grow up around men, who had standards, manners and back then the manners and the music were really one in the same,” O’Hurley said. “Standards were part of our culture and it’s kind of slipped away as time has gone by.”
Low standards, O’Hurley explained, led to his decision to leave Family Feud in 2010.
“I got tired of people writing to me saying, ‘I can’t watch your show.’ It’s a misnomer calling ‘Family Feud’ because it’s not family,” he said. “It feels like everything became a penis joke and I got a little tired of that. I just felt that there were other ways to be more interesting on television than always trying to push that style of family entertainment.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudsonFight for Your Side. Command The Galaxy. The Galactic War rages on. Where does your allegiance lie? Will you side with the Rebellion or the Empire? Join the fight, build your base, recruit and train your army, strategically plan your defenses, and lead your troops to victory on war-torn worlds throughout the galaxy! Battle with or against iconic characters like Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia, and utilize or destroy units like AT-ATs, Speeder Bikes, Wookiee Warriors, and Stormtroopers. Join millions around the globe to play in this epic combat strategy game. Commander, the fate of the galaxy is in your hands! FEATURES • CHOOSE to fight for the Rebellion or the Empire • TRAIN your troops to charge into battle • BUILD units and vehicles with multiple upgrades • DEFEND your base against enemy forces • COMPLETE original story missions and gain additional rewards • LEVEL UP your heroes, troops, vehicles, and more • BATTLE on different worlds within the Star Wars universe • TEAM UP WITH FRIENDS and allies to form the ultimate squad Upgrade your Planetary Command building to scout and relocate your base to new worlds such as Dandoran, Yavin 4, Er’Kit and Hoth to expand your command and strengthen your squad. Before you download this experience, please consider that this app contains: • Social media links to connect with others • In-app purchases that cost real money, push notifications to let you know when we have exciting updates like new content • Advertising for some third parties, including the option to watch ads for rewards • Advertising for The Walt Disney Family of Companies We respect your wishes regarding your Privacy. You can exercise control and choice by resetting your Advertising Identifier in your device’s Privacy Settings. Privacy Policy – http://disneyprivacycenter.com Terms of Use – http://disneytermsofuse.comSome people living in Manotick are concerned their quaint village is on the verge of becoming a cramped suburbia as plans move ahead with a proposed subdivision on about six-and-a-half hectares of land off Rideau Valley Drive North.
The proposed subdivision by The Regional Group would include 30 detached homes and 54 bungalow townhouses, including five waterfront lots along the Rideau River and park space.
T.J. Byron's backyard would back right onto the proposed development and she said it would resemble the busy Riverside South neighbourhood her family was trying to escape when they moved to Manotick almost five years ago.
"That's what brought me here to purchase a house is for that quaint village, comfortable, quiet feeling," said Byron, who added that she's now worried she'll have to move.
Jill St. Marseille said she isn't against development but has concerns about the density of the plan and how it will impact traffic in the area and endangered species that live on the now vacant land. "This was supposed to be our forever home so I'm worried about having to leave it," she said.
Residents worry about density
Byron's neighbour Jill St. Marseille is on the same page and said she's not against some sort of development on the property but is worried about the density.
"What they're looking to do now is to bring suburbia into such a small neighbourhood and it doesn't fit in with the existing character of the street or of Manotick," said St. Marseille.
The land is currently zoned as development reserve, said Scott Moffatt, the city councillor for Rideau-Goulbourn.
The proposed development would include 30 detached homes and 54 bungalow townhouses on a plot of land that's about 16 acres. (Novatech) Moffatt, who backs the proposal, said it's up to the developer to set out the new zoning for the property based on what the land use is, but that it has to be dense because the houses will use municipal services.
"When you bring the municipal servicing element to it, you do increase the density," said Moffatt.
"It's not economically viable to create larger lots on public services."
Housing geared toward seniors
The housing will be geared toward seniors and Moffatt said that's something people in the community have been asking for.
It's why resident Ann McDonald is onboard.
The proposed subdivision would be bounded by Island View Drive to the north down to Kelly Marie Drive to the south, and from Rideau Valley Drive North to the west to the Rideau River to the east. (Google Maps) She has lived in Manotick almost 50 years and will soon be looking to downsize.
"The charm of the village has always to me been about the people," said McDonald.
"I don't see that it's going to take away that much."
But residents who will look out over the development are vowing to fight against the project despite the need for seniors housing.
"We understand that need. We'll eventually be part of that population as well that's looking to downsize but it doesn't make any sense to bring in such a dense neighbourhood into the outskirts of Manotick," said resident St. Marseille.
A public meeting is set for Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Manotick Arena and Community Centre.Kirchner refuses to pay hedge fund 'vultures' back the $1.5 BILLION they loaned Argentina when it was bankrupt
U.S. court orders nation to start payments in two weeks
Cristina Kirchner tells the nation the orders are extortion
Hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer has chased loans since 2001
Stock market and currency fall amid fears orders will be ignored
Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has refused to pay back $1.5 billion in cash to so-called 'vulture funds' which lent the South American nation money to bounce back after its economy collapsed more than a decade ago.
Kirchner told the nation in a televised address that the debt-laden country could not possibly comply with orders to repay the loans after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear her government's final appeal on the dispute.
The president said there was simply no way that Argentina could start paying the loans back in cash in just two weeks, which is what the court has ordered.
'What I cannot do as president is submit the country to such extortion,' Kirchner said.
President Cristina Kirchner says Argentina won't be paying back $1.5 billion it owes hedge funds
She even said she had a moral obligation not to pay back the money to investors such as NML Capital, the firm owned by New York billionaire Paul Singer, who she called 'vulture funds'.
'It's our obligation to take responsibility for paying our creditors, but not to become the victims of extortion by speculators,' Kirchner said.
Under the court orders, Argentina must hand over $907 million or lose the ability to use the U.S. financial system to pay an equal amount due on June 30 to holders of other Argentine bonds.
Kirchner said investors were owned $1.5 billion including interest, and paying it all immediately in cash could trigger another $15 billion in cash payments to the remaining holders of defaulted debt.
That 'is not only absurd but impossible,' since it represents more than half the Central Bank's remaining foreign reserves, she said.
She repeatedly vowed to keep making payments on the vast majority of the country's performing debts, which are held by bondholders who agreed previously to provide debt relief that enabled Argentina to rebound from its economic crisis of 2001.
Even if Argentina can't use the U.S. financial system to do so, she said, teams of experts are working on ways to avoid such a default and keep Argentina's promises.
The president said her government has repeatedly shown its willingness and ability to negotiate debt accords, and called on her countrymen to'remain tranquil' despite the Supreme Court loss. 'It was known that this would happen,' she said.
In the red: Argentina has a museum dedicated to its debt
But the markets reacted in fear that Fernandez would take just such a stance, with economists, analysts and opposition politicians practically begging her to comply.
Argentina's Merval stock index dropped 11 percent after the court decision, its largest one-day loss in more than six months. Share prices for the state-run YPF energy company fell nearly 13 percent, while the Edenor electricity utility plummeted 20 percent.
The cost of insuring Argentine bonds against default soared, and the value of Argentina's currency plunged to 12 pesos to the dollar on the black market, implying a 33 percent loss to anyone needing to buy foreign currency legally.
The justices not only rejected Argentina's appeal without comment — they also ruled 7-1 that bondholders could force Argentina to reveal where it owns property around the world. That could make it easier to collect on other debts that have gone unpaid since Argentina's economy collapsed.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that U.S. federal law offers no shield to Argentina's assets. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg worried that this could expose even its embassies and military ships to seizure if the government doesn't pay.
'This is the end of the line for Argentina in the judicial appeal process. It has nowhere else to turn,' said Richard Samp, a lawyer for the Washington Legal Foundation who lobbies for plaintiffs that included Paul Singer's NML Capital Ltd.
Argentina could win a delay of a few weeks by asking for a rehearing, but they are almost never granted.
Bowing to the U.S. courts would force Kirchner to betray a pillar of the government that she and her late husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, have led since he won the presidency in 2003: That Argentina must maintain its sovereignty and economic independence at any cost.
In addition, Kirchner said, there's near certainty that the 92 percent of creditors who accepted new bonds at steep discounts years ago — debt now totaling at $24 billion — 'will find a judge who will tell them that they, too, have the same rights,' leading to 'the more than certain possibility that the economy will crash.'
Refusing to comply could win applause from her core supporters, because paying the plaintiffs 100 percent plus interest in cash would mean sacrificing the subsidies and populist programs that enabled her to win re-election by a landslide.
But while she and NML Capital's owner, New York billionaire Paul Singer, jockey for any remaining advantage ahead of the inevitable negotiations, Argentina's immediate economic outlook seems grim, analysts say.
Refusing to comply was 'the best option' among a series of grim alternatives that Cleary, Gottlieb, US law firm representing Argentina in Washington, presented to Kitchener ahead of the Supreme Court decision.
Kitchener will pay a steep political price by paying off the winners, but doing so will lower Argentina's country risk, restore foreign reserves and prevent the recession from worsening, said Miguel Kiguel, a former deputy finance minister and World Bank economist in the 1990s who now runs the Econviews consulting firm.Industry minister, Miao Wei, says local government and companies involved would have to subsidise plans made to help improve pollution levels
Local governments in China have submitted plans to relocate or upgrade almost 1,000 chemical plants in the wake of the massive explosions in Tianjin earlier this month that killed 147 people.
The blast at a warehouse storing toxic chemicals was China’s worst industrial accident in recent years. There has been criticism it was located too close to densely populated residential areas.
China’s industry minister, Miao Wei, said local governments were finally moving ahead to implement plans to relocate and upgrade chemical plants.
“We started to work with State Administration of Work Safety last year to make arrangements for the relocation and revamping of chemical plants in densely populated urban areas. Frankly, our work is not actively supported locally in the past year,” Miao was quoted by the Communist party-run People’s Daily newspaper.
According to the department’s summary, about 1,000 chemical plants need to be relocated or upgraded at a total cost of around 400bn yuan (£40.6bn).
Miao said local government and the companies involved would have to take care of part of the cost while central government would provide support. He said he wanted to “accelerate the relocation and revamping”, which would help to improve pollution and emission levels.
Two explosions ripped though a warehouse at the port city of Tianjin on 12 August. Authorities have said up to 40 types of chemicals were being stored at the warehouse including large quantities of sodium cyanide. According to government regulations, such facilities should not be located closer than 1km (0.6 miles) from public places, transport networks or residential areas.
There were also claims that at least two other companies who handled flammable and toxic chemicals were operating in the same area and that their facilities were less than a mile away from a school and a residential area.
The death toll from the accident has risen to 147, according to Chinese state media. The cleanup operation at the site is continuing. Photos carried by the state news agency Xinhua showed cranes and diggers moving piles of burnt-out debris and shipping containers.
Meanwhile an amendment to China’s air pollution law has been adopted in an attempt to clean up the country’s toxic air pollution. The amendment, passed by the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, requires that a standard for gasoline quality is established. While China has a standard for sulphur content in petrol, the permitted levels of other chemicals such as benzene in diesel are much higher than European standards. Local governments will also be required to ban the use of low-quality coal in homes.
The law also provides for greater environmental transparency and stipulates that air pollution following environmental emergencies such as the disaster at Tianjin should be monitored and the details made public.The USA Men’s 15s team only had to score a converted try at the end of their game with the Argentina XV to win the Americas Rugby Championship.
They did that, putting David Tameilau over under the posts and having Ben Cima slot to kick to get a bonus-point tie, just enough to win it all. The thing is, nobody knew that was going to be enough.
Eagles Tie Argentina, Win ARC
"Honestly, I think a few of us thought they only had 25 points and thought a converted try would win it,” said No. 8 Cam Dolan. “The scoreboard was behind us in the 2nd half. So, we never really looked at it; we just battled until the final whistle.”
Center Bryce Campbell was unsure, too.
“Honestly, we were a bit unsure at the end whether we won or it was a tie or we won by a bonus point,” said Campbell. “We just gave it our all and hoped for the best. It was an amazing feeling once we realized we had won.”
“I honestly didn't know what happened,” added Cima. “We thought we had lost the tournament but when word came in we won we were celebrating.”
But it didn’t matter. What they did was, as Dolan said, play to the final whistle. They weren’t sure whether they could do enough, but they played as hard as possible to get that final score.
“It was intense,” said Campbell. “We knew it was going to take an 80-minute effort.”
“We hurt ourselves early by getting on the wrong side of the ref,” added Dolan. “But, seemed to balance out more in the last quarter. Mitch has been pushing our fitness and challenging us when fatigued so that we can execute in moments exactly like [against Argentina]. Stay in the arm wrestle, use our athleticism, and play what's in front of us.”“ After the Seed was destroyed, these weird glowing creatures started showing up all over the place. We weren't able to damage them, so you may want to watch out. „ —Demolition Trooper in Transit Station Leviathan
A Phaazoid is a creature made out of Phazon energy, formed when a Leviathan is destroyed. They fire Phazon-based rings at enemies. Phaazoids can only be harmed by Phazon attacks. If hit enough times, Phaazoids will split into two smaller Phaazoids. Destroying a small Phaazoid will cause it to split into two even smaller creatures resembling homing aerial mines. Samus can destroy each with one Hypermode shot. Some Phaazoids, when split, will create one normal and one red small Phaazoid. These Red Phaazoids are more aggressive, stronger, and, when destroyed, drop one Gold Credit instead of mines. Unlike other credits, credits dropped by Phaazoids are dropped like any pickup, and must be drawn in and touched before it will register.
Despite the fact that their name begins with "Phaaz-", they are not found on Phaaze, as they are only created when a Leviathan is destroyed. Thus, Phaazoids are only found on Bryyo, Elysia, and the Pirate Homeworld after the destruction of the respective planet's Leviathan. It is unknown if they started appearing on Tallon IV and Aether after the destructions of the Impact Crater and Dark Aether.
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RICHMOND, Va. -- The man who led Henrico police on a chase that ended when his SUV slammed into a tree in Richmond's Bryan Park Wednesday night was wanted for not paying child support.
Lt. C.J. Maurice with Henrico police said that the pursuit started when an officer attempted to stop a white SUV just after 9 p.m. Officials said the driver failed to stop when exiting a convenience store and turning onto Laburnum Avenue near Alma Avenue.
"A Henrico Police officer attempted to stop the vehicle, and the SUV disregarded the officer’s attempts, and fled in his vehicle, crossing into the City of Richmond," Maurice wrote in a news release.
The chase continued until the SUV slammed into a tree in Bryan Park.
The driver was taken into custody without incident and was transported to an area hospital with a minor injury.
Henrio police said pursuit-related charges are pending against the driver, who also had an outstanding warrant for failure to pay child support in Hanover County.
No one else was injured.
Henrico police said the pursuit and crash are under investigation.According to the latest news from Reuters, the government of Cyprus, the Bank of Cyprus and international lenders have come to an agreement that will recapitalize the bank and allow it to remain solvent: all depositors at the bank will have 47.5% of all funds above the deposit insurance threshold of $100,000 seized to pay for the bank’s bad debts. Originally, 37.5% of all funds above the threshold were deducted and an additional 22.5% temporarily frozen in case of additional emergencies; now, if this agreement goes as planned an extra 10% coming from the frozen funds will go towards bank recapitalization and the remaining 12.5% will be unfrozen for its owners’ free use. The “additional emergency” in this case might be the fact that the BoC realized that it would not be able to get off lightly by holding on to its real estate for a few years until it could sell it at higher prices after a hypothetical market recovery; rather, the bank needs money now, even if it means selling off land at rock-bottom prices to get it.
Since the original depositor bail-in plan was announced in March, the idea has been very warmly received by governments around the world. The governments of Japan, Canada, the European Union, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand have all endorsed or taken preliminary steps toward potentially implementing similar plans if necessary in their own countries. The economic logic behind the proposal is this: rather than banks imposing their fiscal irresponsibility onto the public at large through taxpayer-funded bailouts, depositor bail-ins would keep each bank’s problems confined to its own customers. Bank clients gain the ability to avoid facing any losses by deliberately choosing banks for their responsibility and solvency, and politicians concerned about inflicting severe shocks on the financial system through banks outright collapsing gain the ability to allow banks to only collapse partially, the financial equivalent of a prescribed burn.
Thus, depositors with funds in their bank exceeding the deposit insurance threshold (usually between $100,000 and $500,000) now have an increased incentive to turn to alternative ways of storing and protecting their wealth. The more popular alternatives include credit unions, “ethical banking” providers like Triodos Bank in Europe, peer-to-peer lending sites like Prosper and precious metals. Now, we are seeing a new category of asset emerge: cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is by far the oldest and largest, but Ripple credits, litecoins and primecoins have already come up as significant alternatives.
Cryptocurrencies as a form of wealth protection is a highly controversial topic, the main reason being that, especially over the last six months, Bitcoin has been far more volatile than the fiat currencies that its proponents often rail against. Depending on the specific time that they bought in and cashed out, some Bitcoin users have lost even more of what they invested than the 47.5% haircut taken by Cyprus depositors – and Bitcoin has no depositor insurance threshold. However, as a small part of a toolbox Bitcoin is certainly a very valuable tool. The best analogy here comes from the world of electricity. If you have a circuit with current passing through a number of resistors in parallel, what happens if you add another resistor, one with extremely high resistance, into the mix? The answer is, only a small amount of current will pass through the new resistor and, all in all, despite the extremely high resistance that the new resistor brings the total resistance of the system will go down. Similarly, adding a highly volatile asset to your portfolio can still reduce your portfolio’s volatility as long as you only add a small amount of it – especially given how disconnected cryptocurrencies are from the economy of the outside world. Arguably, Bitcoin even hedges against the world economy – if more banks start to collapse, capital controls will increase, people will further lose faith in traditional institutions as a way of protecting themselves, and Bitcoin may become considerably more popular. The fact that Bitcoin’s price started to rise super-exponentially from $50 just two days after the news of the Cyprus bail-in first broke in March may be a coincidence, but is may also have been the primary trigger that set the largest part of the Bitcoin bubble off.
What will the bank account of the twenty-first century look like? Simply put, we don’t know. All we can tell for now is that we are seeing a large outgrowth of new alternatives, and any of them could become the dominant form of long-term wealth storage in the years to come. Treat your money carefully; don’t invest more into any single source than you can afford to lose.Actress Agnes Bruckner and her boyfriend Alefaio Brewer have welcomed their first child together, a son named Sebastian Lopeti Brewer. Bruckner announced the news via People magazine and said, “We’re so excited to welcome our lion cub into this world…He’s truly a blessing and we couldn’t be more happy and proud!”
Sebastian was born on Wednesday, March 30th; he was a few days past his due date, weighing 8 lbs. 15 oz. and measuring 21.5 inches long.
Bruckner, who plays the recurring character of Lily on Once Upon a Time, announced her pregnancy in October and described impending motherhood as something she had always dreamed about. While the star of Lifetime’s Anna Nicole Story leads a relatively private life by Hollywood standards, she has shared a number of photos throughout her pregnancy on her Instagram account.
In a recent interview, Once Upon a Time writer and producer Adam Horowitz assured fans that while Lily would not be seen in the remainder of Season 6, the character would make a return. He made the promise in a recent interview with IGN, stating: “We haven’t forgotten the story and we want to return to it.” When he noted that the show was already working around the pregnancies of stars Ginnifer Goodwin and Emilie De Ravin, his writing partner Edward Kitsis joked, “Everyone literally is pregnant. Including us…This is the most fertile show on television.”A new study gives the first comprehensive look at the sources of nitrogen and phosphorus in the Twin Cities watershed and how quickly the nutrients move across the land, ending up in the Mississippi River.
A new study from the University of Minnesota suggests that household fertilizer and pet waste are the major sources of nutrients polluting Twin Cities lakes, streams and rivers.
The study was the first comprehensive look at the sources of nitrogen and phosphorus in the Twin Cities watershed and how quickly the nutrients move across the land, ending up in the Mississippi River.
Excessive nutrients can cause water quality problems, including toxic algae blooms, said Sarah Hobbie, the lead researcher on the study and a professor in the university's Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.
"Despite long-running efforts to clean up those nutrients, we continue to have poor water quality in many of our cities, including the Twin Cities," Hobbie said.
The study focused on seven sub-watersheds of the Mississippi River in the St. Paul area. Hobbie's team used past work it had done in the Twin Cities, including household surveys that asked about fertilizer use, pet ownership and waste pickup habits.
They also used information about the average number and weight of pets owned by Twin Cities residents, the amount of nutrients in pet food. They also looked at fertilizer use on golf courses and college campuses.
The researchers concluded that urban watersheds are "leaky," meaning they are losing most of the phosphorus and nitrogen that flow into them every year. That's likely because of the dense network of streets and storm sewers in urban areas, Hobbie said.
"Once that phosphorus is in the street, there's nothing to hold onto it," she said. "So it's just readily washed into the storm drain system and into our surface waters, unless there's some kind of storm pond that's going to trap that phosphorus before it moves downstream."
Phosphorus and nitrogen are probably getting into streets through leaves falling from trees or from snow melting off people's yards, Hobbie said. Trees growing next to the street act like pumps, taking up nutrients from the soil and moving them into their leaves, she said.
The trees reabsorb about half those nutrients before dropping their leaves into the street, where the nutrients are washed into the storm drain if they're not picked up by a street sweeper. Cities can help prevent nutrient pollution by sweeping the streets more often, Hobbie said.
The dominant source of nitrogen in the urban watershed is household fertilizer use, which is 10 times the amount of commercial fertilizers used by golf courses and college campuses. Reducing excessive fertilizer use is another thing people can do to help reduce nutrient pollution, Hobbie said.
The study zeroed in on pet waste as the biggest source of phosphorus in the urban watershed. People are generally good about picking up waste while walking their dog, but they often aren't as diligent about cleaning up the backyard, Hobbie said. Rain gardens also help by capturing water and filtering it before it goes into streams and lakes.
While this study focused on urban watersheds, Hobbie noted that they are a relatively minor source of nitrogen and phosphorus in the overall Mississippi River watershed compared to agricultural land.Eclectic Energies Enneagram Tests (free)
These two online Enneagram tests help you to determine which personality type you are.
Your wing will also be indicated.
Some suggestions on how to take the tests to get the most accurate results can be found below.
Classical enneagram test
This test consists of pages containing nine questions or less (one for each Enneagram type). After you have answered enough questions to establish which types you are not, you'll get no further questions for those types.
Enneagram test with instinctual variant
With this test you are presented with pairs of character traits to rate. It is quicker than the other test, and gives an indication of your instinctual subtype as well.
Getting accurate results from these Enneagram tests
It's important to answer the questions honestly. Try not to answer them in terms of how you would like to see yourself, but in terms of how you actually are, or have tended to be in the past.
Actually it is not so easy to answer the questions honestly, as we all want to see ourselves as better than we are, and we often have preconceived ideas about ourselves that are not really true.
For instance, if you resent being fearful, you might have worked to develop courage to compensate, but the fear is still there beneath the surface.
Sometimes a trait might be so inconsistent with our self-image, that we actually deny having it ourselves, but become annoyed by it when we see it in others. Also, we might falsely think that we possess some desirable quality that we admire in others.
To derive accurate results from any Enneagram test, it is important to be aware of these very natural tendencies, and to answer the questions honestly.It's Dangerous For Free Speech When We Confuse Leakers With Spies
from the they're-not-the-same dept
“Obama apparently cannot distinguish between communicating information to the enemy and communicating information to the press,” Mr. Goodale wrote. “The former is espionage, the latter is not.”
“Manning’s defenders will say that Manning only leaked information to the 21st-century equivalent of a newspaper, and that he could not have known that Al Qaeda would read it,” Professor Yoo wrote in National Review Online.
“But WikiLeaks is not The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, and it does not have First Amendment rights,” he added. “Manning communicated regularly with WikiLeaks’ founder and would have known about the group’s anarchic, anti-U.S. mission.”
When you read the hundreds of news stories and other materials published about WikiLeaks before early 2010, what you see is a young, exciting new media organization. The darker stories about Julian Assange and the dangers that the site poses developed only in the latter half of 2010, as the steady release of leaks about the U.S. triggered ever-more hyperbolic denouncements from the Administration (such as Joe Biden's calling Assange a “high-tech terrorist”), and as relations between Assange and his traditional media partners soured.
In early 2010, when Manning did his leaking, none of that had happened yet. WikiLeaks was still a new media phenom, an outfit originally known for releasing things like a Somali rebel leader’s decision to assassinate government officials in Somalia, or a major story exposing corruption in the government of Daniel Arap Moi in Kenya. Over the years WikiLeaks also exposed documents that shined a light on U.S. government practices, such as operating procedures in Camp Delta in Guantanamo or a draft of a secretly negotiated, highly controversial trade treaty called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. But that was not the primary focus. To name but a few examples, it published documents that sought to expose a Swiss Bank’s use of Cayman accounts to help rich clients avoid paying taxes, oil related corruption in Peru, banking abuses in Iceland, pharmaceutical company influence peddling at the World Health Organization, and extra-judicial killings in Kenya. For its work, WikiLeaks won Amnesty International's New Media award in 2009 and the Freedom of Expression Award from the British magazine, Index of Censorship, in 2008.
We've tried to make similar points a few times in the past about our concern with the Obama administration going after whistleblowers and the journalists who publish their leaks by using the Espionage Act more than all other Presidents in history, combined (more than twice as much, actually). But the NY Times has a great piece highlighting how the federal government now seems to completely blur the lines between being a leaker and a spy This is dangerous for a whole host of reasons -- including having an informed and knowledgeable public. But it's also dangerous from a First Amendment standpoint. Remember, the First Amendment protects freedom of expression and freedom of the press -- and both are closely linked when we're talking about whistleblowers leaking information to the public via the press. When we start turning the leakers and the press into "spies" we make that much more difficult, and as a result we have a less free society, and a much more controlling and abusive government.Of course, some would argue that this is the goal. The very same article quotes former Bush administration apologist lawyer John Yoo -- infamous in part because of his tortured legal defense, twisting the clear meaning and intent of the Geneva Conventions in order to pretend that the US could use torture as an interrogation technique without violating the rules. Not surprisingly, Yoo doesn't have any problem at all with condemning leakers as spies.Of course, Yoo is either woefully ignorant or flat out lying -- neither of which makes him look good. First of all, the Manning/Lamo transcripts make it quite clear that Manning hadcommunications with
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"We believe that Jakarta must be led by a strict, professional, transparent, and clean governor who is determined to build the city's welfare," Gerasi chairman Hendra Surahmat said.
According to Gerasi, Ahok has proven his abilities as governor, with most of his programs successfully raising Jakartans' level of welfare.
Hendra said Gerasi will mobilize its organizations, which he said have tens of thousands of supporters in Jakarta, to help campaign for Ahok.
Agus and Sylvi lost the first round of the election after gaining only 17 percent votes. Ahok and Djarot won 42 percent.
Ahok and his competition, Anies Baswedan and his running mate Sandiaga Uno, are vying for the votes from Agus supporters.
Ahok delivered his thanks to Agus and Sylvi's volunteers.
AVIT HIDAYATSOCCEROOS skipper Lucas Neill says he has been in discussion with a number of European clubs as he looks to secure a full-time contract ahead of the World Cup.
Neill, 35, is currently training with his former team Blackburn Rovers but is painfully aware that the clock is ticking on his time to cement his place in Ange Postecoglou's Australia squad for Brazil.
"For me it's been about maintaining fitness and being able to look at the opportunities being presented," Neill told Fox Sports at the launch of the 2015 Asian Cup in Melbourne.
"I know how important it is to be playing regularly for World Cup and possibly the Asian Cup.
"In the meantime I want to be training at the best possible level and I'm very familiar with the surroundings at Blackburn and who knows, maybe they'll be the team I end up - but I'll consider all options and pick the best one for regular playing time."
News_Rich_Media: Socceroos coach Ange Postecoglou cays the 2015 Asian Cup is a chance for his side to show off to the Australian public and continue the sport's growth across the country.
Socceroos coach Postecoglou has made public his desire that his squad should be playing regularly and well, suggesting that Neill must find a club by March to have any chance to make it to South America.
But the veteran defender Neill says he understands the urgency and has been in contact with unspecified continental clubs about finding a new role, with a return to Blackburn also something he would be interesting in.
"I've given myself more pressure than a March deadline; I'll be looking for something much sooner than that. The calls have been coming in and I'll be looking to maker sure I can give myself the best chance of being involved in the world cup.
"There has been a couple of calls from Europe and various parts of the world. I'm 35 now and I need to be playing and playing well.
"For everyone with ambitions for the Socceroos you need to take form and fitness into the tournament. Ange has come out and said that so that's my goal.
"I'm training there (with Blackburn) and would jump at the opportunity to play there but I'm just grateful they've given me the chance to train and maintain my fitness."– 2017 Rebel Cruiser Motorcycle Buyer’s Guide Overview: Prices, Release Dates, Specs + More! –
New 2017 Motorcycle Model Announcement | IMS 2016
Honda today introduced a pair of progressive customs that fuse tradition with groundbreaking new ideas and perspectives while providing ample scope for owner customization. Offering a fresh take on custom cool, the Rebel 500 and Rebel 300 mix old- and new-school style and are engaging and fun to ride, with an outlook geared toward firing the imagination of a younger generation of riders.
Development for the Rebel 500 and Rebel 300 began in the U.S., with the objective of referencing a timeless look while also introducing a forward-thinking, contemporary style all their own. Accessible, fun to ride and easy to live with, the models go their own way but are also blank canvases, ready for whatever their owners’ imaginations have in store.
“For many riders who have grown up through the digital age, motorcycles represent a lifestyle and an attitude, a means of expressing their individuality,” said Lee Edmunds, Manager of Motorcycle Marketing Communications at American Honda. “The machines that speak to these riders need to reflect this, to fit with their life while also offering the potential for further individualization. The Rebel 500 and Rebel 300 are simple and raw, offering cutting-edge style and a radical image while minimizing the barriers to riding. There’s literally nothing else out there like them, and we’re confident that both models will appeal to young riders who want to stand out and are open to new experiences.”
Rebel 500 / Rebel 300
Simple and raw, Honda’s new Rebel models are exercises in straightforward, minimalist design where every detail matters. Low, lean silhouettes are crowned by iconic fuel tanks, aggressively raked front ends and fat tires on large-diameter wheels, along with a stamped-steel rear fender and narrow frame body, resulting in stripped forms that express offbeat individuality from every angle. The evocative round, glass headlight sits up high in a die-cast aluminum mount, the speedometer is a compact dial with negative LCD display and blue backlight, and the ignition is housed below the left side of the fuel tank. Everything that can be is blacked out.
With a 471cc parallel twin, the Rebel 500 has strong bottom-end torque and a smooth, linear power delivery, while the Rebel 300 is powered by a peppy 286cc single cylinder engine. In both cases, the bikes’ riding positions are relaxed and neutral, with arms gently outstretched and feet dropping straight down to the mid-mounted pegs. The versatile Rebels are fun to ride slow and fast, great for day trips, jaunts to the coffee shops or even sporty sessions on winding roads; low weights, slim frames and short seat heights equal agility at lower speeds, whereas good ground clearances allow surprisingly sporty lean angles. Both the Rebel 500 and Rebel 300 are available in standard and ABS versions.
How will the 2017 Rebel 500 stack up against the 2017 Honda Shadow 750 in performance?
Let’s use the Shadow Phantom 750 for an example VS Rebel 500…
● Shadow Phantom 750 | 40.5 Horsepower / 47.9 Torque / 549 lbs = Power-to-Weight Ratio.074 HP /.00015 TQ
Versus
● Rebel 500 | 44.9 Horsepower / 32.8 Torque / 408 lbs = Power-to-Weight Ratio.110 HP /.00014 TQ
When comparing their horsepower-to-weight ratio on the Rebel 500 VS Shadow Phantom 750 it’s a huge difference but when comparing their torque-to-weight it does close up the gap slightly where the Phantom edges out but just barely. The Shadow would have a fighting chance at launch but once you get into 2nd gear and get moving the Rebel is going to pull away and widen the gap the faster they go. My $$ would be on the Rebel whether it be a roll race or from a dig.
It does go to show something that I preach every day to people when they are comparing motorcycles between different manufacturers and even the same brands like this comparison… A larger displacement engine doesn’t always mean it’s faster as you have to compare a lot more of the nitty-gritty specs.
* I will have a lot more detailed information in a full review on the Rebel 300 & 500 posted a little later today so make sure to check back shortly…
2017 Honda Rebel 300 & 500 Colors:
Rebel 500: Matte Silver, Bright Yellow, Black, Red
Rebel 500 ABS: Black
Rebel 300: Matte Silver, Matte Pearl White, Black, Red
Rebel 300 ABS: Black
2017 Honda Rebel 300 & 500 Prices / MSRP:
*Rebel 300 Tentative Price: $4,399
*Rebel 500 Tentative Price: $5,999 (Official Price / MSRP releasing in December 2016)
2017 Honda Rebel 300 & 500 Release Dates:
2017 Rebel 300 Release Date: April 2017
2017 Rebel 500 Release Date: April 2017
2017 Rebel 500 | Black 2017 Rebel 300 ABS | Black 2017 Rebel 500 | Matte Silver 2017 Rebel 300 | Red 2017 Rebel 500 | Red 2017 Rebel 300 | Matte Silver 2017 Rebel 500 | Bright Yellow 2017 Rebel 300 | Matte Pearl White 2017 Rebel 500 ABS | Black 2017 Rebel 300 | Black 2017 Rebel 500 Dimensions 2017 Rebel 500 Horsepower / Torque Performance 2017 Rebel 500 Frame / Chassis 2017 Honda Rebel 300 Frame / Chassis 2017 Rebel 300 Horsepower / Torque Performance 2017 Rebel 300 Dimensions
2017 Honda Rebel 300 & 500 Videos:
2017 Honda Rebel 300 & 500 Accessories
2017 Honda Rebel 300 & 500 Pictures / Photo Gallery(Caricatures by John Graham / johngraham.alphalink.com.au)
“...a psychopath with a giant ego.”
“Rudd is campaigning. Rudd is talking to journalists about the leadership despite his astonishing denial.
I know the names of some of those he has spoken to… He told them a challenge would happen; he told them he was prepared to lose the first ballot and go to the backbench; and, in one conversation, he laughed about the prospect of Gillard stumbling again.
Yet the Foreign Minister [Rudd] has categorically denied ever having spoken to any journalist about the leadership.”
"As I said in a written statement today, there are no circumstances under which I would return to the leadership of the Australian Labor Party in the future."
“In your guts, you know he’s nuts."
“what if men are by physiology or temperament, more adapted to exercise authority or to issue command?” (1998)
Image courtesy 'doctornonono' (Flickr).
'...a vexed cocktail of idealism and mild to moderate megalomania.'
WELL, there you have it. The 2013 election will be a contest between two gentlemen who fit the old Australian colloquialism of ‘psycho’ — that brand of weirdness and intense volatility that leaves the rest of us shaking our heads.Both Kevin and Tony are blue-tie wearing men with anger management problems: Abbott punches walls after losing a vote; Kevin kicks a hole in the wall of his office after a bad interview. Kevin screams at a young RAAF cabin attendant when the wrong meal is delivered; Abbott nods his head up and down in apoplectic rage, silent and staring for half a minute at a reporter that asked him the wrong question. (Seriously, remind yourself how creepy that moment was here.)Kevin spat the dummy in 2010 when he was deposed and didn’t stop until last week; Tony hasn’t stopped since losing the 2010 election.They are both proof positive that, to make it in Australian politics, you have to be crazy in the first place or get a little bit crazy along the way.But just saying so doesn’t give voters an informed choice at this election. What we really need to do is compare and contrast the different brands of nuttiness these boys have to offer.We know, of course, the stories of Kevin’s first term as Prime Minister: we’re heard about the callousness with which he treated his colleagues and public servants. We know of the indecision, the chaos, the sound and fury of a workaholic that yet signified nothing.What hasn’t really been dwelt upon is the accusation by one of Labor colleagues, Steve Gibbons, that Kevin isA pretty damning assessment, to be sure, and one that really requires a second look.We start, of course, with some of the symptoms of psychopathy 1)— check. Kevin, while quite popular with people who have never met him, is reportedly loathed by those forced to work closely with him.2)— check. Kevin has a habit of referring to himself in the third person as “K Rudd” in interviews. Third-person disorder is a sure sign someone has drunk a little too much of their own Kool-Aid.3)— I’ll leave this to Barrie Cassidy and his coverage of Rudd’s 2012 leadership tilt. The context was Rudd’s public denial that he was trying to usurp Gillard.But it gets better.After destabilising his own party and briefing against his own leader ‒ after three years of hate ‒ Kevin had the temerity to say," during his first press conference as PM.Oh the delicious irony. Oh the chutzpah.4)— certainly looks like it. After his initial challenge in 2012, and his aborted challenge in early 2013, Kevin said several times he wouldn’t run and there’d be no circumstance where he would run for the leadership again. Listen Then, of course, he simply went ahead and challenged again anyway. He was unfazed and the press, rather strangely, said not a word of his previous pledges. Maybe they were so inured to his habits they never took his word seriously in the first place. Maybe because they’d been baying for Gillard’s blood for three years, it would be somewhat hypocritical to criticise him for doing as they demanded.Without a professional diagnosis, I’m not about to suggest Kevin Rudd is a psychopath. But I would suggest that putting oneself between Kevin and the seat of power is a little like standing between Justin Bieber and a screaming mob of his fans.When it comes to the alternative Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, we start with the obvious: his nickname is the ‘Mad Monk’. As Paul Keating has said, he had always been regarded as theof the Liberal Party.Anthony Albanese delights in saying of Abbott:But let’s not listen to his enemies for a diagnosis; let’s consider Tony in his own words 1) “(ABCWuuuh? What the…? His views, I guess, are very modern – in rural Afghanistan. But this is 2013 dude, and no means no – wife or otherwise.2) In response to someone expressing concern that there weren’t enough women in leadership positions, he said the following:Imagine for a moment, that Tony Abbott is not talking about women in the above statement, but ‘Asians’ or ‘Jews’. Now a person expressing such racism would not only be considered unfit to be PM, they’d be kicked out of parliament. I’ve always found it passing strange that sexism ‒ which is just as invidious as racism ‒ doesn’t seem to attract the same condemnation.3) “Woah! Dude. It’s cancer. It’s your daughters.4)Well...uhhhhhh....It doesn’t end there, of course; Tony has also variously said it is OK to smoke in a car with children (this from an ex-health minister), has repeated conspiracy theories about the science of climate change (which he famously called "crap"), and said that homeless people "choose" to be that way. The list goes on. To paraphrase Yoda: the wing-nut is strong in this one.Maybe Kevin and Tony are like most politicians, who have, as Annabel Crabb put it Or maybe, just maybe, to really make it to the top of Australian politics today, you have to dial the crazy up to 11.Whichever way you slice it, it seems the 2013 election will be a tale of two psychos.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia LicensePresident Obama on Thursday rebuked Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE’s criticism of his leadership, expressing confidence Americans would oppose the Republican presidential nominee and his “wacky” ideas on Election Day.
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Obama sought to use his bully pulpit at the conclusion of his final trip to Asia as president to portray Trump as someone who is unfit to occupy the Oval Office.
“Every time he speaks, that opinion is confirmed,” Obama said during a news conference in Laos.
The president’s latest criticism of Trump came after the GOP nominee laid into him at a town hall Wednesday night on national security issues.
The Republican nominee said Russian President Vladimir Putin has been a better leader than Obama and that U.S. generals have been “reduced to rubble” on the commander in chief’s watch.
Obama said that his stops at international summits in China and Laos showed that governing is “serious business” that requires U.S. presidents to be well-informed, have coherent policy ideas and the temperament to implement them.
“The most important thing for the public and the press is to just listen to what he says and follow up and ask questions about what appear to be either contradictory or uninformed, or outright wacky, ideas,” Obama said of Trump.
He also urged voters not to give Trump a pass for not having hashed out policy ideas because he is a political neophyte.
“People start thinking that we should be grading on a curve,” he said.
“I have confidence that if, in fact, people just listen to what he has to say or look at his track record — or lack thereof — that they’ll make a good decision.”The other day I received an email about a new site (gplclub.org/club) that was offering over $2500 worth of premium WordPress themes, plugins and WooCommerce extensions.
For $25.
Then, two nights later, at our San Diego WordPress meetup, someone else stayed late to ask me about sites like these. Are they legal? What’s the hook? How do these work?
My answer was pretty simple:
It’s easy to start a company and hard to build a business.
Easy to Start a Company
Starting an online company requires 3 steps. First you have to pick a name. Then you need to get a domain name and set up a web site. Lastly, you have to set up a way to take people’s money.
If you’ve done these steps before, you know that you can accomplish every one of them without talking to a human, and do it from 2-3 am any night of the week. It’s seriously that easy.
Hard to Build a Business
Building a business is a bit different. Most importantly, while starting one can take less than an hour, building a business will take considerably longer. Weeks, months and years are often involved.
At minimum, you’ll need a strong value proposition and the right pricing. But there’s more.
Strong Value Proposition
You need a strong value proposition that makes sense to people. In other words, you need to scratch and itch that many people have—not just you.
Right Price
Pricing is tough. Most people get it wrong and only narrow in on what’s right after several rounds of trial and error. Too low and people don’t pull the trigger (suspecting something’s up). Too high and people don’t pull the trigger (because they can’t afford it or don’t value it that much).
A Reason to Return
Assuming that you’re not building a business that requires only a one-time purchase by customers, you’ll also want a reason for people to spend more with you.
In other words, the business you build assumes I’ll come back again and that I’ll tell others, who will also come back again.
A Word About GPL
When companies like the GPL Club pop up, people right away call it out as wrong, unethical, or illegal. It’s not true. What they’re doing is legal. Completely.
I don’t think it’s good for business, but I’ll get back to that in a minute.
GPL is about many things, but one thing it’s about is distribution. It’s designed to ensure that the code licensed under it is available to others without restriction. So when a company releases software under a GPL license (regardless of whether they’re doing it for free or for a fee), they do so knowing someone else could distribute their software.
When someone buys a WooThemes extension for WooCommerce, nothing stops them from putting it on their site and selling it (for more or less) or giving it away. GPL ensures distribution is possible and legal.
Other People’s Code
So is it fine to give away other people’s code? Under GPL it is. And if you want to sell it cheaper in a bundle, go for it.
Here’s why it doesn’t worry me:
The customers you get from those sales are the ones who want something for nothing. That’s what they’re saying as they purchase bundles at the GPL Club, and other sites like it.
Guess what?
Clients who want something for nothing is not a target market you want. Ever. It’s not good business. So let GPL Club do their thing and keep those customers.
It’s likely, when those customers realize they can’t get any support for those products, that they’ll not buy from them again. And that’s why we don’t see companies build sustainable businesses.
Building a business is hard. Customers who want lots for free are still going to have problems, still want support, and will likely want it cheap. I rather leave that segment to sites like GPL Club.
Here’s another reason it doesn’t worry me:
Real customers, the ones I want, want more than the code sold by these companies. They want to have their questions answered.
When sites like GPL Club (which at least tells you they don’t provide support) promise community forums in the future, who exactly is going to add the value in those forums?
The reason those sites don’t worry me is because we, as a community, provide much of the content, in the forms of articles, how-to’s, reviews, top ten lists, and answers in support forums. When we don’t feed sites like those with our help, those forums just fill with questions.
No answers.
And that’s not a reason to keep coming back.
If you look at the support you get from WooThemes, StudioPress, Gravity Forms, and many others like it, it’s easy to tell the originals from the impostors.
It’s easy to tell who is serious about building a business and who isn’t. The latter just want to start a company and reap some quick rewards.
Like I said, starting a company is easy. It’s building a business that’s hard.
Chris Lema is the VP of Software Engineering at Emphasys Software, where he manages high performers and oversees product development and innovation. He’s also a blogger, ebook author and runs a WordPress meetup in North County San Diego. His coaching focuses on helping WordPress businesses, or businesses wanting to leverage WordPress.A series of incidents in Afghanistan set complicated political and personal events in motion for a returning Norwegian Special Forces officer.
1. Episode 1 44m During a military operation in Afghanistan, Erling unintentionally touches a woman. Back in Norway, Erling discovers the woman's husband beating her.
2. Episode 2 45m Past events in Afghanistan have implications for Erling's decision in Oslo. Johanne learns about Zamani from her boss. Erling makes an important call.
3. Episode 3 45m In Afghanistan, the platoon deals with grief. Ekeberg suspends Erling. Johanne offers some help. Jon Petter takes his A-game to Zamani's goat fight.
4. Episode 4 45m The foreign minister's secret meeting in Afghanistan is a prelude to a PR disaster in Norway. Jon Petter goes on TV. A reporter gets an explosive tip.
5. Episode 5 46m Erling is exposed in the press and struggles to find his bearings. In Afghanistan, Zamani is placed on a kill list. Johanne is pulled into the fray.
6. Episode 6 45m Johanne becomes increasingly distant from Erling. Erling and Jon Petter find a connection to Fruit for Life. Johanne realizes Hektor has been lying.
7. Episode 7 43m Johanne tells the foreign minister about Hektor's deal. Rolf's meeting in Afghanistan goes wrong. Adella helps Jon Petter have a change of heart.Finally the part i have been excited for. The second introduction. I promise this one will be 1000+ words this time.
It was near midnight as Maine Walked to Ozpin's Office at a brisk pace, He needed something from the man. The former Freelancer opened the door and started to "speak"[~I need a team~] growled Maine. "Very well Maine. Which one?" asked Ozpin. Maine went silent."May i make a suggestion?" asked Ozpin "Why not Team RWBY? I do believe they can assist you immensely, the leader is also very kind and empathetic and i think she will understand your... predicament." Maine shrugged in agreement."Let me take you to their dorm, Follow me" Stated Ozpin as he started to walk out. The pair walked down the massive tower and towards the dorms.
Team RWBY was doing their Late night rituals, Yang and Weiss bickering over something stupid Blake was reading a book and Ruby was listening to her music almost completely zoned out. There was a sharp rasp at the door and the entire room went silent. It wasn't anyone from JNPR, they didn't usually knock and it wasn't sun for he never actually used the door. Ruby hopped out of bed while the rest of the team stood behind her. She twisted the doorknob and slowly pulled it open. "Why hello there ladies. I apologize for this late interruption but there is someone i need you to meet, May i introduce you to my armored friend here, this is Agent Maine. there are some things you need to know about him" said Ozpin "What is it? What do we need to know?" asked ruby excitedly " calm down and he'll tell you" said Weiss who was clearly frustrated from her argument with yang. " Maine cant.." Ozpin was interrupted "Cant what? cant Sleep? Breathe? Talk? Think?" Ruby asked in rapid succession "well one of those is correct" Ozpin said with a slight smile "Maine is mute. He can growl and over time you can learn to understand him but he cannot speak and he will never be able to speak."explained Ozpin. "ooooooohhhh " said Ruby "why is that?" She asked "i'll let him explain" said Ozpin "But he cant speak how will we understand him Holy shit he's tall" said Weiss Maine growled and waved hello as he walked in. He shoved the bunk beds over a few feet and then plunked down a standard issue cot while the others just stared at him. [~What~] Maine growled, he was getting uncomfortable with all of the staring. The girls backed up a bit when he growled, ruby cautiously stepped towards him and said "I'm Ruby and i'm the leader of team RWBY this is Weiss Blake and My older sister Yang" ruby pointed to her teammates as she said their Names. Maine looked at them, waved again and sat down with a stone to sharpen the blade of his Bruteshot Grifshot. "Well i'm off to bed" stated yang to break the awkward silence "yea me too" grumbled Weiss and Blake silently went back to reading. Ruby started to make conversation with Maine "sooo... you can't talk right. Ozpin said that we could learn to understand you. So want to teach me?" Maine replied by nodding and grabbing a piece of paper. He pointed to himself grunted and wrote Me on the paper. "so HGUR means Me right? said Ruby. Maine growled softly and nodded as he wrote YES on a piece of Paper.
...
After a few hours Yang awoke and said "Ruby? are you still awake? its like three in the morning, you should go to bed or you wont be able to wake up in the morning" "Shhh Yang Maine is teaching me to understand him. I think i'm finally getting the hang of it" whispered Ruby. Yang responded "all he does is growl. how could you possibly understand that?" [~That's Rude~] growled Maine, "yea i gotta agree with Maine here. That is rude, you can tell what he's saying by the pitch and how it sounds" Said Ruby. "whatever, Just go to bed soon sis. Ok?" Said Yang as she laid back down in bed. Ruby also climbed into bed and said "night Maine, Night Yang"
...
It was five A.M when Ruby woke to the sound of Maine preparing to head out "where are you going Maine its 5 A.M?" Ruby asked Groggily [~nowhere important go back to bed~] Growled Maine Lightly " now i'm definitely getting up" declared Ruby Maine sighed [~I'll get you some coffee. get ready, you have 5 minutes~] "yes sir" ruby replied as she hopped out of bed. Maine walked down to the mess hall, grabbed two mugs of coffee and walked back to the dorm in three minutes. He tried to open the door but Ruby got there first and opened it as he reached for the knob while balancing two mugs in one hand [~Great your ready, Lets go~] Growled Maine "wait. Where are we going anyways?" asked Ruby [~i'll explain on the way~] was Maine's only response "well aren't we going to drink our coffee?" asked ruby [~you can drink it on the way~] Replied maine with an annoyed tone [~This girl really likes to talk~] Maine thought. They walked out to the helipad where there was a Bullhead waiting for them. As they climbed aboard the Pilot asked "Everybody ready?" Maine gave her a thumbs up and stopped for a second, He could have sworn he heard that voice before. "Come in command we are green for launch. Over" Said the Pilot over the radio. Maine was now one hundred percent sure that he had heard the voice before But where... "Roger that four seven Niner you are clear for take off" said the command operator. [~FOUR SEVEN NINER!? How did she get here?~] Asked Maine to no one in particular "wait you know her? from where?" asked ruby [~she was our pilot for our missions back during Training~] Maine bashed on the cockpit door "what the hell is it, cant you see im flying here" she was suddenly cut short when she saw who she was yelling at "Maine? is that you? what the hell are you doing here?" [~ I could ask you the same question.~] "Yea, i don't speak mute. HEY LITTLE GIRL! Can you understand him?" Asked Four Seven Niner. Ruby responded saying "He wants to know why your here." "Its a long story Maine, tell you later." replied Four Seven Niner as she banked left and Maine stumbled around the cargo bay [~ i wish we had a pelican~] Growled Maine " Oh no, Maine i'm going to be late for class!" said ruby in a panic, Maine grunted one word in response [~ Saturday~], "oh. well i fell like an idiot." said ruby as she sat back down on an ammo crate "sooo where are we going?" asked ruby [~i need to find something. we found a signal, its faint and almost 9 years old but its there, and it may have the answers i'm looking for~] "here we are ladies and gentlemen... Holy shit is that what i think it is?" Said Four Seven Niner Maine replied [~Yes. Its the Mother of invention,~]
Dun dun dun We found an old Amigo and A big ass ship which both ended up on sidewinder, and what is on sidewinder you may ask? The cliff that leads to Remnant. What will lay inside the ship after almost a decade of derelict? find out next week on Red vs RWBY The adventures of an insane Man and a little girl. Wow i guess these notes really don't like my titles, i don't blame them, Anyways please leave a Review that would be much appreciated. Be on the look out for a cameo from everyone's favorite Spanish Robot. Side note: Four Seven Niner will be a consistant character. Not a main one but a nice side character as the Fearless pilot of The team.Image caption Some Londoners were less than enthusiastic about the idea
Recycled toilet waste could be introduced to London's tap water, under plans being considered by Thames Water.
The company has launched a consultation on the idea of drinking sewage water which has been treated, put back in the Thames and retreated.
A strategy document said the technique was "common practice" across the world.
But many Londoners told the BBC they were unhappy at the idea of drinking waste water including from dishwashers, washing machines, baths and toilets.
One said: "I think chemically treated sewage is a step too far.
"It's definitely not something I would drink."
We are putting this on the table now and saying, 'what do you think folks'? Thames Water
Another added: "I don't think it sounds like a viable option. It wouldn't be my first choice."
London is facing a growing water shortage as the population moves towards ten million.
Thames Water says unless action is taken, the deficit will be about 125 million litres per day by 2015.
The company has already set up a test plant in Enfield, north London, which is experimenting with the recycling method.
A Thames Water spokesman said: "This waste water re-use we are asking for our customers views on is not something we are planning to implement any time soon.
"This is something we see as a longer-term measure and if implemented at all it would be in 2025.
"We are putting this on the table now and saying, 'what do you think folks'?"
He added that with towns such as Oxford upstream from London there was "a degree of waste water recycling going on now".For about as long as there’s been music, dudes have been writing songs about younger girls — but since the dawn of rock and roll, singing odes to teenage flesh has been one of the genre’s proudest traditions. Thus, when our own Matthew Bolin suggested that one of our first lists should be a rundown of our favorite age-inappropriate rock songs, the suggestions came fast and furious. This list only scratches the surface — of the songs we discussed, or the ones we forgot — but it contains a pungent blend of classic and little-known statutory rock anthems. Prepare to feel terribly unclean!
Chuck Berry, “Almost Grown” If it weren’t for underage girls, it seems fair to say that Chuck Berry might never have been inspired to pick up a guitar — and rock & roll as we know it might never have come to be. And okay, so “Almost Grown” isn’t as lecherous as, say, “Sweet Little Sixteen” — but even if this song’s protagonist is supposed to be the same age as the “little girl” he’s got his eye on, this is still Chuck we’re talking about. –Jeff Giles (download)
Brian Wilson, “Hey Little Tomboy” When a song starts off with the line “Hey little tomboy, sit here on my lap,” and Mike Love was anywhere within a 50-mile radius when it was written or recorded, you know you’re dealing with a towering classic of skeeve. Here’s the Brian Wilson demo, for that extra element of drug-addled psychosis. –JG (download)
Foreigner, “Seventeen” The title “Seventeen” is pretty common in pop music. If you AMG’d the title, you’d likely get a couple dozen different tunes all named the same. Yet it is hard for me to believe that any of the other performers looked quite as… old… as Foreigner did, even back then. Lou Gramm with his rangy, mangy, almost bro-fro, Mick Jones looking more like Chumley the janitor rather than a student… If context is everything, then picture these guys mourning the young’un that got away in the tune, and then go to therapy, you filthy pedo. –Dw. Dunphy (download)
Benny Mardones, “Into the Night” “She’s just sixteen years old / Leave her alone, they say.” We could say more, but Jason’s already said it all here. –JG (download)
Winger, “Seventeen” Such an obvious choice that we don’t feel the need to say anything else about it here — we’re just adding it because we can imagine the disbelieving comments if we don’t. –JG (download)
Van Morrison, “Cyprus Avenue” A lilting, beautiful slow number, reflecting on the everyday actions and making them into a beautiful dream when the past swirls into the present…..and then suddenly he gets to the end and: “Nobody, no, no, no, nobody stops me from loving you baby / So young and bold, fourteen years old / Baby, baby, baby…” Oh my God. –Matthew Bolin (download)
Damn Yankees, “Coming of Age” Jack Blades is a happily married man and Tommy Shaw is a lesbian, so clearly, the blame for this most foul of pervy corporate rock anthems lies with the ever-disgusting Ted Nugent. By 1990, some of the guys who rocked out to “Cat Scratch Fever” and “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” (or “Little Miss Dangerous” [download]) had teenage daughters — think they started feeling pangs of regret when they leafed through their record collections? –JG (download)
KISS, “Christine Sixteen” Not to be outdone by Paul Stanley’s ode to a hand job in the song “Take Me,†Gene Simmons decides to go for … statutory rape in “Christine Sixteen.†In 1977, Gene was 28 years old. His object of lust is a girl he instantly fell for when … oh, I’ll let Gene tell you in the spoken word part of the song: “I don’t usually say things like this to girls your age, but when I saw you coming out of the school that day, that day I knew, I knew, I’ve got to have you, I’ve got to have you.” This gem peaked at #25 on the U.S. Hot 100. But before you write Gene off as just another perv skulking around high school parking lots looking for girls, Gene gives the listener this snippet about Christine: “She’s’ been around, but she’s young and clean.” So … she really loves sex, but doesn’t have any discernible STDs? Maybe I’m over thinking this, maybe when it come to KISS, all I really need to know about them I can glean from This Is Spinal Tap. –Py Korry (download)
|
III.
Update: Sony have uploaded the videos to be shown at the event to their PlayStation Japan YouTube channel, and unfortunately, the video containing Kingdom Hearts III is old footage from the E3 2013 announcement trailer. This can be seen below.
There is still a chance that Hashimoto could reveal some small new information while on stage, so stay tuned and we will keep you updated-- no guarantee, though!I think I’m out of ideas. Yup. The best is behind me, everything that needs to be said, well, I’ve already said it, and that’s on top of all of the other stuff that totally didn’t need to be said, of which I’ve already said a lot. But that was that, said, done. All that’s left is to keep on going, saying anything, keep on keeping on as if I’ve got something, when really, nothing.
Like, what can I talk about, lunch? I had McDonald’s. I think I’ve already talked way too much about McDonald’s. So, yeah, I’m also drinking a cup of coffee. Nothing like a cup of hot coffee. Look, I know this is boring, and I could apologize, but what good would that do? I’ve said sorry before, it hasn’t changed anything, or added anything relevant to the discussion.
Nothing left to do but talk about how I have to go to work in a little while. Does anybody else have to work? Or is it just me? Me and all of the people that I work with. Is that it? That’s not much of a workforce. Maybe we’d make a good pro football team. Not in terms of skill or anything like that, but just getting a whole team fielded, and then backups ready. Or soccer I guess, yeah, there are a lot of people on a soccer team. But nobody ever wants to be goalie, and for some reason I find it so much more rewarding imagining all of the people I work with every day lining up to protect me from the onslaught of opposing linemen.
Because I’m definitely the quarterback in that fantasy. Whether or not my coworkers would agree with me, well, I guess they’re entitled to their own fantasies also. And since this is my fantasy, I don’t know why I’m settling for football, I can barely even throw a football. I mean, I can get it from point A to point B, or somewhere in the general vicinity of point B, but it’s never a nice throw, I’d say maybe one out of thirty times it’ll come close to that perfect spiral, the kind of smooth torpedo that everybody else in the world somehow seems to accomplish almost effortlessly. But mine are all topsy-turvy.
And that’s not even a real regulation sized football. I always thought the footballs in my parents’ garage were like pro footballs, but one time I came across an NFL sized football at the Sports Authority, and I could barely hold it with one hand. And I have giant hands. No, no more football fantasies. From here on out, I mean, I’ve got nothing to say anyway, so it’s right back to sci-fi fantasies, it’s me, I’m the captain of a gigantic spaceship, and all of those same coworkers that were defending me on the field before, this time they’re manning Ops, rushing toward battle stations or preparing the torpedoes for launch. “Ay-ay captain!” they’ll respond, sometimes just at random, like they won’t even have to necessarily wait for an order to say, “Ay-ay captain!” that’ll be something that’s encouraged on my ship, just say it whenever you feel like it.
Even my boss. Especially my boss. Maybe he’s cut out to be the boss at work, but on my ship, I’m the boss. And I’d call him boss still, but as a really ironic nickname, like, “Hey boss, remember when we were all back on Earth? How you used to be in charge? Haha. Go make sure there isn’t any space mold in between the engineering conduits.”
Or, I don’t know, that’s a lot of responsibility, managing that big of a crew. And in space. Maybe I’d prefer one of those really small boats, not tiny, but just big enough for one cabin inside, something quaint. I’d have cable still, but no Internet. Just me, the eternal ocean, and the incessant chatter of all of the twenty-four hour news channels. All of them, right-wing, left-wing, British, whatever, I’d watch a different channel every day and I’d try my best to completely alter my opinions accordingly, like not just an act, I’d see if I could really get myself to believe in whatever they were saying. I’d have plenty of time, and nobody to talk me out of it.
But then what if one of the channels started running specials, “This just in. Never, ever, ever watch another cable news channel, ever again, only us,” and even though I do my best to believe, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t, but for whatever reason on this day I really nail it, I so thoroughly absorb that message, I’m like, yes, just this channel forever.
But wasn’t I on a ship? I don’t know. Maybe the cable is too much. And maybe it’s a submarine. Although, I’m kind of tall, so I’d need one where I’m not constantly ducking underneath all sorts of low hanging pipes. And yeah I guess you need a pretty big crew for a submarine. Maybe I could just be like a consultant, or a VIP guest, nobody could boss me around, but I wouldn’t have to worry about management. And again, lots of headroom. I’ve banged my head on pipes before, and it sucks, it really, really hurts.Saint Walpurga or Walburga (Old English: Wealdburg, Latin: Valpurga, Walpurga, Walpurgis; c. AD 710 – 25 February 777 or 779), also spelled Valderburg or Guibor,[1] was an Anglo-Saxon missionary to the Frankish Empire. She was canonized on 1 May ca. 870 by Pope Adrian II. Walpurgis Night (or "Walpurgisnacht") is the name for the eve of her day, which coincides with May Day.
Early life [ edit ]
Walpurga was born in the county of Devonshire, England, into a local aristocratic family. She was the daughter of St. Richard the Pilgrim, one of the underkings of the West Saxons, and of Winna, sister of St. Boniface, Apostle of Germany, and had two brothers, St. Willibald and St. Winibald. Saint Richard is buried in the Basilica of San Frediano, Lucca, where he died on pilgrimage in 722.
Religious career [ edit ]
St. Richard, when starting with his two sons on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, entrusted Walpurga, then 11 years old, to the abbess of Wimborne.[2] Walpurga was educated by the nuns of Wimborne Abbey, Dorset,[3] where she spent 26 years as a member of the community.[2] She then travelled with her brothers, Willibald and Winibald, to Francia (now Württemberg and Franconia) to assist Saint Boniface, her mother's brother, in evangelizing among the still-pagan Germans. Because of her rigorous training, she was able to write her brother Winibald's vita and an account in Latin of his travels in Palestine. As a result, she is often called the first female author of both England and Germany.[2]
Walpurga became a nun in the double monastery of Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm, which was founded by her other brother, Willibald, who appointed her as his successor. Following his death in 751, she became the abbess.[3]
Death [ edit ]
Walpurga died on 25 February 777 or 779 (the records are unclear) and was buried at Heidenheim; the day carries her name in the Catholic church calendar. In the 870s, Walpurga's remains were transferred to Eichstätt. In Finland, Sweden, and Bavaria, her feast day commemorates the transfer of her relics on 1 May.
Veneration [ edit ]
Walpurga's feast day is 25 February, but the day of her canonization, 1 May (possibly 870), was also celebrated during the high medieval period, especially in the 11th century under Anno II, Archbishop of Cologne, so that Walpurgis Night is the eve of May Day, celebrated in continental folklore with dancing.
At Eichstätt, her bones were placed in a rocky niche, which allegedly began to exude a miraculously therapeutic oil, which drew pilgrims to her shrine.
The two earliest miracle narratives of Walpurga are the Miracula S. Walburgae Manheimensis by Wolfhard von Herrieden, datable to 895 or 896, and the late 10th-century Vita secunda linked with the name of Aselbod, bishop of Utrecht. In the 14th-century, Vita S. Walburgae of Phillipp von Rathsamhaüsen, bishop of Eichstätt (1306–22) the miracle of the tempest-tossed boat is introduced, which Peter Paul Rubens painted in 1610 for the altarpiece for the church of St. Walpurgis, Antwerp.[4]
The earliest representation of Walpurga, in the early 11th-century Hitda Codex, made in Cologne, depicts her holding stylized stalks of grain. In other depictions the object has been called a palm branch, which is not correct, since Walpurga was not martyred. The grain attribute has been interpreted as an occasion where a Christian saint (Walpurga) came to represent the older pagan concept of the Grain Mother. Peasant farmers fashioned her replica in a corn dolly at harvest time and told tales to explain Saint Walpurga's presence in the grain sheaf.[5]
Patronage [ edit ]
Walpurga is the patroness of Eichstätt and Weilburg, Germany; Oudenarde, Veurne, Antwerp, Belgium; and Zutphen the Netherlands; and she is invoked as special patroness against hydrophobia, and in storms, zehtt lenon and also by sailors.[2]
Legacy [ edit ]
St. Walburga's Abbey is located at Eichstätt. Bavaria. A second Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburga is located in Virginia Dale, Colorado, near the Wyoming border. The abbey is home to approximately 20 contemplative Catholic nuns and also has a retreat center.[3]
The Church of St. Walburge, a Catholic church in Preston, Lancashire, England, is a church famous for its spire. At 309 feet (94 m) the spire is the tallest of any parish church in England with only the spires of Salisbury and Norwich Cathedrals reaching higher.[6]
St. Walburga church in Antwerp (Belgium) [ edit ]
Central in the first fortified city of Antwerp, from the 11th century, was the church dedicated to St. Walburga. Under French occupation in 1798 the church was confiscated and sold, it served as a warehouse. In 1816 the Dutch government confiscated the church building, and in 1817 it was demolished. The city mayor and aldermen decided to erect a statue of Pieter Paul Rubens on the burg square left after the demolition. In 1880 when the (current) Scheldt quais were built most of the area of the first fortified city from the 11th century was demolished and even the foundations of the St. Walburgis church disappeared, and the statue was moved to the (current) Groenplaats.
Some parts of the interior of that ancient church, which actively served for more than 700 years, were recovered: the altar piece painting The Elevation of the Cross (Rubens) and the predella (foot of the altar) have been reused in the main altar of the Cathedral of Our Lady (Antwerp). Another altar was moved to the nl:Heikese kerk in Tilburg where it serves as the main altar.
In 1936 the city master builder (architect) nl:Flor Van Reeth constructed a new modernistic church building with the same name on the Volkstraat near Het Zuid. This building was declared a monument 1995 and was restored in 2007.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Greetings and Happy New Year from the Sly gang!
2012 was full of fantastic gaming goodness. Hopefully you’ve found some favourites that you’re still playing, but we’re sure you’re already looking ahead to what’s landing in 2013.
It’s shaping up to be another cracking year with the upcoming release of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time! Sly and the gang are back on the 27th March on both PS3 and PS Vita. What’s more, for those of you that purchase the PS3 version of the game, you’ll be able to download the PS Vita version from the PS Store at no cost! Great news for Sly fans who’ll be able to play at home and continue their adventures on the go.
To whet your appetites, take a look at the brand new gameplay video below. It’s a sneak peak at how Sly and the gang work together to pull a heist on El Jefe, the epic boss you’ll meet during your travels to Feudal Japan.
This is just a slice of the action but there will be plenty to get your teeth into, including earning costumes, finding new collectibles and hiding treasures. For PS Vita fans, you’ll even be able to use your PS Vita system as a set of X-ray goggles to collect some valuable items as you play through the PS3 version of the game. Cool, no?
We’ll have plenty more updates on Sly in the coming weeks as we prepare for launch – watch this space!DENIED KILLING: Jeremy McLaughlin said he did not kill Jade Bayliss, but admitted burglary and arson of her family home.
The man found guilty today of murdering a Christchurch school girl and then torching her family's home has killed before.
Jeremy George McLaughlin, 35, was this afternoon found guilty of murdering Jade Bayliss, 13, in the Barrington St house in November 2011.
Jade, who was home sick from school, was found dead in her mother's torched house. She had been strangled with a cord and had a sock shoved into her mouth.
VICTIM: Jade Bayliss, 13, died at her family's home on November 10, 2011.
McLaughlin had denied killing her, though admitted burglary and arson.
The jury did not accept his claim that he had the ultimate ill fortune to have burgled and then set fire to a Somerfield house where someone else had murdered Jade.
The jury was not told that McLaughlin had been convicted of killing another child, Australian Phillip Vidot in Perth in November 1995, because the right to a fair trial prevents it.
Supplied KILLED: Phillip Vidot, 14, was bashed with a cricket bat, run over by a car and then robbed of clothing and money.
Phillip, 14, and his friend Tyron Williams had gone shopping with a friend, but never made it home. Instead, the pair were bashed with a cricket bat, run over by a car and then robbed.
Vidot died hours later while his mate Tyron Williams was in a coma for eight days and still has brain damage.
McLaughlin, Craig Brian Wood and another young man were charged over the attack. McLaughlin and Wood were charged with murder. McLaughlin admitted wielding the cricket bat and Wood admitted running over the pair.
In a verdict two years later that sparked protest and calls for legislative change the jury acquitted the pair of murder, but found them guilty of manslaughter.
The pair and the other young man, whose name was suppressed, were also found guilty of causing Williams' grievous bodily harm.
McLaughlin was sentenced to 12 years in jail. He was deported back to New Zealand in 2001. New Zealand police were told the details of his manslaughter conviction in 2001.
Phillip's mother Marriya Vidot, 60, said she was shocked when she heard McLaughlin had killed again.
''People in his country should know what he's done,'' she said.
''How many lives does he have to take?''
COINCIDENCES OVERWHELMED CLAIMS OF INNOCENCE
In the end, the mounting coincidences in the Bayliss case simply overwhelmed Jeremy George Edward McLaughlin's protestations of innocence.
The jury deliberated for about three hours to find him guilty, on the ninth day of the trial before Justice Graham Panckhurst and a jury in the High Court at Christchurch.
When the guilty-of-murder verdict was announced by the jury foreman, there was clapping and cries of “Yes!” from the public gallery, and Jade Bayliss' mother Tina Bayliss shouted: “Bastard!”
Justice Panckhurst told the jury that he agreed entirely with their verdict.
Outside court the head of the police investigation, Detective Senior Sergeant John Rae, fought back tears as he commented on the verdict.
‘‘The police are pleased this case is over, it’s taken a long time to get to this stage, Rae said.
‘‘The shock of this case is not just that someone has been killed, not just that a wee girl has been killed, but the fact that she was killed in her own home where we all expect our kids to be safe.’’
The trial had a remarkable amount of detail about McLaughlin, 35, and his movements on the day of Jade's death.
Some of it was ordinary stuff - shopping, paying his rent - but also selling some of the gear from the burglary at pawn shops.
The most telling point from the defence was that his actions did not accord with someone who had just committed the crime of murdering a teenage girl. He was described by witnesses during the day as being calm and relaxed, not upset or agitated - even "chatty".
Justice Panckhurst also pointed out that his actions were also "not very helpful" for someone who had just committed a burglary - which he has admitted carrying out.
He was certainly not in the flight mode of a desperate killer on the run. How many desperados would pause to pay the rent on their flat?
He left a trail that the Crown and the police unravelled with a meticulous gathering of evidence.
He gave his correct name at the pawn shop. He and his car were on surveillance cameras in the streets, or in a service station, or shopping centre.
And that is where the coincidences undid him, finally.
McLaughlin did not take the remote controls for the televisions he stole from the Bayliss family home, the house of Tina Bayliss, Jade's mother with whom he had previously been in a relationship.
The pawn shop wanted remotes to clinch the deal, so he went to Dick Smith Electronics in Westfield Mall, Riccarton, to buy some universal remotes that he could deliver back to the dealers.
It seems that while he was there he used some notes he had taken from Jade's wallet, and the Crown contended that he then tossed the wallet away, beneath a parked car.
The wallet was quickly retrieved by a shopper and handed over to the police.
But McLaughlin could not admit to having had the wallet if he was going to stick to his story.
He had claimed that Jade was not at home when he burgled the house that morning. He also claimed he had not seen her body in her room when he returned to the house a few hours later to pour petrol through the house and set it alight.
The wallet meant that he had some contact with Jade, that she had not been out as he said, and that he must have been surprised to find her at home sick from school while he was burgling the house.
He had to explain the coincidence of it turning up on the rooftop carpark at Westfield just after the records showed he had been there. He could offer no explanation, even when he gave his own evidence at the trial.
He was left simply trying to convince the jury that he knew nothing of the murder and some other intruder must have entered the house in the time between his two visits and strangled the teenager.
The idea was just not feasible, especially when the Crown provided effective alibi evidence clearing the only other potential suspect, Jolon Erin Scott Sweeney, 42, who McLaughlin claimed to have planned the burglary with.
Cellphone and computer evidence put Sweeney elsewhere. There was no forensic evidence to tie him to the house in Barrington Street that day, November 10, 2011.
But there was plenty of evidence linking McLaughlin to the address. Faced with all that, he had decided to own up to the burglary and arson on the first day of the trial.
And the Crown also had evidence of his DNA being found under one of Jade's fingernails as though she had scratched her attacker. McLaughlin did have a scratch on his wrist, but the trial also heard evidence of him injuring his arm in an accident on a demolition site.
The defence said it could have been indirect transfer, from handling an item of clothing that day, that McLaughlin had left behind at the house when he was in a relationship with Jade Bayliss' mother.
The Crown said it amounted to a compelling case, while the defence said it did not reach the required standard.
McLaughlin will remain in custody until sentencing on June 13 having been caught out and convicted by scientific evidence and the huge "footprint" that we now leave behind on electronic records and security footage wherever we go.When A Popular List Of 100 'Best-Ever' Teen Books Is The 'Whitest Ever'
When NPR Books invited audience members to nominate and vote for their favorite Young Adult novels, more than 75,000 responded. The extraordinary outpouring speaks of the passion connecting the books section and its followers.
But in that response also lie the seeds of a defect, for lack of a better term, in the poll. The resulting "Your Favorites: 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels" included only two books whose protagonists are people of color, which critics called unjust. The two were Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street and Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. One of the four heroines in a third book, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, by Ann Brashares, is half Puerto Rican.
As lovely an honor as this is, it also made me sad.
Even one of the selected authors reacted in dismay.
"This just might be the whitest YA list ever," wrote Laurie Halse Anderson on her personal blog. Two of Anderson's books, Speak and Wintergirls, made it on the list. Still, she wrote, "As lovely an honor as this is, it also made me sad. And angry and frustrated."
Much of the criticism was directed at the white panel of experts, but the censure is misplaced. After speaking with editors and studying the poll, I find that the problem was not the experts, but the nature of the poll and the make-up of the audience. This is not to condemn either—let's celebrate engagement!—but it does raise a question as to how NPR should protect its editorial integrity when publishing a popularity list that realistically will be taken as NPR's own and have great influence in schools and sales.
As a reading and English teacher in Minneapolis identified as "Shaker Laurie" wrote:
The problem is not that amazing books about teens of color don't exist. They do. My kids latch obsessively onto books about teens like them and read them voraciously because adolescents in all their self-involved glory enjoy reading texts that remind them of, well, themselves. Sherman Alexie and Sandra Cisneros certainly deserve their received accolades: The House on Mango Street is a beautifully poetic account of a Latina's coming of age, and Absolutely True Diary poignantly tells the story of a boy who struggles with life on a reservation and his desire for a strong education. Judith Ortiz Cofer, Walter Dean Myers, Linda Sue Park, and Matt de la Peña's work also comes to mind, so when NPR comes along and declares 100 books the "Best-Ever" and leaves nearly every single young adult title written about people of color off the list without caveat or mention, damage is done.
NPR's audience skews white. The poll result was innocent, normal and natural. If still sad.
The issue with NPR's audience is that it skews white and mature. As I detailed last year in a report on diversity in NPR, roughly 87 percent of the radio audience was white, compared to 77 of the country's over-18 population, according to NPR's Audience, Insight and Research Department. African-Americans and Hispanics are particularly under-represented; Asian Americans are slightly over-represented, but they are a much smaller group.
While there is no profile of the 75,000 voters themselves, they surely reflect this overall audience to a great degree. It thus seems reasonable to me to assume that many of the voters merely selected the books they knew, loved and identified with when they were teens.
The poll result, in other words, was innocent, normal and natural. If still sad.
The good news is that the proportion of non-whites in the NPR audience is growing as the proportion of African-Americans and Hispanics graduating from university in the nation grows. More than two-thirds of NPR's listeners are college grads. The bad news is that so long as the nation, and especially the universe of college graduates, is overwhelmingly white, then a popularity poll on books is likely to skew in favor of white authors or white protagonists.
The methodology of the poll, moreover, may have further guaranteed a non-diverse result. Readers submitted more than 1,200 titles, a panel of experts narrowed the list to 235 books that they judged were actually eligible, and the audience responded a second time by voting for their top ten. By picking only 10, voters reasonably went for the books they really most loved or identified with, statistically reinforcing the bias of the audience breakdown. The small number left little room for adding books that a reader might think is also good medicine.
I can't prove this, however. Alternatively, a small group of readers—say, Asian Americans—who all voted for the same Asian-American titles could have disproportionate impact under a top-10 system.
I am passionately committed to reaching out to diverse authors.
Of the 235 finalists, my assistant, Lori Grisham, found at least four more that had diverse heroes and heroines, which still isn't very many. These included American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang; The First Part Last by Angela Johnson; Copper Sun by Sharon M. Draper; and Sold by Patricia McCormick.
It is understandable that some listeners blamed the panelists. The three women and a man—Pamela Paul, Diane Roback, Tasha Robinson, Ted Schelvan—are white. And as Linda Sue Park, a children's fiction author and winner of a Newbery Medal, wrote on her blog:
I have tremendous respect for the panel that narrowed the list; I have worked with some of them personally. But if NPR had been serious about that'very best' label—as opposed to'very best if you're white, educated, and middle-class'—it should have attempted a vital corrective by selecting a panel that included at least one person of color.
But while we as a nation are not at a point yet where we can ignore concerns with diversity, the panelists in fact had little power over the selection. Their race didn't much matter. As Joe Matazzoni, Senior Supervising Producer of the Arts & Life section of NPR.org, explained in a considered response to me:
The panelists are all experts in the field but none this year, as far as I know, are persons of color. This will be something we will certainly remedy in future polls. I'll caution, however, the panel's influence on the outcome is limited. It's important to understand that, for the most part, the panelists are more like line umpires at a tennis match than judges of a beauty contest. Which is to say, they don't pick the finalists or the winners. In the vast majority of cases, the books that make it to the final voting are the books that received the most nominations from the audience. The panel's job is to rule out the titles that, in their estimation, fall outside the boundaries of the category — be it science fiction, thrillers, or, this year, young-adult fiction. This year, as in years past, we allowed the panelists to include up to two of their own favorite books in the voting roster — as a courtesy to thank them for their service. Some of them took us up on the offer. But, to paraphrase an old saying, you can lead a reader to works of literary merit, but you can't make her vote for them. As in years past, when the voting came around, the audience ignored the "editor's picks"; none made the top 100.
[Matazzoni's full response is posted below.]
The books section does, in fact, go to great lengths to cast a wide diversity net in its everyday coverage and features. Supervising Editor Ellen Silva provided these examples from books series over the past eight months:
In addition, the newspoet series on All Things Considered featured Tracy K. Smith, Kevin Young, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Paisley Rekdal, and Monica Youn. The Morning Edition poetry games series included winner Mbali Vilakazi, Monica de la Torre, Kazim Ali, and Ouyang Yu.
"I am passionately committed to reaching out to diverse authors," Silva wrote. "It is an essential part of my leadership role at NPR Books."
So, what should NPR do with its book poll? Matazzoni offered this consideration:
A few people have suggested that we shouldn't call the top-100 the "best-ever" books, since a popularity contest doesn't determine quality. It's a fair point. We picked that title this year to suggest breathless, teen-aged enthusiasm. Also, the lists of recommended books on the NPR Books site are usually restricted to new works, so the title is meant to indicate that the novels on this list come from all periods.
And he made this invitation for even more engagement with you, the audience, to find a solution:
Our job at NPR Books is to find great books for our audience to read. Audience polls are one way of doing this – a way that complements the reviews, interviews, commentaries and other stories that we assign and which more fully express the editorial judgment of the NPR Books team. Finding ways to tap that audience wisdom while not creating an experience that makes some feel excluded will be a challenge, but it's one we accept. I invite your readers to offer their suggestions.
NPR Books staff have also discussed simultaneously publishing two lists—the popularity poll and one selected by experts. I think that is a good idea. This offers the added fun of comparing and debating the two. No one panel, after all, can lay claim to the truth, so we can additionally fight over throwing the bums out.
But you may have better ideas. Please take up Matazzoni on his invitation. He and his staff are genuine in their request.
Assistant to the ombudsman Lori Grisham contributed to this report.
More from the Ombudsman:
Black, Latino, Asian and White: Diversity at NPR, April 10, 2012
Minority Hiring And The Talent Pool: A Good Story, April 11, 2012
Six National Leaders And Experts Look At Diversity At NPR, April 30, 2012
Follow Edward Schumacher-Matos or Twitter @SchumacherMatos and Facebook.Los Angeles’ housing agency has scrapped a proposal for a 6 percent rent hike at a city-owned, senior apartment building in Eagle Rock.
Following a city hearing last week which drew angry seniors, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles announced Tuesday that rents will rise 3 percent this year instead of 6 percent at Reflections on Yosemite, a 1970s-era building on Yosemite Drive.
Citing “concerns expressed by our residents,” HACLA said rents will rise just 3 percent, in line with allowable increases under the city’s rent control law.
Five other city-owned senior residential buildings will also get the 3 percent hike, rather than the planned 6 percent rise, the agency said. The five buildings are: Reflections at Barbara Ann, Reflections at Brittania, Reflections at Glenalbyn, Reflections at Sepulveda and Reflections at Wyandotte.
Resident Alex Ortega, who pays $754 for a one-bedroom at Reflections at Yosemite believes pressure from the news media covering the hike caused HACLA to back down. Additionally, HACLA “found out that we had lawyers and a tenants’ union on our side,” he said.
• RELATED STORY: Rent increase sparks anger at Los Angeles city-owned senior building
Ortega, 70, and other residents protested the 6 percent hike, contending the building’s elderly, disabled and others on fixed-incomes couldn’t afford the increase. Some residents said a 3 percent hike, which had been applied in the past, was preferable.
HACLA executive Tina Booth-Smith said last week that the building doesn’t receive government subsidies and the higher increase was needed to keep up with area rents. The building is considered a “market rate” complex, despite the low rents.
Meanwhile, the two sides continued on Tuesday to disagree on whether the HACLA-owned building is covered under rent control law.
HACLA maintains the building isn’t subject to the law, a position also held by the Housing and Community Investment Department, another city agency.
However, Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County attorney David Pallack, who represents the tenants, sent a letter to HACLA last week stating that while HACLA properties are generally exempt from the rent control law, the exception doesn’t apply to unsubsidized housing.
The city’s rent control law caps annual rent increases and provides other protections for renters.
Reached Tuesday, Pallack said in an email he’d continue to discuss the rent control issue with HACLA. He also said he was pleased about the smaller rent increase.
“Large rent increases can cause serious hardships on low-income tenants,” Pallack wrote, “especially elderly individuals living on fixed incomes like those living at the Reflections at Yosemite Apartments.”
Update: This story has been updated to include information about HACLA’s plans for a lower rent increase at five other city-owned buildings.Unlike the lily-livered British red-tops, the main German tabloid, Bild Zeitung, puts nipples on the front page. Day after day for the past week, it has been metaphorically stripping naked the same victim, then pouring cold baked beans over her head. Once-divorced mother-of-none Angela Merkel, 55, from Berlin, a chancellor of Germany, has had probably the worst seven days of her life.
To imagine the full scale of Mrs Merkel's disaster, think of it as a bit like that moment in 2008 when Britain suddenly had to find £46 billion of public money to bail out the banks, overnight storing up years of spending cuts, tax rises and general misery for everyone else. Then multiply the amount of money potentially required, and the amount of pain which could be inflicted, by three.
Mix in the fact that the people the German government has had to rescue aren't even Germans, but Greeks. Add that the deal was done only after the repeated prodding by Mrs Merkel's great European rival, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who reportedly threatened to pull out of the euro. Then there was the problem that as all this was unfolding, Mrs Merkel had to face a vital election.
And top off with the slowly-dawning, horrified realisation by the taxpayers of Germany that late last Sunday night, their Chancellor signed them up for potentially even bigger, indeed unlimited, bailouts of everyone else in the single currency, too.
"We are again the idiots of Europe!" shrieked Bild, which has the power of the Daily Mail, The Sun, and the Daily Mirror added together, and whose official slogan can be broadly translated as "We think up your opinions so you don't have to." Even before Sunday night, things had been going downhill for the world's most powerful woman. Last Saturday, Mrs Merkel held an open-air rally in the industrial city of Bielefeld. Intended to rouse her party supporters on the eve of the crucial poll, it turned into something of a rout.
"Opposition supporters had water pistols and sirens," said Rolf August, a local resident who went along out of curiosity. "They started screaming at Merkel and at times she could hardly get a word in edgeways."
At another event, in Wuppertal, Mrs Merkel was reduced to shouting: "You people have no idea what I am talking about!" as opposition loudhailers drowned her words.
The next day Bielefeld, and the rest of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, duly gave her a kicking, with both Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats and their coalition ally the FDP suffering heavy losses. By losing the state, Germany's most important, she also lost control of the upper house of parliament in Berlin.
Bielefeld is twinned with Rochdale, home of another celebrated recent face-to-face encounter between a European political leader and a disgruntled core vote – and speaking to them last week, the people of Bielefeld came across as more prosperous, German versions of Gillian Duffy.
"Greece is only the first state that is going down, the next one will follow very soon and Germany will end up paying for them all," says Hendrick Böhmig, standing in the town's attractive old square. "People don't realise what's coming. When their kindergarten closes to pay for Greece, people will go on to the streets." Mr Böhmig sells BMWs. When the luxury car salesmen start talking about taking to the streets, you know you have a problem.
"We have punished the FDP and Merkel," said Volker Kienast, a small businessman. "The last half-year, we have all been very angry about them. We will get more inflation, worse streets, we'll lose our swimming pools, have to pay more for healthcare."
Bielefeld is very much the kind of place which has already suffered from Germans' own decision to make cuts and tighten their own belts to deal with the recession. The country, though still prosperous in its very bones, feels slightly less shiny than it did. The trains are often late these days.
Vasilis Christodoulou, owner of Kreta, Bielefeld's oldest
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any sincere believer would have to this choice of words. But in the meantime, it strikes me as understandably offensive wording, even if I get where he is headed. It seems to me that a phrase chosen more for its provocativeness than for its precision is great for generating buzz, but it isn’t so great for fostering sympathetic conversation. Perhaps I will change my mind about that after reading the book. But I can see why this phrasing would ruffle a few feathers.
What Kind of Evidence?
Looking back over my days as a Christian, I would say there were two general categories of evidence which satisfied me at the time. The first I would generally label personal experience. So many things fall into this category: Powerful emotional experiences, unexplained occurrences, seemingly improbable coincidences, answers to prayer (mainly noting when things went as desired, of course), and even a regular perception of being “in relationship” with someone whose communication with me required specially-trained sensibilities to detect that “still small voice” in my own head/heart (Christians are big on distinguishing between those two things). With enough years of practice, you can cultivate this “inner awareness” into a semblance of a living personality with whom you can interact and communicate. You might even learn to “hear” from him/her/it when you need most to hear something comforting, encouraging, or even exhortational.
What I’m trying to say is that there’s little point in telling a devout believer that God isn’t real because, for them, God does exist. If my irreverent theory is correct, and they themselves actively create and maintain this person in their own minds as I believe I once did, it wouldn’t do much good to try and tell them that no such person exists. It certainly will fall on deaf ears to suggest that they have “no evidence” or that they are just “pretending.” I often think of the protagonist’s lifelong friends in the movie A Beautiful Mind. No one but he could put an end to their intrusive presence in his own mental world. Nobody else could do it for him.
The second category of evidence comes from the Bible itself. Vischer puts it this way:
In 1st century Israel, a guy from Nazareth named Jesus made claims about his place and role in Jewish history, and asked 1st century Jews to put confidence in those claims..Quite a few 1st century Jews put confidence in his claims, and even more didn’t. Some disliked his claims so much they wanted him dead. But those that did put confidence in Jesus didn’t do so in the absence of evidence. They did so BECAUSE of evidence.
I know that for me, the Bible itself was for many years Exhibit A for the believability of the claims of Christianity. This is how as an Evangelical I was taught to think. At the time I wasn’t able to squarely face the fact that the Bible itself is one of the claims. Do you see the problem there? It seems to most Christians that Jesus doing such-and-such and Paul saying this-and-that would constitute evidence to support the claims of Christianity. But the stories themselves are part of the claim. Telling me what the Bible says about what Jesus did (or what others witnessed) isn’t for me today “evidence,” but rather more claims needing evidence of their own. You can’t use the claim to support the claim, not without being hopelessly circular.
When I ask my friends now why I should believe the stories about Jesus and not the stories about Muhammad or Joseph Smith, they tell me that 500 witnesses testified to the resurrection of Jesus. But we don’t have 500 testimonies, we have one: the Bible. We don’t have 500 letters from different people saying they saw these things, we have in fact one passage—one passage—written by someone who wasn’t even there, telling us third-hand about a multitude of witnesses to this appearance. That’s not five hundred points for Jesus, that’s just one. And for what it’s worth, Muhammad and Joseph Smith each had multiple witnesses to their claims as well, according to each of their respective holy books. If those aren’t convincing “evidence” for those religions, then why is this one any different? Clearly there is some kind of favoritism going on here. This, for the Christian, is reliable evidence for the claims of Christianity. It’s not that there isn’t any evidence, it’s just that what passes for evidence doesn’t live up to the standards which most atheists demand before they’re willing to buy into the claims of this (or any) religion. They would say that they’re simply applying the same skepticism towards the Christian faith which Christians already display toward all other religions besides their own.
Because of the fluidity of language, there can be an awful lot of slippery semantics when it comes to discussing faith. Ordinarily we know good and well that we use words in different ways at different times, but when it comes to discussing philosophy and religion, people tend to talk as if our words must mean the same thing everywhere, all the time. As with the word “love,” the word “faith” can signify many different things. For example, it can indicate an entire system of religious beliefs (as in “the Christian faith”), which to my mind would include the epistemology (“the way of knowing”) championed within that system. At first, Vischer sets aside this usage of the word, saying it “isn’t relevant here.” But then later on he has to acknowledge that many Christians do in fact include certain epistemic assumptions in their usage of the word faith, and that for them, some kind of a disregarding (or even dismissing) of evidence goes along with that. Vischer is uncomfortable with this usage of “faith,” but he admits:
…though I believe Dawkins, Boghossian and others are misdefining faith, I believe some Christians may be guilty of the same mistake
So one problem we have here is that even the practitioners of “the Christian faith” don’t agree with each other about what this word means. No wonder we don’t always seem to be speaking the same language! Perhaps we’re not, in a way.
Seeking to emphasize a definition of faith which doesn’t imply turning a blind eye to evidence, Vischer uses the popular illustration of a chair.
A chair is asking us to put confidence in its claims. “Sit on me. No really. I mean it. I’ll hold you up.” And we have to make a decision. “Do I trust the claims of this chair?” If I trust the chair, I sit. If I don’t trust the chair, I stand. I vote with my hindquarters. It’s just that simple. And that is faith.
Is that really faith, though? Is that even a responsible use of the word? Is that consistent with how the Bible uses the word? After spending some time interacting with his critics, Vischer vowed to revise his vocabulary a bit:
One atheist responder made the point that if we mean “trust,” (which is a synonym in the Bible for “faith”), why don’t we just say trust? Faith must mean something different if we only use it when we talk about religious stuff and then switch to “trust” when we’re talking about other things…Which is a fair point. So, personally, I’m not going to use the word “faith” when I mean “to put trust or confidence in.” I’m going to use “trust” or “confidence.”
Indeed I agree that faith seems like the wrong word for this…but why? What is it about the word “faith” that makes it such an ill fit for this illustration? The answer is that no matter in what context we use this word, it points to a tentative relationship toward the most probable outcomes. Faith implies some kind of expectation which is far from a given, otherwise the situation would merit a different word. After 99% of all chairs I sit in hold me up, if I decide to trust most chairs, I wouldn’t call that faith. What would make it faith is if more and more chairs started collapsing under me. That would change my relationship to chairs! Before I replace the word “trust” with “faith,” there would need to be a noticeable decrease in either the probability of a favorable outcome or at least a decrease in available information. This, I think, gets us closer to a more honest representation of how the Bible itself uses the word.
I have written before that the Bible often speaks of faith and sight as if they are inversely proportionate to each other. In the Bible, a man’s faith is said to be “great” in direct proportion to how much contrary evidence he must overlook. Consider the stories mentioned in Hebrews 11. Abraham was so old! If he had been 30 and had already been the father of six, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal to announce he’s gonna be a daddy. Sarah was infertile, too, as the story goes. Believing in the face of those circumstances is what earned their confidence in those extraordinary claims the right to be called “faith.” The same goes for the rest of the people mentioned in Hebrews and throughout the rest of the Bible. They are praised according to the extent to which they believed claims which contradicted their circumstances. Noah had so much to do! And it had never rained like he was told it would rain. And Goliath was so big! How is a little rock going to take him down? And Gideon was such a nobody! And then he whittles his army down to 300 guys? On and on it goes. These people were praised because they believed before they could see the evidence which would validate their beliefs (not after).
Vischer supposes that each of them must have had prior evidences of God’s faithfulness to draw on or else they never would have expected their respective miracles to occur. Once again this supports the notion that “without evidence” wouldn’t a be fair thing to say.
In some manner (we aren’t told exactly how), God communicated to Abraham that IF he left Ur and followed God, God would bless him in certain specific ways. In whatever form it was that God showed up, it was enough to convince Abraham that A) this was a supernatural entity talking to him, and that B) this supernatural entity had the ability and the intent to bless him if he left Ur. So Abraham put confidence in the claims of God.
Of course none of this really changes things if the prior “evidences” which initially inspired the faith of people like Abraham turned out to be figures of their own imaginations. We’re still talking about Bible stories, after all, and for people like me that carries little weight to begin with. But to be fair we should note that people who believe things usually have reasons to believe those things, even if we aren’t particularly impressed with those reasons ourselves. So it’s not entirely accurate to say they are “believing without evidence.” In fact, looking at people who have reasons (good or bad) for believing what they believe and then telling them they don’t have any reasons just makes you look like you’re the one “pretending to know something you don’t really know” about them. A little bit of charity can go a long way in these discussions.
Faith Comes by Hearing
Having said all of that, I’m now going to turn around and make an assertion which sounds like I’m contradicting myself, but bear with me for a minute. When you say that faith is “believing without evidence,” you misrepresent how Christians themselves view their faith. However, there’s an element of truth in what these critics are trying to say which needs to be pointed out. It’s not entirely invalid for people to suggest that, at least as it’s conceived in the Bible, the Christian concept of faith demands acceptance of its claims without regard for evidence beyond the authority of the message itself. In other words, if you believe that the message itself is self-authenticating, you can then admit the stories themselves as evidence (as Vischer does above). Paul declared in Romans 10:17:
Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
In theory this would trump even the absence of the first kind of “evidence” I mentioned above: Personal experience. When Thomas demanded tangible evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, the story says that he got it. That validates the skeptic’s desire for evidence, right? “Not so fast!” my Evangelical friends tell me. The story of Thomas doesn’t seem to have made it into the gospel to exonerate those of us who want more than just the word of people long since dead. In fact, in the story of Jesus appearing to Thomas, he makes a point of saying “Because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed!” So even this story is there to suggest that it’s somehow better to believe without requiring the evidence which Thomas required. Most likely this is what Jesus meant when he said that you must become as a little child. Children believe things very easily. They are not naturally skeptical; they are innately trusting. That’s the kind of follower Jesus liked the best.
There is a principle throughout the Bible which asserts that the speaking of the message itself carries a kind of power and authority all its own. If you’ll forgive the expression, it’s like magic. That’s why so many Christians believe that the best way to answer a difficult question is to quote a Bible verse. They are taught to believe that the words themselves contain a kind of power which works on the listener whenever they are spoken. They are taught that reading it regularly will change them in a way which reading other books will not. Paul asserted that the Christian message is itself “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” The catch there is that it has no such power for someone who doesn’t believe, although this seldom stops believers from trying it on us anyway! I’ve said before that quoting the Bible doesn’t work like a Jedi mind trick on us. But many seem to think it should. That’s because they were taught that the message itself contains a power to persuade, making it somehow “self-authenticating” (a phrase they taught me in seminary—I’m not making it up).
To people like me, nothing is self-authenticating, not even empirical observation or personal experience. People like me have come to distrust ourselves and our own powers of perception to the point that we are willing to doubt and question everything we think and see and experience. Even science can be wrong, yes, we agree. But it’s always improved upon by better science, not by reverting to authoritative pronouncements which are somehow supposed to be self-validating. This notion is at least partially responsible for the perception which many have that faith is “believing without evidence.” It may not be how most Christians would want to put it. But maybe if you can imagine how it looks from the outside looking in, you’ll understand why so many atheists keep disagreeing with what you are trying to say about faith.We targeted an improvement to shave 10-20% off of our compute costs while reducing our storage size by several hundred terabytes.
Big Data Problems
Quantcast’s competitive edge lies in our ability to process vast amounts of data efficiently. We have hundreds of pipelines running on our hardware, processing over 30PB per day. We got to 30PB per day over the years by constantly finding new optimizations. Recently, with the cluster backlog growing and engineers starting to tap their fingers waiting for results, we faced an occasion to invent another one. We targeted an improvement to shave 10-20% off of our compute costs while reducing our storage size by several hundred terabytes. This scale of improvement would allow us breathing room necessary to either optimize additional pipelines or scale our cluster.
Here’s what we did.
Getting to the Root
Our commitment to instrumentation in our infrastructure aided our search for potential improvements. We keep detailed logs of every map-reduce step we run, tracking the mapper class, reducer class, job name, and cluster time. These logs revealed our most expensive pipelines, and thus which would yield the biggest gains.
We quickly zeroed in on one particular pipeline—let’s call it Hercules. Hercules was one of our most expensive jobs, produced one of the largest datasets, and output data upon which much of our advertising business depends. Improving the internals of Hercules would improve not just its performance, but the performance of downstream pipelines as well.
The second tool in our toolbox was our map-reduce profiler. This statistical profiler takes periodic stack-traces on every mapper and reducer, then aggregates the data, letting you know how much CPU time is spent within a given call. Analyzing the most expensive steps involving Hercules, we found our culprit: nested records being serialized and deserialized using native Java serialization.
The Perils of Nested Structures and Java Serialization
Serialization is crucial to any software company doing long-term data storage at scale; you need to reliably write your data to the filesystem and load it back into your programming language later. Serializing records is such a common problem that there is a host of ways to go about it, including Protobuf, Thrift, ORC, Avro, Kudu, and Parquet. At Quantcast, we use a proprietary format simply called a rowfile.
Our code is written in Java — and we could’ve just used internal Java serialization — however, this is inefficient for a number reasons. First, Java serialization relies on one of the slowest parts of Java —reflection. Reflection involves inspecting the class of an object at runtime and making decisions based on those facts. For instance, it can determine whether a List is an ArrayList or LinkedList. Unfortunately, using reflection can be incredibly slow because the Java compiler and runtime environment are unable to optimize execution.
Secondly, Java serialization produces very bulky outputs. Each serialization contains all of the data required to deserialize. When you’re writing billions of records at a time, recording the schema in every record massively increases your data size.
Rowfiles were designed to address these issues. Each Row knows the type of its fields and writes the values directly to bytes. The schema is written once on each file in a metadata header. This allows us to change schemas and read files even without knowing the class definition.
What we found when digging through the Hercules profiling data is that we were still using java serialization in some places. In particular, we were serializing the raw input rows using native serialization, converting it to a string, and saving it into a single String field. This operation was taking 50% of the cluster time for some key steps, and reading out the raw input row also proved expensive. Some quick tests showed that using rowfile serialization instead and leaving everything else untouched would yield significant benefits.
The Devil is in the Details
We knew that we wanted to replace the Java serialization with Rowfile serialization; the compute and space speedups were too big to ignore. However, the exact details still had to be worked out. Rowfile serialization does not keep a fixed schema around; instead, it relies on metadata to know what data corresponds to which fields. Just saving the raw bytes would render us unable to ever change the input row’s schema—an unacceptable state of affairs.
We convened a group of senior engineers to brainstorm solutions to this problem and threw solutions onto a whiteboard. Most tried to attach the input row schema in some clever way so that we would be able to modify it. Solutions in this class included the following.
Prepend the byte[] with a schema ID, which could then be looked up in the code. This would require us to recompile downstream jobs in order to read new files.
Have the first byte of the encoding encode the number of fields saved. This would allow us to add fields to the end of input row but never delete them.
Store the schema in the file’s metadata along with the Hercules metadata. This would require a tremendous amount of bookkeeping as the data in these records gets passed between jobs.
These were all novel solutions but faced the same challenge: serializing records disjoint from a schema in a way that allows you to modify the schema is very hard. One of the senior engineers, Kristi Tsukida, realized that Quantcast had solved this problem before, with our rowfiles. She suggested promoting the input row’s columns up to the rows in Hercules. This would allow for schema changes and efficient storage, the reasons we implemented rowfiles in the first place.
“Early on in Hercules’ development, we used this blob approach to minimize extra work while iterating quickly — no need to add columns, modify tests, etc. — but it’s always been difficult to query. Now that Hercules is mature and more narrowly scoped, it seemed better to have the data in a simple format, rather than having to unpackage something inside of the row, as we’re optimizing for operating efficiency rather than development speed. As engineers, it’s tempting to want to design something custom, but realizing we could solve this problem with a simple approach using our pre-existing toolset was the key.” – Kristi Tsukida, Sr. Software Engineer
Implementation
Implementing these changes took about two months. First, we published new Row definitions for downstream consumers to use. Next, we modified Hercules to write to the new format, and verify the jobs correctness. The final and most time-consuming step were coordinating with all downstream consumers to modify their jobs so that they could read either file format. These changes affected every engineering office, 13 distinct teams, and over 50 pipelines. By working closely with other teams, we were able to deploy this big change with minimal disruption.
Final Results
Making this change made working with these datasets much easier. What previously required a complex series of incantations now only requires a simple field access. The non-engineer consumers of this data find it much easier to understand what data is available and what it means.
Beyond readability, the effect on our compute cluster has been dramatic. We doubled the overall targets for the optimization, saving 30% of our cluster time and a petabyte of storage. While we were running on our own hardware, in AWS these savings would back out to about a million dollars of EC2 and two million dollars of storage.
How we structure our data is crucial to making our computation efficient. At the scale we operate, improving even a single pipeline can yield huge returns. Doubling down on our core infrastructure and being willing to make big changes gave us the step level improvements we needed to continue to scale.
Interested in making an impact at Quantcast? Learn more about engineering at Quantcast here.The son of slain Adelaide Crows coach Phil Walsh has multiple sclerosis, faces an uncertain future and should be granted limited release on “humanitarian” grounds, a court has heard.
Counsel for Cy Jacob Walsh on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to authorise limited, closely supervised release from high-security mental health facility James Nash House.
But Lucy Boord, prosecuting, urged caution given Walsh’s relatively short time in mental health care.
“The prosecution takes a conservative approach when there’s been a long period of stability in someone’s mental state,” she said.
Camera Icon Picture: The Advertiser
“This is not an extraordinarily long period of stability, with the greatest of respect.
“Given that, the prosecution will clearly (advocate for) a cautious approach.”
Walsh, 29, has been held in the secure facility since he was found not guilty, due to mental incompetence, of murdering his father.
He repeatedly and fatally stabbed Phil Walsh inside the family home in 2015 while affected by undiagnosed, untreated schizophrenia.
Prior to the fatal confrontation, Cy Walsh had been a habitual users of hallucinogenic drugs, had brawled with his father in the streets of Perth and spoken of wanting to “rip out” the older man’s heart.
Camera Icon Cy Walsh was found not guilty of his father’s murder due to mental incompetence. Picture: 7 News
Justice Anne Bampton last year ordered that Walsh spend the rest of his life under a limiting term — psychiatric supervision similar to a jail term a mentally able person would receive.
Tiffany Walsh, for Cy Walsh, told the court on Wednesday her client’s circumstances had changed.
“Your Honour would be aware that he was, earlier this year, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis,” she said.
The condition, also known as MS, causes scarring on the central nervous system which can affect muscle control and lead to memory loss, depression and cognitive difficulties.
While there is no cure, treatments exist to lessen symptoms and slow the disease’s progression.
Camera Icon Cy Walsh stabbed his father to death while hearing voices.
Ms Walsh said her client should be permitted to leave James Nash House, in the company of staff, because prison transports were not readily available for medical visits.
She said Walsh’s neurologist had also recommended he be granted supervised “rehabilitation leave” to venture outside James Nash House.
“That’s simply to visit the local area around James Nash House, certainly not to go too far afield,” she said.
“It’s because his prognosis is uncertain and it’s about, in a nutshell, quality of life and humanitarian reasons.”
In a “victim and next of kin” report released by the court last year, Walsh’s mother — and Phil Walsh’s wife — Meredith Walsh revealed how her son’s psychiatric treatment was allowing him to “grieve” his father.
“Mrs Walsh is very supportive of (Cy) and advised her wish is for him to have a ‘normal life’ and not be detained for a significant period of time,” a social worker stated in the report.
“She was hoping that in the future she could move with (Cy) and reside interstate as there was a large family support network outside of South Australia.”
Justice Bampton ordered medical reports and will hear the case again in March.Artifact Uprising Layflat Photo Album Review
Update August 2017: Since I first printed an AU Layflat Photo Album, and my latest being in May 2017, AU has modified their color profile specifically for their Layflat Photo Albums to produce a more saturated, high contrast image when printed. What this means is that if you’re not doing any editing to your photos prior to printing, they will presumably come out looking great when printed. However, if you’re editing color/contrast prior to printing, you will notice the images potentially looking overly edited / saturated once they’re printed.
I spoke with Artifact Uprising at length about this, and their explanation was that they’ve found most people printing Layflat Photo Albums are not doing much editing (if any) to their photos, so this helps those images look their best. Their solution for more advanced/pro users who are doing their own specific color correction would be to place the order, and then immediately call/email customer support with your order number and request ‘the original color profile’ for the Layflat Photo Album. At the time of writing this update, this applies only to their Layflat Photo Album; no other products have changed color profiles.
After experiencing this issue in my most recent printing and reaching out to them for help, AU were extremely responsive and helpful, reprinting my book with the original color profile immediately and free of charge, and it came out looking great.
Up until now I’ve never really invested in a solid printed portfolio. I’ve gotten by with my iPad app (in my opinion Portfolio for iPad is the best one out there), or the occasional $50 book printed with any number of online services just so I’d have something on paper. The $50 book served it’s purpose I guess, but it also looked like a $50 book, with mediocre paper quality and inconsistent color reproduction.
If I wasn’t taking my printed book seriously, how could I expect the ad agencies or magazines I’ve met with to take it seriously either? A high quality, beautifully assembled, printed portfolio was long overdue for me, and that’s when I took a closer look at Artifact Uprising’s Layflat Photo Album.
Why Artifact Uprising
Artifact Uprising has been a company I’ve used on a number of occasions, from promo pieces to Christmas cards. They always seem to have what I’m looking for with a really nice level of quality at a fair price.
They’re not the “get 100 for $9.99” kind of online printing service, and that’s the point.
With some meetings coming up in L.A. I knew I wanted to invest in something that would show my work in the best way possible. There’s no shortage of book printing options, but in my research I had trouble coming up with books that had noticeably thick pages, with lay flat pages that didn’t distort the images, and a binding process that wouldn’t give up after a few portfolio meetings, all within a reasonable price range. AU’s Layflat Photo Album checked all of these boxes on my list, and with a starting price of $139 I assumed the build quality would be adequate to say the least. So I hit the ‘Make Your Album’ button and began the process.
Design Process
After deciding on the biggest size available (8.5” x 11” at the time, they now offer a 12” x 12” option) I chose the Lustre Photo Paper option, chose the color of my book and foil stamped text, and got to work on the sequence of my images.
From there I was led into AU’s online design software where I could upload images directly from my computer, the VSCO app (VSCO acquired AU a few years back), Instagram, a user gallery, or my Dropbox.
After uploading my images I was able to easily drag and drop different page layout templates depending on how I’d like to present my images. AU offers a ton of options in this area, so it’s hard not to find something that works perfectly for each image. After you’ve chosen the page layout, you can then drag and drop different images into each field in the template to see how they’ll look when printed, and you can resize / crop the image size from there as well. Here are some of my images in the various templates they offer.
AU’s design software works well for me 95% of the time, regardless if I’m using Safari or Chrome. It’s just that other 5% that every so often an image doesn’t ‘snap’ into the template like I expect it to, so I’m not sure if it’s actually saved on that page or not. This hasn’t happened to me often but when it does it can be annoying. Usually I save the project, exit out of it, go back into the project, and resume where I left off. If I could make one suggestion to AU it’s that they really make the design software as snappy and responsive as possible. It’s a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but just something I’ve noticed throughout my time using their service.
An hour or so later and I had everything laid out. I double checked the sequence of images and hit the Order button. With a 10 day production time plus shipping, I estimated I’d be getting the book just about two weeks after ordering.
Presentation
As soon as I opened the shipping box I was really impressed with the presentation of the packaging; it felt like opening an Apple product, where the unboxing gave me the impression I was getting something of the highest quality. The design is clean and minimal, the box is heavy duty (great for traveling with as I just found out), and the book inside stays well protected. They even pack the inside of the carrying box so there’s no movement of your book inside of the carrying box whatsoever. Nice.
Even after 5 meetings, 2 plane rides, and a few sharp turns in the trunk of a rental car, the carrying box and book remain in excellent shape.
Build Quality
Just like with the packaging, I was really impressed with the build quality of the book. With 50 pages total, the book feels like a brick and measures just a hair under 1.25” thick. The foil stamped lettering is substantially pressed into the cover and spine, and the pages are so thick I think you’d have to go way out of your way to actually bend a page. Aside from their presentation quality, I’m guessing the weight of these pages means they’re going to hold up nicely even after many meetings.
Going with the layflat option was absolutely worth it as well. The pages truly lay flat, like 180 degrees completely flat. Again, the weight of the pages help every page just turn and fall naturally, and intentionally. The whole book just feels bomb proof.
Paper Choice + Color Reproduction
When I ordered the book I had two options for paper; lustre photo paper or a matte eggshell option. I went with the lustre photo paper and have no regrets about it at all. It has a minor amount of “shine”, but I mean very minor. If you’re worried about a hard glare when showing your work in a room with overhead lights, there is nothing to worry about. I wanted a tiny amount of shine on the images compared to a matte eggshell option, and in my opinion AU hit the nail on the head in this department once again.
Of course the most important thing is how the images actually look when they’re printed, and how well the color from our computers translates over to a printed book. I should preface this part with the fact that I edit my work on an 8 year old iMac with zero color calibration.. but my images printed EXACTLY as they look on my screen, and most importantly exactly how I wanted them to look. My color correction translated over to paper perfectly, and the blacks took on a nice weight they didn’t have on my screen. Nothing beyond reason, just a nice contrast that gives each image an extra pop.
Conclusion
As you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m totally happy with the outcome of ordering my first layflat photo album from Artifact Uprising. It’s a small investment in my business I’m happy to make when the quality of the book is this good. The only minor complaint I have is that the design software can sometimes be a little bit slow to respond, but that’s a very small percentage of the time and wouldn’t stop me from ordering another book whatsoever.
In short, Artifact Uprising has developed a series of great products with the layflat photo album epitomizing their commitment to product quality over quantity.
Questions? Leave a comment below.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.A study recently published in Nature seems to explain how obese mice, similar to obese humans, could be at an increased risk of colon cancer. Feeding overweight mice a high-fat diet resulted in the activation of a metabolism-regulating protein called PPAR-δ and a subsequent increase in the number of intestinal stem cells which could potentially give rise to tumors.
One of the lead researchers Ömer Yilmaz, a cancer biologist at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge stated that if similar physiological adaptations were seen in humans, the findings of various epidemiological studies could be explained.
“There has been an understanding that obesity causes an increase in cancer in various tissues. We intended to understand the mechanism behind this phenomenon”.
According to P Kay Lund who is a cell biologist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, tissue samples from patients who have undergone colonoscopies could be analyzed to see whether PPAR-δ activity is enhanced, using it as an indicator for earlier preventive strategies.
Using Fat Mice To Understand Possible Association
Yilmaz, along with David Sabatini, who studies metabolism at MIT and the Whitehead Institute at Cambridge fed mice a high-fat (60 percent fat), high-calorie chow for approximately a year, after which the effects of the diet on the number and function of intestinal stem cells were tested.
The researchers observed that the diet not only made the mice want to eat more and become overweight, it also activated the PPAR-δ protein which stimulated the proliferation of intestinal stem cells. In another experiment, mice treated with a drug that activated the protein resulted in a similar cellular growth.
What’s To Blame – Food Or Weight Gain?
Presently, it has not been established whether the cellular changes are caused by weight gain and the accompanied metabolic changes, or due to the fatty food itself. The research team also assessed how intestinal stem cells that were grown in 3-D cultures known as organoids responded to fatty acids in the high-fat chow. The latter were also observed to activate PPAR-δ, indicating that the fatty acids might have a direct influence on the protein’s expression.
Nevertheless, and if this is the case, then could a similar mechanism exist in humans? Walter Willett, who studies Nutrition at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, cautions that increased body fat in humans is linked with an increase in the risk of cancer; however despite intensive research no significant link has been confirmed between a fatty diet and cancer.
“Data linking fat intake to the incidence of cancer is a mixed bag”, says Yilmaz. His team hopes to clarify the exact association between fatty acids and cancer risk by performing follow-up studies by feeding normal-weight mice the high-fat chow.
Key Question – Are The Results Reliable And Applicable To Humans?
A rather unsettling aspect is that many therapies that seem promising in mice are seldom effective in humans. More so, experimental treatments that are successful in a certain population of mice might not even work for other populations!
“We claim that mice are simpler, but the problem is deeper than that”, explains Caroline Zeiss, a Veterinary Neuropathologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. This suggests that rodent studies might be flawed from the beginning.
There are various reasons highlighting the possibility that studies performed on mice could be potentially confounding and non-generalizable to humans. These include the following:
Researchers seldom report subtle environmental factors, such as the food given to their mice, their bedding and exposure to light. These conditions tend to vary significantly across labs and can affect the animals’ biology enormously.
Dismissing mouse circadian rhythms could also create a bias in behavioral experiments – many humans would not perform optimally on social and cognitive tests if they’re made to do them in the middle of the night.
Nutrition is another factor to consider – most researchers cannot even state where they obtain the feed for their mice. Certain foods contain estrogens and endocrine-disrupting chemicals which could affect results about cancer research and other diseases.
The high-fat, high-sugar food administered during obesity-related studies often becomes rancid quickly, and the mice might stop eating it and lose weight without knowledge of the researcher.
Food choices tend to alter a mouse’s gut microbiome, and a difference in gut bacteria also exists between different species of mice. This leads to differences in anxiety and behavioral tests.
The competitive nature of science usually increases a researcher’s resistance to modifying how they select animals for their research design – old or ill animals may be considered simply to complete the research work.
Steps To Overcome Such Issues: Efficacy Of Mice Related Studies
Due to enormous data suggesting that mice-related studies might be riddled with limitations, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has taken certain steps to tackle some of these problems. These include:
Requiring the animal trials of certain institutes to be replicated before a therapy can move into clinical trials. However the NIH currently has no plans to pursue this agency-wide.
In 2014, the NIH urged researchers to include female animals in their studies, and began giving out supplementary grants to researchers who had issue with the cost.
Despite these potential steps, the NIH has not issued specific grants or supplements to investigate other confounding factors. Unless prospective steps are taken to limit the confounding variables listed above, it seems that research studies performed on mice will remain doubtful, especially
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his right alongside Messi at the Nou Camp. Both are capable of eclipsing Ronaldo and Messi in 2017. Then there is the younger wave of players, led by Griezmann, who have time to claim the summit for themselves.
Griezmann is expected to leave Atletico this summer, and he will have the pick of the world's elite clubs to choose from, with Manchester United currently leading the way. At age 25, he is about to hit the prime of his career; he is a goal scorer, which, as the history of the Ballon d'Or suggests, is an advantage when it comes to winning the award.
Neymar, just a year younger than the Frenchman, will also be expected to knock Messi and Ronaldo from their perch. The Barcelona forward is the poster boy of Brazil's next generation -- glamorous, hugely talented and playing for a club that is likely to continue winning with or without Messi.
And then there is Paul Pogba, the world's most expensive footballer, who is now beginning to display his talent at United after initially struggling following his £89.3 million transfer from Juventus.
Many believe Pogba has the ability to become the world's most outstanding midfielder during the next 10 years. If he can lead his club back to glory in the Champions League, the Frenchman might also justifiably target the billing of "world's best player."
For now, though, the stage is still owned by Ronaldo and Messi, and you can expect the pair to exploit their status for all it is worth because they will know that their time at the top cannot last forever.
And after 10 years out on their own, they must now begin to prepare for the most serious challenge to their dominance.There’s a daunting synchronicity about the upcoming release of Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty, and the launch of the game of which it is a total remake, Abe’s Oddysee. Both seemed strange prospects for their day. The original, released in 1997, was an intelligent and darkly humorous 2D platformer in an era of cutesy 3D mascots; New ‘n’ Tasty is a premium remake in an era of cheap re-releases. The success of Abe’s first adventure kicked off an intended five-part Oddworld series, a plan eventually scuppered by less profitable games. Now the franchise baton has once again been placed squarely in Abe’s four-fingered hands.
“It’s been a slow but steady haul for us over the last several years,” says Lorne Lanning, creator of Abe and creative director of the Oddworld series. The Oddworld Inhabitants studio shuttered in 2005, but Lanning was determined that the brand wouldn’t disappear. From 2008 onwards he set about bringing the games to digital platforms, starting with Steam and then onto Xbox 360 and PS3.
These didn’t satisfy his creative urges, but at a low cost allowed Lanning to “bring some attention and twists to the series.” The success of the re-releases funded development of higher cost HD versions. These proved popular, the Stranger’s Wrath HD remaster selling more than the original retail release. “[That] led to our ability to finance a full ground-up remake like New ‘n’ Tasty.”
This stepping-stone approach was enough to ensure Oddworld never disappeared from the public eye. It’s an impressive feat given that the majority of ‘90s platforming stars have long since faded into obscurity. Lanning believes the quality of Abe’s Oddysee is to thank for the loveable Mudokon’s perseverance.
“Most games follow a formula where the character is a construct designed to fulfil a challenge. Usually that’s the depth of the character and world. Excuses for gameplay wrapped in a contrived story,” he says. “Abe was different. Abe was a story that got wrapped into a game. Abe was something more important than a challenge, he was an inspiration. His plight was reflective of what we feel going on today in our world, and his position was something that reminded us of how little power we have, but what we might be able to do with it once we put it to use.”
If Abe’s quest resonated with players in 1997, Lanning is confident it will appeal to new players today. “I think Abe has a different connection with the audience than most game characters do,” he says. “I think it’s more reflective of the way people see the world around them, and if done well with challenge, humour, beauty, and satire, we think gamers will respond.”
Of course, these ideas would mean little if New ‘n’ Tasty still played like a game from 1997. The biggest challenge faced by developer Just Add Water (who have previously handled Oddworld HD remasters) is communicating that this is a complete remake in a new engine, complete with the improvements that entails.
“We focused on many things, such as the controls, the flow, and the visuals,” says New ‘n’ Tasty producer Craig Spiers. Most immediate is the new continuous scrolling camera, which replaces the original’s flip-screen approach. “You can no longer ‘run off screen’ to reset a puzzle or escape an enemy,” says Spiers. “This fundamentally changes the nature of many of the original puzzles.”
It’s crucial that New ‘n’ Tasty plays like a modern game. “It had to hold up in a faster and more dynamic way,” says Lanning. So Abe’s previously clunky range of movement has been overhauled, and his famous Gamespeak (‘Follow me!) and other functions have been streamlined to single button presses. “We think that new players and old players alike will find fun and danger in the world we’ve created,” says Spiers. “There’s new in New ‘n’ Tasty, but its heart is still clearly Abe’s Oddysee.”
The team is relying on it to find the same success as the original. If New ‘n’ Tasty doesn’t sell, it could spell the end for Oddworld. “We invested heavy on this one, so if we blow it we’ll have tripped ourselves up pretty good,” says Lanning. “New ‘n’ Tasty has to be solid, and it has to be solid with the limited money we’ve got to finance it. So we’ve not got a lot of room for error.”
The plan for the future goes something like this: If New ‘n’ Tasty racks up 250,000 sales it’ll be enough to fund a remake of the first Oddworld sequel, Abe’s Exoddus. If it doubles that amount, the money will go toward financing an all new Oddworld title in the future, putting the pentalogy back on track. These are big numbers, but Lanning is confident that the original game is popular enough to at least push New ‘n’ Tasty over its lowest target.
“I’m not sure that reaches beyond the existing fans,” he says. “Consider that the library to date has sold around 2 million units online with zero marketing dollars, and it suggests we’re in the range for a fresh release at this target within the existing fan base.” The hope is that the quality of the remake will encourage the faithful players to spread the word to the uninitiated.
In true Oddworld fashion, they’re doing it the hard way. New ‘n’ Tasty will cost £19.99, a figure considered premium in an indie digital market currently ruled by a culture of heavy discounts, sales, and bundles. It’s a wilfully bold move indicative of a firm belief that it’s a fair price for the product. “There are people that want quality and uniqueness and are willing to step up for what they recognise as quality value for the investment,” says Lanning. “That’s the audience we aim for.”
The middle tier of the games market has been squeezed out in recent years, but Lanning plans to play a significant role in its return. “While its early days for mid tier pricing and AAA indie quality, if you have faith that a good portion of the audience wants quality at a fair price, then a mid tier for AAA indie games should be getting more traction and support.”
The Oddworld series was built on doing things its own way. It’s a tradition that will continue if sales allow for a brand new entry. This will most likely be the long-mooted The Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot. “It’s a risky game. It pushes some boundaries that aim to be quite intense,” promises Lanning. “It will be an experiment in next gen tech.”
Abe’s quest is more important now to Oddworld than ever; if it doesn’t succeed, Oddworld essentially disappears. It adds a whole new dimension to saving the world.ES News Email Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account
The Church of Sweden has said its clergy are to begin using more gender-neutral language including terms for "God".
Members of the church are encouraged to use the general term "God" instead of referring to the deity as "he" or "the Lord".
The move by the national Evangelical Lutheran church came as part of an effort to modernise its 31-year-old handbook on services.
High-ranking clergy explained the controversial changes, which were announced November 23, are to keep pace with gender inclusivity in contemporary society.
The updates to the book of worship offer clergy new options on what to name God during services.
They can now choose to switch the phrase "in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit" used at the start of service for "in the name of God and the Holy Trinity".
On the changes, Lena Sjostrand, chaplain of Lund Cathedral told PBS NewsHour: "We have a consciousness about gender questions, which is stronger in our time than it has been before.
"Of course, this has had an impact on theology and on church life and pastoral reflection."
She added: "I don’t think that God is a big mother or a father sitting up in the sky. I don’t think that makes sense.
"God is something much bigger than this."
The Church of Sweden has followed Lutheran faith since the 16th-century.
Church leader, Archbishop Antje Jackelen, said that the changes were already "part of [Church] tradition".
She explained how the church has always perceived God as being both male and female.
She said: "Like Julian of Norwich in the 14th century said, as sure as God is our father, God is our mother. This is not something that’s newly invented.
"It’s part of our tradition."
But the proposed changes have been met with some criticism.
Pastor Mikael Lowegren told PBS: "God being the father means he has a son."
The changes are expected to come into effect in six months time, but the church has said the clergy will not be forced to adopt the language, according to reports.
The decision comes as part of an international trend for inclusivity in churches. Last month the Church of England published new guidelines on gender identity among children.New York Rangers defenseman Dan Boyle is nearing a return from a broken hand and could play this week.
The 38-year-old blue liner could be in the lineup Thursday when the Rangers face the Colorado Avalanche, according to head coach Alain Vigneault.
AV says he's expecting Dan Boyle to be in the lineup tomorrow night. — Andrew Gross (@AGrossRecord) November 12, 2014
When he does return, Boyle says he'll be playing through pain.
"It's got to get a little bit stronger," he told Newsday's Steve Zipay. "It's not where I want it to be... I'm going to have to (play through) for a little while. It's pretty hard to be pain-free in this league."
The veteran got some power-play work in on Wednesday, which bodes well for his imminent return.
Reports from #NYR practice: Dan Boyle paired with Marc Staal, and working on PP, signs that he likely will return Thursday — Steve Zipay (@stevezipay) November 12, 2014
Boyle broke his hand on Oct. 9 in his regular-season debut with the Rangers. He signed a two-year, $9 million contract in July.Welcome to the second installment of our three-part Linux post-mortem. Part 1 lay the foundations for the article and where we’re coming from. Today’s post directly addresses the question “What worked and what didn’t?” with a set of ‘pros and cons’ that cropped up during the port. The final post will offer a more nuanced set of reflections on these experiences, their implications for game development, and my advice for moving Linux forward as a gaming platform.
Porting Osmos to Linux: What I Loved
Let’s start with an account of the stuff that stands out as having worked really well — things that were well designed, pleasant to use, and easy to learn.
Love: Live discs and bootable USBs
Being able to boot into an OS from USB without having to first install to the HD is fab, and the various Linux distros have for the most part done a good job of supporting this behaviour. During development, live discs were helpful in two main ways. Firstly, when I was starting out, they made it easy for me to poke around and find a distro to use as my ‘core’ Linux install (i.e. the install on which to do the bulk of my Linux development; I settled for Ubuntu 9.04). Secondly, live discs made it easier to do quick first-blush tests of cross-distro/DE/WM compatibility for my executables and packages without having to first fully install and configure every OS.
One wish for the live discs would be for the OS versions they contain to have more robust HW drivers, particularly for video. I realize drivers are a tricky issue in Linux and hard to support generically out-of-the-box, especially on a live OS (where, for example, rebooting to install a better driver isn’t in the cards), but for game development it would be great to have decent video performance when booting from a live disc.
Love: Code::Blocks
I was looking for a simple, light-weight, easy-to-use C++ IDE that was easy to find in binary form for several distributions (I didn’t want to have to compile an IDE myself) and that had some kind of interface sitting on top of gdb. Code::Blocks was the answer. It wasn’t bug free, mind you, and crashed on me once or twice per day (at times to great frustration because of state loss… but nothing reliably reproducable, I’m afraid, hence no bug reports filed). But, critically, it provided a simple project system, a simple-yet-powerful set of compiler/linker options, the essential find/error/debug/bookmark interactions, and a basic gdb front-end. Essentially everything I needed was there, it was simple to use, and it was available and (relatively) stable cross-distro.
Love: The Linux Package Manager
Linux’s package system may not have been easy-breezy to support (more on this below), but it sure was easy-breezy to use. It was straightforward to find the developer libs/headers I needed and get them automatically installed into the right places. It was fantastic that dependencies are automatically tracked and installed, and that headers/libs install to central and standard places for trivial inclusion/linkage into the project.
Two footnotes: firstly, this smoothness of experience was conditioned in part by the legwork that went into ensuring Osmos relied only on the most core of libs (libs/packages that ought to play nice and be easily found on any distro; GL/GLX, X11, FreeType, OpenAL, libogg/libvorbis, etc). Secondly, a couple of the enterprise-oriented distros seemed to require a prohibitive amount of leg-work to configure for engineering purposes; this makes sense if the distro is targeted towards the consumer/office end of the market spectrum rather than the engineer, but for someone new to development on Linux, it’s painful if you don’t do your homework ahead of time.
Love: Support from the Linux Community and our Beta-Testers
It’s great to see how keen Linux users are to help support software on Linux. The average Linux user is on-the-ball and really encouraging in terms of their enthusiasm for Linux and their appreciation of our efforts to get Osmos on Linux. Post-launch, we’ve been getting great feedback and PR support from a few key folks in particular.
When the Linux port went into beta I issued a public call for testers and recruited about 50 people. Each one was top-notch in terms of being observant while playing the game. They were all helpful with their detective work, and the average level of technical savy-ness was very high when it came to sniffing out audio and WM/X issues for repro. Folks were keen to try the game on as many machine specs as they could, and were keen to volunteer information and “run with” the testing on their own. All this resulted in a very short beta period (less than two weeks) in which a lot of solid testing occurred very quickly, and with only a single patch being required to hammer out all known issues.
Love: Cross-Platform Compatibility is Good for your Code
While not a Linux-specific observation, there’s no doubt that developing multiplatform software is always beneficial for the code. Each platform has different analysis tools, compilers that issue different warnings and generate different code, and video drivers with different behaviour; all of these serve to highlight any underlying issues in your project, and so the work invested on one platform has benefits for the other platforms too. For the sake quality and stability, cross-platform compatibility has been a good thing for Osmos.
What I Didn’t Love
Let’s move on to the stuff that was less easy to love; things that stood out as being frustrating, difficult to use, and in some cases broken.
Didn’t Love: Supporting multiple Distros/DEs/WMs/drivers/etc.
The #1 obstacle to getting more games on Linux is that it’s very difficult to get your game working correctly and acceptably on all machines. It’s really hard to guarantee a smooth experience for all players when there’s a combinatorial explosion of possible distributions, desktop environments, window managers, driver/hardware versions — each with their own unique foibles, bugs, and undocumented behaviours. It’s the classic PC gaming problem, but magnified. Linux loves freedom and choice, which I applaud — but some amount of standardization, collaboration and “Let’s work together”-ness is required for the platform to be friendly to application developers.
Didn’t Love: Audio
Brace yourselves, folks, because I’m going to put it bluntly: audio in Linux is a mess. The audio situation is another major obstacle to game development on Linux. It’s 2010; audio is a solved problem. And yet on Linux, it’s shocking that you cannot count on something as simple as non-streaming playback, never mind any kind of processing (which most games are wont to do!) There are a variety of standards (ALSA, OSS, PulseAudio, Phonon, …) — which one to choose? Each standard has different problems on different machines. For a given standard, some drivers are buggy and poorly configured by default, while others do horrible thinks like block on open when another process opened the device. This is all another way of saying that there are no audio standards. What is a developer to do?
“But doesn’t OpenAL hide all the mess behind a single stable API? Ideally you’d write the audio code once in OpenAL and then walk away.” This isn’t how it happens in practice, because the fact of the matter is that the mess is still there. Simply wrapping another software layer around the underlying problem doesn’t make it go away. Using OpenAL for audio doesn’t all-of-a-sudden mean I can count on anything runtime-behavior-wise. I write my code in OpenAL (rather than having to write directly in ALSA, PulseAudio, etc), but at runtime I still need to make choices — for example, by saying which underlying audio layer I want to use — and different people’s machine/lib/driver combos will do different things. Simply using the local machine’s default audio device doesn’t guarantee anything about what’s going to work and what doesn’t, and a game needs guarantees in order to work correctly. The audio situation is quite horrible I’m afraid.
Didn’t Love: Lack of Documentation and Consensus
In the Linux world there is so much choice and non-standardization, and it’s really hard to find out about things. Documentation is sorely lacking, and it’s hard to find solutions because when a question is asked, people don’t agree on the answer. Forum threads aren’t a good substitute for proper documentation, because forum threads can quickly become historical and fall out of date, meaning folks looking for answers spend a lot of time chasing down false-leads and asking themselves “Is this forum thread relevant to me? Is it really what I’m looking for?” In the Linux world, it seems to take a great deal of detective work and reverse engineering to get things done; the plethora of choice means that the newcomer is never certain about their choices — and there will always be someone who disagrees with you (often vocally).
Didn’t Love: Drivers and Hardware Support
My main development machines are two off-the-shelf laptops with mainstream components, and neither of them had WiFi or video that worked out-of-the-box on any distribution I installed. It took many hours to get decent hardware performance. Proprietary drivers, open source drivers… which do I chose? Do I really have to compile a driver for myself? What’s more, when a new Linux user inquires about driver problems on a forum, the standard line of defense is to blame the problems on hardware manufacturers. Whether or not the manufacturers deserve blame, the Linux platform folks need to step up, acknowledge the reality of the situation, and try to work to improve the platform. The chipsets that didn’t work for me (without great effort) were nowhere close to bleeding edge (ATI and Intel graphics, Broadcom Wifi; some models dating back to 2007) and all are widely available on a large segment of the consumer-level market. Linux needs better support for its HW; if I can’t walk into BestBuy, pick up a run-of-the-mill laptop and have my video and networking hardware work, then the platform is troubled.
Didn’t Love: Packaging the Game
It took days of effort to create the binary packages for Osmos (I’m happy to say that it’s looking like we don’t have to patch!) How should an app be packaged in Linux? Should I build my own libs and package them with my game, or rely on package dependency info and hope the distros have the right versions in their package repositories? Which package formats do I choose (.deb,.rpm,.tar.gz, others)? Do any of the package formats have naming conventions I need to follow? What do you need to do to support both 32bit and 64bit? What are the standard practices for where/how my game is layed out on the filesystem? What goes where and where do you commonly put softlinks? How do I represent softlinks in the various package systems? Do architecture-specific files belong in special places? Are there any standards for what’s in the environment path? How do I integrate my app into the desktop environment? What DEs are worth supporting? Do I need to do separate things to support separate DEs?
There are no standards or clear answers to any of these questions. There’s no documentation for this stuff! Asking on the forums will typically net you a spectrum of answers with no consensus answer and lots of little side arguments. I basically reverse engineered what I saw other apps doing (which sadly was of little comfort because everyone does it differently). I settled on supporting.deb/.rpm/.tar.gz with explicit 32bit and 64bit executables for both the demo and retail versions of Osmos, with no redistributed libs and instead relying on package dependency info. So far, this has worked out for nearly all distros except CentOS which has an archaic version of libvorbis and nothing new in the standard repositories.
Side-note for those interested: I didn’t venture anywhere near cross-compilation and instead simply built the 32bit and 64bit executables on separate 32bit and 64bit Ubuntu installs (which, interestingly enough, both displayed unique and undocumented WM/Xserver interactions, despite being the same version of Ubuntu!)
Didn’t Love: No OS-level GUI layer for simple dialogs
This is something of a minor point compared to the above, but I want to mention it because it comes up often enough in cross-platform development. Because Linux has no OS-level GUI layer, games that need any kind of UI must link against heavy-weight UI libraries (GTK, QT, etc) which typically impose some kind of application framework. Common examples of the usage of UI in the gaming world would be a dialog that prompts the user for input the first time a game is run (e.g. “Launch in fullscreen?”) or that displays a message when an app terminates unexpectedly. For Osmos, I had to cut such user-friendly elements because I didn’t want the game to have any but the most basic of dependencies.
Whew! Alright: in part 3, I’m going present a more general discussion of the implications of some of these issues for game developers, and reflect on ways to improve matters. Stay tuned…
DaveALAMEDA — A 65-year-old man was struck and killed by a truck on southbound Constitution Way in Alameda at about noon on Monday.
The victim was walking in a crosswalk and had almost reached the sidewalk when he was hit by the truck in the far right-hand lane on the opposite side of the street of the Marina Village Shopping Center, said Alameda police Lt. Ron Simmons.
Police were interviewing witnesses to try to determine whether the pedestrian or the truck driver had the green light when the accident occurred.
The victim’s name has not yet been released. Simmons said he is believed to have been an Alameda resident.
Alcohol or drugs do not appear to be a factor in the collision at this time, Simmons said.
Southbound Constitution Way between Marina Village and Atlantic Avenue was closed for several hours while police conducted their investigation. It reopened about 7 p.m.
Contact Malaika Fraley at 925-234-1684. Follow her at Twitter.com/malaikafraley.The Mars Super Markets stores in Bel Air and Aberdeen will be closing soon, officials with the Baltimore-based grocery chain announced recently.
The Mars Super Market in Bel Air Plaza Shopping Center on Baltimore Pike will be closing for good on Jan. 25, according to a sign posted at the entrance.
The customers of the store, which opened in 2011, were thanked for their three years of support, according to the sign.
Mars, which is headquartered in Rosedale and operates 17 stores in Central Maryland, is also scheduled to close its store in the Aberdeen Marketplace shopping center off Beards Hill Road, along with its store in the Dogwood Station shopping center west of Baltimore and in the Pine Grove Shopping Center in Anne Arundel County.
Those three will close around May 1, according to an emailed statement from the company. The Aberdeen store opened in 1993 and it was remodeled in 1995, according to Kathleen Shaffer, a spokeswoman for Mars.
ALLAN VOUGHT | AEGIS STAFF, Baltimore Sun Media Group A sign on the entrance to the Mars Super Markets store in Bel Air Plaza announces the store will be closing for good on Jan. 25. A sign on the entrance to the Mars Super Markets store in Bel Air Plaza announces the store will be closing for good on Jan. 25. (ALLAN VOUGHT | AEGIS STAFF, Baltimore Sun Media Group)
Chairman and CEO Chris D'Anna said in the statement the four stores are being closed "due to ever-increasing competition in the grocery business."
"We took great pride in serving these communities, and we would like to thank our loyal customers," D'Anna continued. "Other Mars locations throughout Maryland will remain open and will continue to provide the quality and service you have come to expect from the 'The Friendly Food People.' "
Mars operates a third store in Harford County, in Woodbridge Center on Pulaski Highway in Edgewood.
Denise Carnaggio, deputy director of the Harford County Office of Economic Development, noted Mars has "a very loyal customer base" in Harford, including people who have moved from the Baltimore area.
Carnaggio said Harford County's population has diversified in recent years as new residents move in from out of state with the BRAC process.
"It really has grown, in terms of diversity of people coming into this community, and I think there is enough for everyone," she said of the corresponding diversity of grocery chains.
She also noted the economic development office is working with the Susquehanna Workforce Network to support employees who will be losing their positions when the stores close.
While it might appear to the casual observer that Harford County is saturated with grocery chains such as Klein's ShopRite, Weis Markets and Walmart, Steve Johnson, the chairman of the Aberdeen Economic Development Commission, noted individual chains and businesses can still be competitive.
"We have a lot of businesses that are saturated," Johnson said.
Johnson, who owns the independent Johnson Family Pharmacy in downtown Aberdeen with his wife, noted there are "hundreds of pharmacies" in Harford County.
"It's not so much the competition," he explained. "It's how well you market and sell your products and how well you manage your store."
Johnson said each chain has developed its own niche that makes it attractive to the customer base.
"Mars has done a great job in keeping an up-to-date look," he said.Excavations at the Lower Paleolithic site of Schöningen change our views on human evolution. A special volume of the Journal of Human Evolution presents the state of research.
Hominins of the Lower Paleolithic are much more like modern humans than was previously thought. By 300,000 years ago, Homo heidelbergensis in Schöningen used highly sophisticated weapons and tools. The hominins at Schöningen lived in social groups that practiced coordinated group hunting, a division of labor, and were able to communication about the past, present and future. These are cultural traits that archaeologists typically attribute to modern humans.
The excavations in the open-cast coal mine in Schöningen running from 1994 until today show that we have long underestimated the cultural capacities of Homo heidelbergensis. Schöningen is a key site for documenting both a high resolution record of past climatic change and how hominins lived in northern Europe during the Ice Age. Since 2008 Professor Nicholas Conard and Dr. Jordi Serangeli of the University of Tübingen have led the excavations with a major international research team in close cooperation with the Cultural Heritage Office of Lower Saxony.
A landmark special issue of the leading international publication Journal of Human Evolution presents all of the results from the long-research excavation in Schöningen. Papers in the volume address the importance of the many well preserved spears and wooden artifacts found at Schöningen.
This assemblage of wooden tools is unique in terms of its great age and diversity. Papers present the stone tools and many newly discovered bone tools from Schöningen that greatly expand our knowledge of the material culture of the Lower Paleolithic. The research demonstrates that many animals, most notably large and fast Ice Age horses, were repeatedly killed and butchered on the marshy shores of a former lake, thereby demonstrating a high level of social and economic coordination and sophisticated forms of communication 300,000 years ago. The many artifacts made from bone include a hammering tool made from the humerus of a sabertooth cat (Homotherium latidens). This find is the only one of its kind every recovered.
A particularly fascinating discovery is that there is no firm evidence for the controlled use of fire at Schöningen. Previous observations suggested that Schöningen offered key examples for the early use of fire. Researchers from Tübingen used innovative methods (Mikromorphologie, Fourier-Transformations-Infrarotspektrometer, organische Petrologie und Thermolumineszenz) to refute this claim. Professor Christopher Miller of Tübingen University and the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (HEP) argues: “The findings from Schöningen suggest that archaic humans may have been able to survive in the Ice Age landscape of northern Europe without being able to make and control fire.”
“The unique preservation and high quality excavations have led to a major paradigm shift or ‘Schöningen Effect’ that changed our views of human evolution during the late Lower Paleolithic”, states Nicholas Conard, head of the research team and of the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology of the University of Tübingen and member of the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (HEP).
All the papers from the special volume of Journal of Human Evolution can be found at the open-access site: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00472484/89
Universität TübingenSHANGHAI (Reuters) - Swedish auto maker Volvo has uncovered widespread cheating by its car dealers in China, where retailers inflated sales to win cash rebates from the company for hitting volume targets.
A man smokes in front of a Volvo dealer shop in Beijing March 21, 2013. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
An investigation by the struggling, Chinese-owned car maker uncovered thousands of fake sales booked in 2011 — but also an under-reporting of sales in 2012 to make the books balance. That meant it actually performed better last year than it had thought, according to a senior Volvo executive.
The executive asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding the findings of the recent investigation.
Volvo Car Corp., wholly owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. GEELY.UL since 2010, had reported an 11-percent slide in 2012 sales in China, fuelling doubts over its ambitious strategy for the key growth market.
In fact, sales rose — by 15 percent from a year earlier — after it uncovered what the senior Volvo executive described as “widespread falsifying” of retail sales volume by a number of its Chinese dealers. He said his best estimate was “half of the dealers” were involved in falsifying retail sales volume.
A Volvo spokesman acknowledged the company had discovered a “transparency issue” with the reporting of sales, but said it would not hurt earnings.
Volvo told dealers in its network of 151 retail sales outlets in China earlier this month that it had begun cracking down on the sales-inflating practices. The message was delivered at a meeting in Taipei on March 7 as part of an internal presentation on the state of its business. Reuters has viewed the presentation slides Volvo used in the Taipei meeting.
“We believe we fixed the problem, but it was a painful process,” the senior Volvo executive told Reuters.
He said the over-reporting of sales by dealers made it hard for Volvo to assess the popularity of models and made the automaker less responsive to swings in demand for its cars — in some cases forcing the company to over-deliver to showrooms.
However, there was little material impact on Volvo’s bottom line, he said, since the company books sales when it ships cars to dealers, not when consumers buy the vehicles at dealerships.
AMBITIOUS PLAN
Whether Volvo under Geely’s ownership could turn around the storied Swedish brand has broader implications for corporate China’s global expansion.
Chinese companies have poured tens of billions of dollars into foreign acquisitions in recent years — much of it into resources businesses — but they have had little success digesting and managing major consumer brands.
In the auto sector, for example, SAIC Motor Corp Ltd (600104.SS) purchased roughly half of South Korea’s Ssangyong Motor Co. in 2004, but sold its stake in 2010 after Ssangyong’s business slumped in the wake of the global financial crisis.
Volvo announced ambitious plans early in 2011 to use China’s appetite for premium cars to help it nearly double its annual global sales to 800,000 cars by 2020, from 422,000 in 2012.
Those ambitious goals suffered a setback when the company reported a first-half net loss in 2012 and its chief executive, Stefan Jacoby, departed soon thereafter.
As pessimism spread last year over the turnaround plan, the China arm of Volvo was quietly investigating dealers.
Its main finding was that a number of Volvo’s dealers had been routinely engaged in falsifying of sales volume, usually an over-reporting of sales, to secure extra incentive money that Volvo pays dealers quarterly when they reach targets. Retailer operators could pocket the cash or use it to discount cars and spur sales.
The company told the dealers in Taipei that this practice, which the Volvo insider said was rampant, contributed to the discrepancy in its China sales data.
It now plans to send company representatives to dealers periodically to check their stock, the executive said.
Volvo spokesman Per-Åke Fröberg said he would not describe as “cheating” the behavior of some of the company’s dealer operators in China, but said there was an issue with their sales reporting.
“Volvo Cars in China had a dealer incentive program in place with focus on retail sales, which created a retail delivery transparency issue, meaning that the reported retail sales did not reflect the actual sales situation,” he said.
Frosberg said the issue should have “no effect on Volvo’s earnings whatsoever”, as earnings and financial results were based on wholesale deliveries. He said Volvo did not plan to adjust historic sales figures in China.
According to the executive about 7,000 of Volvo’s reported retail sales of 47,140 cars in 2011 were fake, meaning Volvo dealers in 2011 collectively sold only 39,871 cars in China.
Last year Volvo reported its sales took an 11 percent fall to 41,989 cars.
Slideshow (3 Images)
That figure was also off. In fact, volume was under-reported in 2012 because dealers who had already collected the previous year’s incentive money were selling those 7,000 cars they claimed to have shifted in 2011 and not reporting the sale.
All accounted, Volvo should have reported last year’s sales to be 45,896 cars.
The increase in the revised 2012 number was by less than the downward revision for 2011, because there was still some false booking of sales going on in the first half of last year.This article is over 1 year old
Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout have had charges dropped after testimony of trader Bruno Iksil ruled unreliable
US prosecutors have decided to drop criminal charges against two former JP Morgan Chase & Co derivatives traders implicated in the “London Whale” trading scandal that caused $6.2bn (£4.7bn) of losses in 2012.
In seeking the dismissal of charges against Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout, the Department of Justice
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voters outside IES Ramon Llull secondary school. Barcelona, 1 October 2017.
OCTOBER 4 – Sunday was “D Day” in Catalonia. For the last three weeks, the population of the northeastern region of Spain was preparing for a “self-determination referendum” on October 1, called by the Catalan regional government, the Generalitat, to vote on the question of independence from the Spanish state. And for the last three weeks the Spanish government in Madrid was daily escalating threats and repression, declaring the referendum illegal and vowing to do “whatever is necessary” to prevent people from voting. On the night before the vote, tens of thousands of people in Barcelona and around Catalonia occupied more than 1,100 schools designated as polling places, many in sleeping bags outside the gates in the rain, in order to block the thousands of Guardia Civil and National Police from sealing them off to stop the vote.
The showdown began at daybreak. Occupiers had been ordered to vacate the premises by 6 a.m. Nobody left. Ballot boxes started arriving from where they had been hidden in closets and storage rooms, basements and attics, to prevent the police from seizing them. Ballots had been printed again after the Guardia Civil seized more than 3.5 million in raids on printing plants. By 7 a.m., the police of the autonomous regional government, the Mossos d’Esquadra, began showing up, but after noting the size of the crowds, they left. Soon, however, the more than 10,000 paramilitary police that had been brought in from elsewhere in Spain began barging into schools and seizing ballot boxes. But that was not enough for the cops. They were out to terrorize and humiliate the populace that was defying the orders of the Madrid government, courts, police and army by the simple act of voting.
Police (left) lunge to seize ballot boxes from voters inside IES Ramon Llull school. Barcelona, 1 October 2017.
(Photo: Manu Bravo/AP) Police (left) lunge to seize ballot boxes from voters inside IES Ramon Llull school. Barcelona, 1 October 2017.
Earlier, after some 40,000 people in Barcelona surrounded offices of the Generalitat, trapping the notorious Guardia Civil inside as it was carrying out a raid on September 20, Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy declared in truly Orwellian fashion that “disobedience is a totalitarian act.” It was in character: Rajoy’s party, the Partido Popular (PP), is the political heir of the decades-long dictatorship of Francisco Franco. So on October 1, his cops were going to root out disobedience. Police in riot gear stormed the schools. Millions around the world watched videos showing black-clad, masked police brutally yanking elderly retirees out of lines where they were waiting to vote. They would snatch someone at random from the crowds of hundreds and beat them bloody. The Generalitat reported 893 people injured by the police on Sunday.
As the day ended, the Spanish prime minister went on TV to make an “institutional declaration” proclaiming victory. A Pyrrhic victory, perhaps, with heavy consequences for the future. “Today there was no referendum on self-determination in Catalonia,” declared Rajoy in his Franco-style pronunciamiento. As for the images of club-wielding police beating elderly women in the head, Rajoy said: “We did what we had to do” against the “perpetrators” whose peaceful defiance amounted to a “coup against the law-based State.” The orgy of violence against defenseless voters unleashed by the authoritarian Spanish regime made a genuine referendum on independence impossible. But they did not stop people from voting. Late on Sunday, the Generalitat announced that more than 2.2 million people had cast ballots, 42% of the electorate, and 90% voted for independence.
Woman beaten in police charge outside Infant Jesus school in Barcelona, 1 October 2017.
(Photo: Agência Catalana de Noticias) Woman beaten in police charge outside Infant Jesus school in Barcelona, 1 October 2017.
“Fracture Consummated” headlined La Vanguardia (2 October), the leading daily paper in Barcelona which speaks for the “mainstream” Catalan bourgeoisie. The “unbreakable unity of Spain” had effectively been fractured, but Catalonia itself is deeply divided. Some 40% of registered voters had cast ballots for independence, which corresponds to figures that serious opinion polls have repeatedly shown. Those opposed to independence overwhelmingly did not vote. We have explained that opposition to separation from Spain is strongest in the (largely Spanish-speaking) working-class areas of Catalonia (see our article, “Defend the Right to Self-Determination and Independence for Catalonia,” The Internationalist, September 2017). At the same time, more than 2 million people braved violence by the Spanish state in order to vote on independence, and tens of thousands, many of them young people, actively participated in defending the polling places, an experience they will never forget.
Rajoy’s brutal onslaught has stoked fear. “Moderate” independence supporters are calling on the Generalitat to step back from the brink and call new elections to prove its “legitimacy.” For militants, defiant opposition to the brutal crackdown by the authoritarian Madrid government doesn’t necessarily equal support for independence under the bourgeois Catalan nationalist movement and its right-wing, anti-working-class leadership. It could also fuel revolutionary struggle against capitalism, the fundamental source of the suffering of working people, immigrants and youth in Catalonia and all of Spain. But that requires building an internationalist leadership of the working class to wage a class-struggle battle first and foremost against the neo-Francoist Rajoy regime and its henchmen – in particular the despicable leadership of the Socialist Party (PSOE), enforcers of capitalist austerity and repression – but also against the capitalist would-be masters of an independent Catalonia. That is the task of the hour.
The League for the Fourth International has upheld the right to self-determination (i.e., the right to independence) for Catalonia while not advocating separation from Spain, which could seriously undercut the potential for united struggle of the working class throughout the peninsula. We defended the holding of the October 1 referendum against the Spanish government’s attempt to suppress it, while saying we would cast a blank ballot. But, as we noted, in the face of massive repression unleashed by Rajoy, the place of revolutionary Marxists, those who stand on the Bolshevik program of V.I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky, is in the streets defending the right to self-determination and opposing police repression alongside those calling for Catalan independence, even as we fight for workers revolution. And we underline that to actually defeat the bloodthirsty latter-day Francoists and their military-police apparatus requires mobilizing the social and economic power of the working class throughout Spain.
What Next for Catalonia – And for Spain?
Hundreds of thousands marched in Barcelona during October 3 work stoppage throughout Catalonia to protest vicious políce attacks against voters in October 1 independence referendum. (Photo: Francisco Seco/AP) Hundreds of thousands marched in Barcelona during October 3 work stoppage throughout Catalonia to protest vicious políce attacks against voters in October 1 independence referendum.
The outcome of October 1 poses a difficult situation for the Catalan independentistas: they do not have the military force to stand up to the Spanish state – unlike the Iraqi Kurdish leaders with their peshmerga army funded, trained, armed and advised by the imperialists, who held their independence referendum a week earlier. Carles Puigdemont, the president of the Catalan Generalitat, and his predecessor Artur Mas, together with the rest of the bourgeois Junts pel Sí (JxSí, Together for Yes) coalition have looked to the European Union (EU) for support. Having won the “war of images” with scenes of bloody cop attacks in Barcelona all over TV and social media, Puigdemont appealed to EU leaders for support in mediating. But although it made a routine condemnation of “violence” and a lukewarm appeal for “dialogue,” the EU backed the Spanish government and unequivocally stated (again) that an independent Catalonia would be “outside” the European Union, which could cripple it economically.
The population, meanwhile, continues to be mobilized. In two towns north of Barcelona, popular opposition led to the Guardia Civil being run out of local hotels. Yesterday (October 3), a civic “aturada de país” (countrywide work stoppage) to protest the police rampage was called by a popular front, the Taula per la Democracia (Platform for Democracy), including the three main labor federations (CC.OO., UGT and USOC) and a number of independent unions along with employers associations, NGOs (“non-governmental organizations”) and the Catalan National Assembly and Òmnium Cultural, extraparliamentary support groups of the capitalist JxSí government. Government offices were closed (by the Catalan government), downtown Barcelona was jammed and huge marches were estimated at 300,000 people at noon and 700,000 in the evening. The world-famous Barcelona Football Club (Barça) shut down in solidarity. At the same time a “general strike” called by several smaller labor federations stopped public transportation for most of the day, while dock workers shut down the port.
Thousands of angry protesters besiege National Police headquarters (left) in downtown Barcelona on October 3. Catalan autonomous police (in red berets) with line of vehicles keep crowd away. National police eventually fled.
(Photo: EFE) Thousands of angry protesters besiege National Police headquarters (left) in downtown Barcelona on October 3. Catalan autonomous police (in red berets) with line of vehicles keep crowd away. National police eventually fled.
As the marches dispersed, thousands of the more leftist sectors headed to the downtown National Police HQ, laying siege to the barracks for hours. Finally, around 9:30 p.m., the cops piled into their vans and took off to avoid being trapped all night. As this was happening, King Felipe VI went on TV with an unprecedented speech backing the Rajoy government to the hilt, declaring that the Catalan authorities have been “breaching the constitution and the autonomy statute” by “illegally” seeking independence, that the crown was committed to the “unity” of Spain, including Catalonia, and calling on the “legitimate powers of the State to ensure order.” This bloodcurdling speech underlines the need for workers revolution to sweep away the monarchy. Instead, Puigdemont again appealed for European mediation, while repeating that the Generalitat would proceed with a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) “in a matter of days.” This afternoon, the petty-bourgeois leftist Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), without whose votes in the Catalan parlament the right-wing capitalist JxSí government would fall, demanded a plenary session on Monday, October 9, to hear the results of the vote and immediately proceed to a UDI.
Rogues gallery of enemies of democratic rights: (Left) U.S. president Donald Trump met with Spanish prime minister Mariano Roy to declare his support to Spain, one and indivisible, on September 26. Right: King Felipe VI denounced Catalan government on national TV October 3, setting stage for removing regional autonomy.
(Photo: EPA; Francisco Gomez/EFE) Rogues gallery of enemies of democratic rights: (Left) U.S. president Donald Trump met with Spanish prime minister Mariano Roy to declare his support to Spain, one and indivisible, on September 26. Right: King Felipe VI denounced Catalan government on national TV October 3, setting stage for removing regional autonomy.
The stage is set for a showdown, in which the first act may be implementing Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, suspending the Catalan statute of autonomy. Court cases are also being prepared against Puigdemont and the entire Catalan government for “disobedience” and against the Catalan police chief for “sedition,” which could lead to their arrest. This afternoon it was announced that the Madrid government’s contract for the cruise ships housing Civil Guards and National Police in the harbor has been extended, that two Navy frigates will arrive in the Catalan capital on October 10, and that several convoys of army logistical units have been deployed to a base next to Barcelona, “in case, when the moment arrives, the Armed Forces and Security Corps of the State need to use the military facility” (El Confidencial, 4 October). A military occupation of the region may be in the offing. Maintaining it over a lengthy period, seeking to discipline a restive population with sheer terror, is another matter. Heavy-handed repression backfired and didn’t stop the voting on October 1.
Dock workers of La Coordinadora shut down the ports of Barcelona (right) and Tarragona on October 3 to protest the brutal police attack on October 1 referendum. United action by port workers across Spain has been key to dockers’ struggles. (Photo: Naucher Global)
Dock workers of La Coordinadora shut down the ports of Barcelona (right) and Tarragona on October 3 to protest the brutal police attack on October 1 referendum. United action by port workers across Spain has been key to dockers’ struggles.
The focus will then be on the working class, for what counts is not images but raw power – and the key is leadership. The PSOE has played a despicable role throughout, defending the neo-Francoist PP government’s ban on the self-determination referendum, praising the Guardia Civil and National Police and denouncing those who oppose these uniformed terrorists. Without the support of these vile social democrats, Rajoy’s minority government would fall. In Catalonia, the CC.OO. and UGT unions joined the call for a popular-front “civic work stoppage” but opposed the call for a general strike. The union bureaucrats made sure that key factories did not walk out, notably the SEAT auto plants, where there was only a 5-minute stoppage at noon. If the brutal police assault on the population leads to a growth of support for the Catalan nationalists – whose capitalist program offers only the dead end of passive resistance – rather than mobilizing workers’ power to drive out the occupation forces, it will centrally be because of the betrayal by the pro-capitalist labor fakers.
In Catalonia and Spain today – as in struggles around the globe in recent years, from Greece to Mexico, from South Africa to South America, in Ukraine and the Middle East and even in the imperialist colossus of the United States – the excruciating need is to forge a revolutionary leadership, a workers party built on the internationalist program of Lenin and Trotsky. Much of the left in Catalonia has tailed after the bourgeois nationalist independence movement, just as they habitually chase every new “movement” with little regard to its actual politics. The opportunists hope to gain popularity, but with such a tailist policy they can never lead a real class struggle, much less a revolution. The Fourth International was formed in 1938 in the shadow of huge defeats and in the midst of the Spanish Civil War. It sought with its tiny forces and powerful program to resolve the crisis of revolutionary leadership. That is the task facing the League for the Fourth International today, when Catalonia is, as it was eight decades ago, a key battlefield. ■You ain't seen rich until you've seen London!
Data published Friday shows an area of inner west London is the most prosperous part of Europe by a long shot.
The area encompasses Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Notting Hill and the City of London financial district.
Based on GDP per head, this part of London is 5.4 times wealthier than the European Union average, once the difference in price levels between countries is taken into account.
European data show west Londoners on average account for £116,800 ($162,200) in GDP per year.
The neighborhoods included in this region are: City of London, Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, Camden and Wandsworth.
However, it's worth noting that the figures are inflated by people who live in the suburbs but commute to work. These workers lift the overall economic output of the area, but only residents are counted when per capita GDP figures are calculated.
Related: Middle class no longer dominates in the U.S.
The second richest region in the European Union is the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Residents in this area are 2.7 times richer than the average.
Luxembourg is a small city-state that has one of the highest national minimum wages in the world.
Meanwhile, the least prosperous region in the EU is Severozapaden, Bulgaria. The average resident has €8,200 ($9,000) in annual GDP.Colorado regulators issued an $8.9 million fine against Uber's parent company on Monday for allowing employees with serious criminal or motor vehicle offenses to work for the company as drivers.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission said it launched an investigation into the ride-hailing service in March after an Uber passenger said his driver assaulted him in the mountain resort town of Vail.
Within the last year and a half, the commission said it found that nearly 60 Uber drivers were allowed to work in Colorado despite having previous felony convictions. The drivers included a habitual offender, a former prison escape and others with major traffic violations including drunk driving.
Colorado state law prevents people with felony convictions, alcohol or drug-related driving offenses, unlawful sexual offenses and major traffic violations from working for rideshare companies.
"We have determined that Uber had background check information that should have disqualified these drivers under the law, but they were allowed to drive anyway," Public Utilities Commission Director Doug Dean said. "These actions put the safety of passengers in extreme jeopardy," he added.
In a statement, the commission said it also found felony convictions that Uber didn't catch, and "in other cases, we could not confirm criminal background checks were even conducted by Uber."
Uber said in a statement that it recently discovered a "process error" that was inconsistent with Colorado's ridesharing regulations and affected what the company called a small number of drivers. It said it notified the state and fixed the problem but did not elaborate.
"Per Uber safety policies and Colorado state regulations, drivers with access to the Uber app must undergo a nationally accredited third party background screening. We will continue to work closely with the CPUC to enable access to safe, reliable transportation options for all Coloradans," it said.
The Colorado PUC said the $8.9 million penalty was calculated based on a $2,500 fine for each day an employee was illegally behind the wheel.
The commission said Uber can pay half of that amount within ten days to resolve the case or it can schedule a hearing and contest the allegations in before a judge.
Uber's image has been tarnished by findings of sexual harassment of employees and multiple reports of drivers assaulting passengers.
Last week, two women who said they were sexually assaulted by Uber drivers filed a federal lawsuit in San Francisco alleging that inadequate background checks and monitoring left them and thousands of others vulnerable.German mobile gaming publisher flaregames said on Tuesday it has acquired Kopla Games.
The acquisition follows the partnership between the two companies with Nonstop Knight, which became the most successful game launch in flaregames history with over 2 million installs in the first 3 days of its release.
Nonstop Knight has been a Top5 game in around 40 countries, showed data from App Annie research firm.
Kopla Games will remain operationally independent, as flaregames believes that developers should have creative freedom. Kopla will keep its name and offices in the centre of Tampere, Finland.
The 2011-founded flaregames has raised $22.7 million from investors like Accel Partners and Deutsche Telekom.
“We share not only the vision of making awesome mobile games, but have the same values and mindset,” Klaas Kersting, flaregames CEO and founder, said in a statement. “The founders have built a team with amazing throughput and we have a great working relationship. We are looking forward to many more jointly developed hit games.”
Kopla was founded in 2015 by four seasoned developers who initially teamed up while working on Rovio’s Angry Birds franchise. Fueled by a passion for action role-playing games (RPG), Kopla Games’ mission is to introduce action RPGs to everyone.
Kopla raised in March 700,000 euros from Kersting, who has been an early stage investor for startups like Supercell, Spacetime Studios and iQU. In 2015 Kopla raised 100,000 euros from Finnish investment company Sisu Game Ventures and other investors.OUTVETS, an LGBTQ veterans group, has been denied entry in South Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, despite the group having marched for the past two years.
The group posted the news to Facebook on Tuesday, condemning the discrimination.
“While the reason for our denial is unclear, one can only assume it’s because we are LGBTQ,” the post reads. “OUTVETS has marched in the parade for the last two years without incident. We followed their rules to the letter and our presence helped to tear down the wall of discrimination that surrounded this event.”
Ed Flynn, a member of the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council — the parade’s organizer — confirmed to the Boston Globe that the group did not receive approval to participate.
The vote at Tuesday’s meeting was 9-4 against allowing OUTVETS to participate in the parade, to take place on March 19.
“I am saddened and outraged that the Allied War Veterans Council has voted to turn back the clock on equality,” said Flynn.
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said on Wednesday that he will not participate either, unless the situation is “resolved.”
“I will not tolerate discrimination in our city of any form. We are one Boston, which means we are a fully inclusive city,” Walsh said in a statement provided by a spokeswoman. “I will not be marching in the parade unless this is resolved. Anyone who values what our city stands for should do the same.”
Organizers from the Allied War Veterans Council did not respond to the Boston Globe‘s request for comment. LGBTQ Nation has also sent out a request for comment, and we will update should someone respond.
This is not the first time the Allied War Veterans Council has blocked gay veterans from marching, having previously taken a case to the Supreme Court, which it won.
It also resulted in the loss of city funding for the parade, as well Mayors Thomas M. Menino and Walsh refusing to march.
State Senator Linda Dorcena Forry, who represents South Boston, is asking the group to reconsider.
“For the last two years, I have had the honor of marching in an inclusive parade that has reflected the diversity of the brave men and women of our US Armed Services. I ask the South Boston Allied War Veterans Council to return to the table, reverse their vote and invite OUTVETS to participate in the parade,” Forry said in a statement.
This Story Filed UnderSmoke billows in the background as Kurdish Peshmerga fighters take positions near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, on January 30, 2015 (AFP Photo/Marwan Ibrahim)
Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi Kurdish forces repelled a major attack by the Islamic State group in Kirkuk province that killed a top officer Friday, while violence elsewhere left at least 19 dead.
The IS assault on areas south and west of the northern city of Kirkuk began at around midnight, sparking fighting with medium and heavy weapons in which the militants were ultimately held off.
Kirkuk Governor Najm al-Din Karim said Kurdish forces, supported by US-led air strikes, "foiled the Daesh (IS) attacks" which were "carried out toward oil and gas facilities and stations... from three directions leading to the city of Kirkuk."
Damage to Kirkuk oil facilities would pose a serious problem for Iraq, which is counting on crude exports of 300,000 barrels per day from the oil-rich province in its 2015 budget.
Brigadier General Shirko Rauf and five other members of the Kurdish peshmerga forces were killed and 46 more were wounded in the fighting, a police brigadier general and a doctor said, but the final casualty figure for Kurdish troops was unclear.
Officials put IS casualties at dozens of dead, but that could not be independently confirmed.
The Kirkuk province security committee announced a curfew beginning at 10:00 am (0700 GMT) Friday, but it was lifted later in the day, police said.
Dozens of Kirkuk residents fired weapons in the air to celebrate the victory over IS, witnesses said.
Militants struck inside the city itself Friday, detonating a car bomb near security headquarters and wounding five people, a police colonel and the doctor said.
- Suicide bombings -
According to the colonel, armed suicide bombers tried to take up positions on the roof of a hotel in the city, but were killed by security forces before they could do so.
In Jalawla, an area in Diyala province south of Kirkuk that was retaken from IS at the end of last year, a suicide bomber attacked peshmerga forces, killing seven and wounding seven more, Brigadier General Barzan Ali said.
Violence also struck Samarra, home to a revered Shiite shrine that was bombed in 2006, setting off a wave of Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence that killed tens of thousands of people.
One suicide bomber detonated a car bomb at a police checkpoint at an entrance to the city, while two more struck a police headquarters and a fourth bomber was shot dead.
The bombings and sporadic clashes between IS and security forces west of Samarra killed seven people and wounded 31, police and a doctor said.
In Baghdad, at least one bomb exploded in a used clothes market in the central Bab al-Sharji area, killing at least five people and wounding 17, officials said.
IS spearheaded an offensive that has overrun much of Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland since June, presenting both an opportunity for territorial expansion and a threat to the country's three-province autonomous Kurdish region.
Several Iraqi divisions collapsed in the early days of the offensive, clearing the way for the Kurds to take control of a swathe of disputed territory they have long wanted to incorporate into their region over Baghdad's objections.
But after driving south towards Baghdad, IS turned its attention to the Kurds, pushing them back towards their regional capital Arbil in a move that helped spark US strikes against the jihadists.
Bolstered by the air strikes as well as international advisers and trainers, Kurdish forces have clawed back significant ground from IS.
The conflict is redrawing some of the de facto internal boundaries of Iraq in favour of broader Kurdish control in the north.... barring some miraculous comeback by Ted Cruz, the Trump campaign will have cost the Republican Party the presidency after eight years of Obama, and perhaps the Senate and even the House - and Scalia's replacement on the Court as well. Years of effort spent attempting to dispel the accusations of inherent Republican misogyny, xenophobia, hypocrisy, ignorance and blind rage have been undone by Trump's campaign. And every Trump advocate in front of a camera had a hand in this.
We're not just gonna hug it out.
Donald Trump is unfit for the office.
He is unfit for any office, morally and intellectually.
A man who could suggest, simply because it is convenient, that his opponent’s father had something to do with the assassination of President Kennedy is unfit for any position of public responsibility.
His long litany of lies — which include fabrications about everything from his wealth to self-funding his campaign — is disqualifying.
His low character is disqualifying.
His personal history is disqualifying.
His complete, utter, total, and lifelong lack of honor is disqualifying.
The fact that he is going to have to take time out of the convention to appear in court to hear a pretty convincing fraud case against him is disqualifying.
His time on Jeffrey Epstein’s Pedophile Island, after which he boasted about sharing a taste with Epstein for women “on the younger side,” is disqualifying.
The fact that he knows less about our constitutional order than does a not-especially-bright Rappahannock River oyster is disqualifying.
There isn’t anything one can say about Mrs. Clinton, monster though she is, that changes any of that.
Donald Trump is not fit to serve as president. He is not fit to serve on the Meade County board of commissioners. He is not fit to be the mayor of Muleshoe, Texas.
If he indeed is the Republican nominee, Donald Trump almost certainly will face Hillary Rodham Clinton in the general election. That fact, sobering though it is, does not suddenly make him fit to serve as president, because — to repeat — the problem with Trump isn’t that he is less fit to serve in comparison to Mrs. Clinton, but that he is unfit to serve, period.
It is disqualifying for a modern-day presidential nominee to refuse to release tax returns to the voters, especially one who has not been subject to public scrutiny in either military or public service. Tax returns provide the public with its sole confirmation of the veracity of a candidate's representations regarding charities, priorities, wealth, tax conformance, and conflicts of interest. Further, while not a likely circumstance, the potential for hidden inappropriate associations with foreign entities, criminal organizations, or other unsavory groups is simply too great a risk to ignore for someone who is seeking to become commander-in-chief.
Mr. Trump says he is being audited. So? There is nothing that prevents releasing tax returns that are being audited. Further, he could release returns for the years immediately prior to the years under audit. There is only one logical explanation for Mr. Trump's refusal to release his returns: there is a bombshell in them. Given Mr. Trump's equanimity with other flaws in his history, we can only assume it's a bombshell of unusual size.
Okay, I don't want to go all conspiracy theory on you, but it's hard not to applyhere. Under normal circumstances, you'd expect the Dems to be worried. They've had two terms in office, the US is still not doing so well economically, and Hillary is notoriously unpopular with a large chunk of the electorate. She ought to be having serious problems, and people on the left ought to be starting to shrug their shoulders and say, well, maybe some of those Republicans aren't that bad. Instead, the markets are giving odds of about two to one that Ms Clinton will be the next President.Why? Um, because Donald Trump has rendered the GOP close to unelectable. I suppose he might have done it by accident, or out of stupidity. But if he'd set out to destroy the party, I don't see that he could have been more effective. He's alienated several key demographics - Hispanics, blacks, women - to such an extent that it's hard to see how any bridge-building exercise is going to work. I suppose a major terrorist attack may make people feel that, even if he's an asshole, he's the kind of asshole the US needs to keep it safe. But, more and more, he's coming across as a loose cannon who doesn't mean anything he says, who changes his story whenever it suits him and then insists that his views have "evolved", who just can't be taken seriously.Consider for a moment that Trump used to be a Democrat. He used to be pro-choice. He invited the Clintons to his last wedding. And in a book or a movie, you'd know by now that he'd done it on purpose, to trick the far right wing of the Republican Party into coming out in the open and permanently discrediting themselves. It would be the twist that wrapped up the whole narrative. This is how, operating under deep cover, brave Agent Trump infiltrated the bunch of vampires that were sucking the US's life-blood, and put a stake through their collective hearts so that America could be Great Again.Of course, I don't really believe it. But I just read this article in the- not exactly your typical lying, liberal publication - and when you see their quotes you have to wonder. Here's someone so insanely irresponsible that even Ann Coulter is publicly upset about it. And that ending. I just have to quote it in full:______________________Since writing this review a bit more than three weeks ago, I've been regularly checking the odds posted on Betfair for the different Presidential candidates. A pattern has emerged: an improvement in Trump's chances is associated with an improvement in Hillary's chances. After Trump's unsuccessful Wisconsin primary, Hillary was running at around 2-1 on (67% chance of success). Trump has done well since then, and Hillary's improved to around 3-1 on (75%).Like I said, I'm not hypothesizing a conspiracy. But if I were Hillary, I wouldn't necessarily be unhappy that Trump right now looks like he has a decent shot at getting over half of the Republican delegates ahead of the July convention and locking up the nomination.______________________I just have to share the striking graphic I saw earlier this evening on fivethirtyeight.com. Hillary's one lucky woman.______________________From another recent article in The National Review Though of course, that's what the conservatives are saying. The liberals aren't going to be as positive.______________________Thelist somehow forgot to include Trump's tax returns, but Mitt Romney has just made good that omission I must say I'm disappointed. Just because Trump suggested on live TV that Romney would have been happy to give him a blow-job in exchange for his support in the last presidential election, he gets all huffy and starts saying things like the above. Evidently not a team player. Or does he know something we don't?______________________It's been a rough few weeks for Agent Trump. He's been trying his damnedest to sink the Republican ship - but whatever he did, somehow it went wrong. He flung racial insults at a judge of unimpeachable character, flirted with the KKK, cozied up to the autocratic leader of an unfriendly foreign state and encouraged a senior Republican to give a speech against him at the RNC. He decided not to hire any campaign staff or buy any TV spots. Things were so desperate that Melania joined in. Great love hath no trophy wife than she plagiarize her rival's lines to help her husband... but evendidn't have any effect. Despite all his efforts to paint himself, in the most garish colors imaginable, as Lyin' Crooked Donald, a character that only a drunk, sleep-deprived halfwit would trust with the nuclear codes, his ratings held steady. They even improved a bit.As he likes to say, never give up, and after literally dozens of imaginative attempts he seems to have found an idea that works. I'm sure he didn't enjoy gratuitously disrespecting the sick, elderly mother of an American war hero, but desperate times require desperate measures. Finally... FINALLY!... his poll figures seem to heading in the direction he needs. Obviously they don't want to jinx it at this stage, and I bet the entire Trump family are anxiously checking fivethirtyeight's NowCast every ten minutes to see if it's screwed up again. But there's no doubt about it, things are starting to look good at last. Another month of this and they'll be cracking open the champagne at Trump Tower.Bravo, Agent Trump! You have the hardest job in the world. And you're doing splendidly.Dispatches From Direct-To-DVD Purgatory is a periodic check-in on what’s going on in the world of movies that didn’t make it to theaters.
Not Another Not Another Movie (2011)
I have a friend who spent one exceedingly lucrative day many years ago pitching jokes for a Seltzer-Friedberg production that will go unnamed, in part because my friend was forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement attesting that he would never publicly attempt to claim credit for the work of the most reviled duo this side of Leopold and Loeb. My friend described the experience as one of the worst in his professional career, 10 hours of misery where he and 20 or so other grotesquely overqualified, expensively dressed gag-smiths brayed obnoxiously at each other’s asinine suggestions and generally pretended not to hate themselves and each other for degrading the art of film and the art of comedy in one fell swoop. My friend does not drink, not even a little, but after he left the meeting he was sorely tempted to get blackout drunk in an attempt to purge the experience from his mind.
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Spoof movies, as practiced by the cultural blight that is Seltzer-Friedberg, aren’t just troubling from an aesthetic viewpoint. They’re horrifying from a moral standpoint as well. The parody of the Zucker brothers and Mel Brooks is defined by love, knowledge, and appreciation: The Zucker brothers and Mel Brooks love, know, and appreciate the source material they’re spoofing enough to get all the details perfect. The comedy of Seltzer-Friedberg, in sharp contrast, is defined by contempt: contempt for the attention span, intelligence, maturity, and frame of reference for the audience, and an even more raging contempt for the source material they’re spoofing. Friedberg and Seltzer aren’t writers; they’re comic terrorists who cavalierly destroy what others create for their own ugly self-interest. Their success is entirely dependent on making comedy a dumber, crasser, less dignified place.
Spoof movies have such a dreadful reputation, and deservedly so, that when an interviewer for Hitfix brought up Scary Movie 5 during an interview with Marlon Wayans, who was promoting A Haunted House, Wayans was quick to point out that his film wasn’t a spoof at all but rather a found-footage horror comedy with “parodistic elements,” bitchily boasting that his film came from “an authentic place” and is a “labor of love” that illustrates an oft-overlooked type of comedy, in sharp contrast to the Scary Movie sequels he accuses of “doing it wrong.”
Marlon Wayans made a fortune playing a little person who masquerades as a baby in Little Man and a black man who masquerades as a white woman in White Chicks. But even he was palpably insulted to be lumped into the current wave of trashy “spoofs” he helped kick-start with Scary Movie, an all-too-influential surprise blockbuster, the screenwriting credits of which happen to include gentlemen by the names of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.
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Having Marlon Wayans slam your film for being hacky, soulless, and crass is like being publicly dressed-down by the neighborhood crack whore for possessing an unforgivable dearth of class and propriety. Spoof movies are seen as such a cancerous boil upon the face of cinema that even Marlon Wayans wants nothing to do with them.
Spoof movies may be beneath contempt (though I would argue their enduring popularity and profile make them eminently worthy of contempt), but are they beneath parody? That is the terrifying query posed by Not Another Not Another Movie, a surreally incompetent, inherently failed attempt to parody a parody, whose official website crows:
“Led by an all-star
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filters that plays a major role in the Aqua procedures
Aquaponics Market Outlook:
A systematic looping of cultivation from aquaculture system and the hydroponics system together results in Aquaponics. This complete procedure of water flow from one system to another includes different parameters like Method used, Components of the system, fishes grown, plants or herbs cultivated and others. Mostly Aquaponics is done through three different methods Raft method also known as Deep Water Culture, Nutrient Film Technique (NFT), Media-filled beds method. Drip Irrigation method, Ebb and Flow system are other methods used in Aquaponics. Each method uses specific components required for cultivation. The basic components for these methods are Tanks for cultivating fish, soil-free beds for plants, tubes for water flow, tanks for degassing and filtering through bio filters, grow lights, meals for fishes and others. Different types of fishes are grown and various kinds of herbs, plants for vegetables and fruits are cultivated. Prices of grow lights varies between $50 and $500 per price. Fish meal would be costing nearly $1650 per metric ton in 2017. Tanks used for Fish culture would be costing between $9000 and $13000 per piece.
Aquaponics Market Growth drivers:
Water has become the scarcest resource in the current day scenario because of increasing water pollution and infrequent rainfall. Aquaponics adopts the sustainability towards the natural resources without depleting them. Plants or crops cultivated through Aquaponics require 95% of lesser water than crops grown under the ground. Also, the harvesting time will be reduced by nearly 50% than the crops grown in ordinary manner. This will be the major driver for the growth of Aquaponics market. Also, plants grown through ordinary methods would be often infected by soil pests and the only way to get rid these pests would be use of pesticides. Plants easily absorbs the toxins of such pesticides and get affected by them sooner. But this does not happens in Aquaponics as there is no concept of soil and soil pests. This results in higher adoption of Aquaponics techniques for the most healthier and organic plants. This results in the growth of the market. Increased investments from urban farming firms, encouragement of agricultural bodies are some other drivers.
Aquaponics Market Challenges:
Sustainable Agricultural practices like Hydroponics, Vertical farming, Organic arable farming are witnessing growth from the past few years with the increased adoption of sustainable practices. This could be a challenge that could hinder the growth of the Aquaponics market. Aquaponics is a procedure in which several components are joined based on the method used for the easy flow of water from one tank to another tank. Any disconnection from one of the joints results in failure or stoppage of complete procedure as Aquaponics is a continuous process of cultivation. This results in difficulty for the adopters of Aquaponics what choose between Aquaponics and Ordinary method of cultivation, hence becomes a challenge for the growth of the market.
Aquaponics Market Research Scope:
The base year of the study is 2017, with forecast done up to 2023. The study presents a thorough analysis of the competitive landscape, taking into account the market shares of the leading companies. It also provides information on unit shipments. These provide the key market participants with the necessary business intelligence and help them understand the future of the Aquaponics market. The assessment includes the forecast, an overview of the competitive structure, the market shares of the competitors, as well as the market trends, market demands, market drivers, market challenges, and product analysis. The market drivers and restraints have been assessed to fathom their impact over the forecast period. This report further identifies the key opportunities for growth while also detailing the key challenges and possible threats. The key areas of focus include the types of components in Aquaponics market, and their specific applications in different types of Methods.
Aquaponics Market Report: Industry Coverage
Aquaponics Market – by Aquaponics Method: Raft method, Nutrient Film technique, Media-filled beds, Drip irrigation, Ebb and Flow system.
Aquaponics Market – by Components: Fish Tanks, Soil free Plant Beds, Clarifiers, Filter Tanks, Bio Filters, Degassing Tanks, Troughs, Sump, Tubes, Base addition Tanks, Settling Basins and others.
Aquaponics Market – by cultivation: Fishes, Herbs, Vegetable and Fruit Plants, Flower Plants and others.
Aquaponics Market – by equipment: Water Heaters, Pumps and Valves. Monitoring and Alarms, Water Quality Testing, Fish Purge Systems, Complete Systems, Growing Accessories, Growing Media, Nutrient Supplements, Pest Control Equipment, Pots and Containers, Stands and Trays, Aeration systems and Plant Support.
Aquaponics Market – by Application: Commercial, Community, Home production, Research Centers, Agriculture and Farming and other.
The Aquaponics market report also analyzes the major geographic regions for the market as well as the major countries for the market in these regions. The regions and countries covered in the study include:
North America: The U.S., Canada, Mexico
South America: Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica
Europe: The U.K., Germany, Italy, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Denmark
APAC: China, Japan, Australia, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong
Middle East and Africa: Israel, South Africa, Saudi Arabia
Aquaponics Market Key Players Perspective:
Some of the Key players in this market that have been studied for this report include:
Nelson and Pade, Inc., Pentair Aquatic Eco-Systems, Inc., ECF Farmsystems GmbH, AquaCal AutoPilot, Inc., Japan Aquaponics, Green Life Aquaponics, Backyard Aquaponics Pty Ltd, Lucky Clays Fresh, Aponic Ltd, LivinGreen, MyAquaponics, The aquaponik manufaktur GmbH, NutraPonics Canada Corporation.
Market Research and Market Trends of Aquaponics Market:Boca do Lobo always has been fascinated by the reinterpretation of past traditions and techniques through contemporary art practice. With some of the best artisans, the brand is capable to create luxurious handmade furniture, telling the story of our past and heritage in mirror.
Glass is one of the most complex materials to work requires a very skilled manual labor as well as a keen eye for precision.
The luxury pieces from Boca do Lobo are often limited edition for having some of the best glass finishes in the world, made by the great craftsmen of the brand whose skill has been passed down from generation to generation.
Veneto Mirror
Inspired by the classic Venetian mirrors, this mirror blends an original and courageous approach using traditional techniques that have been passed from generation to generation.
Veneto mirror, reflector truly craftsmanship, refinement and luxury.
Ideal for your living room or hall, it has a round convex mirror on top, creating the illusion of amplitude, and is able to turn your home into a unique and charming space.
See Also: TOP 50 LUXURY MASTER BEDROOM DESIGNS – PART 2
Glance Mirror
This luxury furniture piece represents the pleasure of the reason, disorder is the delight of emotions. Glass work in one of the main techniques behind Glance Mirror.
What seems confused and cluttered can, in a glance, acquire a new meaning, capable of inspiring and becharming us.
The concept of a defragmented mirror brings out its noblest gold backdrop, where it’s unique beauty comes from daring to risk and challenge the conventional.
Venice Mirror
Through a passionate explosion of romance, drama the Venice Mirror stirs emotion in anyone that catches its eye.
The Venice represents Boca do Lobo’s ambition to bring value to true craftsmanship through contemporary design, hand cut and carved by an experienced artisan who’s passion for glasswork goes back as far as his childhood.
See Also: FALL TRENDS: COPPER DESIGN INSPIRATIONS
Which one combine better with you? Let us know on comments down below! Subscribe our blog and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and Pinterest, will be a pleasure meet you there!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
Conservative party members are being put under pressure to pull support for Jack Lopresti MP ahead of the upcoming general election.
In a letter shown exclusively to the Bristol Post, members of the Filton and Bradley Stoke constituency are being called to a meeting to vote on the future of the 47-year-old.
The anonymous sender is asking members to vote against selecting Mr Lopresti as the Conservative candidate in favour of other unspecified runners for the election on June 8.
It is not clear if there is any one specific issue which has prompted the letter, but one source said Mr Lopresti had been running the constituency “like a mafia fiefdom”.
While all Conservative MPs and candidates will have to go through a formal selection process, this letter is unusual in its call to vote against the incumbent.
It states: “There are many of us who feel very strongly that Mr Lopresti is not representing our constituency in a very good way.
“Locally there are several excellent people who are already on the Conservative Campaign HQ approved candidate list and would love to have this opportunity to represent us.
“We feel that one of these people should be given a chance.”
Mr Lopresti has held the Filton and Bradley Stoke seat since it was created in 2010.
The former Army Reserve caught headlines in late 2015 after it was revealed he was having an affair with fellow MP Andrea Jenkyns.
Mr Lopresti has since divorced his former wife and is now engaged to Ms Jenkyns. The pair welcomed their first child together last month.
It is estimated there are 90 members of the Conservative party who will be eligible to vote at the meeting on Friday.
Mr Lopresti replied saying he hoped to be re-endorsed by the local association this week.
“It is a tremendous honour and privilege to serve and represent the people of Filton and Bradley Stoke," said the ex-Bristol City councillor.
"All Conservative sitting Members of Parliament, at every election, have to be formally re-adopted.
"I am pleased to say that I have put my name forward and local party members will now decide.”The Republican National Committee is promoting a report that accuses the Democratic Party of conspiring to nominate Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE in the early days of the presidential primary.
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In an email, the RNC sent to reporters a story published by the New York Post about a document that purportedly shows the Democratic National Committee was strategizing to make Hillary Clinton president — and not a generic Democratic candidate — in the spring of 2015.
The story is based on a document posted on the blog of a user named “Guccifer 2.0,” and appears to be part of a trove of documents stolen from the DNC by Russian government hackers.
The alleged memo to the DNC, dated May 26, 2015, says that the party should work to “provide a contrast between the GOP field and HRC.”
HRC is a common abbreviation for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Sanders launched his campaign nearly a month prior to the date of the memo — though according to RealClearPolitics, he was still trailing Clinton by nearly 57 points in the polls.
It’s unclear whether the document that the hacker claims is from the DNC is a real one.
On Thursday night a senior DNC official did tell The Hill that documents were stolen in a breach and suggested they were part of a Russian “disinformation campaign.”
“Our experts are confident in their assessment that the Russian government hackers were the actors responsible for the breach detected in April, and we believe that today’s release and the claims around it may be a part of a disinformation campaign by the Russians,” the official said. “We’ve deployed the recommended technology so that today our systems are secure thanks to a swift response to that attack and we will continue to monitor our systems closely.”
The RNC sent out the article in an email blast to reporters, highlighting a point in the report that the memo “appears to show the DNC working on behalf of Hillary Clinton from the start of the presidential campaign — just as Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersPush to end U.S. support for Saudi war hits Senate setback Sanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' MORE has claimed.”
An RNC spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The RNC push comes as Clinton and Sanders are in discussions after the end of the Democratic primary to unify the party.LIMA (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday that chaos in Syria could persist for “quite some time” and that Russian and Iranian support for President Bashar al-Assad’s air campaign had emboldened the Syrian leader’s crackdown on rebels.
“I am not optimistic about the short-term prospects in Syria,” Obama said at a news conference in Lima at the conclusion of a summit with leaders of Pacific Rim countries.
“Once Russia and Iran made a decision to back Assad and a brutal air campaign and essentially a pacification of Aleppo regardless of civilian casualties, children being killed or wounded, schools or hospitals being destroyed, then it was very hard to see a way in which even a trained and committed moderate opposition could hold its ground for long periods of time,” he said.
Obama, a Democrat who will be succeeded on Jan. 20 by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, said he told Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima that he was deeply concerned about the bloodshed in Syria and that a ceasefire was needed.
“At this stage, we’re going to need a change in how all parties think about this in order for us to end the situation there,” Obama said, adding: “There’s no doubt that there will continue to be extremist forces in and around Syria because it’s still going to be in chaos for quite some time.”
Under Obama, the military aid program overseen by the CIA has given arms and training to moderate rebels in coordination with countries including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan.
Trump has signaled opposition to U.S. support for the rebels, saying he wants to focus on fighting Islamic State. He has said he might even cooperate on fighting the militant group with Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, which has been bombing the rebels for over a year in western Syria.
U.S. President Barack Obama holds a press conference at the conclusion of the APEC Summit in Lima, Peru November 20, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Obama’s trip to Peru was the last stop on an international farewell tour that included visits to Greece and Germany and was often overshadowed by questions about Trump’s election.
Obama said he had wrestled with the question of U.S. involvement in Syria for five years.
He said he concluded the United States did not have a legal basis for military involvement in Syria and that doing so would have been a “strategic mistake” given the effort to stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq and the need to fight Islamic State.by
The United States recently announced that Canada and Mexico will join negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—a secretive U.S.-led multinational trade and investment agreement currently being negotiated with eight other countries in the Pacific Rim region.
On the other side of the Pacific, Japanese legislators are defecting in droves to try to stop the country’s entry into the negotiations. But the situation is much different in Canada and Mexico, which were admitted to the table with much fanfare during the G20 summit in June. The Japanese response is justifiable, and a recent statement of solidarity against the TPP by North American unions offers a good building block for resisting an agreement that for Mexicans and Canadians amounts to a neoliberal expansion of NAFTA on U.S. President Barack Obama’s terms.
Mexico and Canada had been trying to secure a spot at the TPP table for months prior to the G20, and it became a leading story in both countries. Their anxiety played nicely into Obama’s hands, allowing the U.S. trade representative to put humiliating entry conditions on both countries — essentially giving these NAFTA neighbors a second-rate status, or what in Spanish is called convidados de palo (to be invited but without a say). Neither Canada nor Mexico will be able to see any TPP text until they finally join the negotiations in December, following the required 90-day U.S. congressional approval process. Once at the table, they will not be able to make any changes to the finished text or propose any new text in the finished chapters. There is a very real possibility that the existing TPP countries, the United States in particular, will use the following months to fashion a trap for the TPP latecomers.
North American Labor Solidarity
While most media outlets welcomed the NAFTA partners to the TPP table, national labor federations from the United States, Mexico, and Canada were cautious for very good reasons, and it wasn’t just the obviously imbalanced negotiating dynamic. On July 11, the AFL-CIO, the Canadian Labour Congress, and the National Union of Workers (UNT) of Mexico outlined some of those reasons in an important statement of solidarity, which included a vision of what they believe a 21st-centry trade agreement should look like.
The labor unions state that although they “would welcome a TPP that creates good jobs, strengthens protection for fundamental labor rights—such as freedom of association and authentic collective bargaining—protects the environment, and boosts global economic growth and development for all, American, Canadian, and Mexican workers cannot afford another corporate-directed trade agreement.” The joint statement explains that to have any positive effect on the region, “the TPP must break from NAFTA, which imposed a destructive economic model that expands the rights and privileges of multinational corporations at the expense of working families, communities, and the environment.”
The unions conclude that if “the TPP follows the neoliberal model and substitutes corporate interests for national interests, workers in all three countries will continue to pay a high price in the form of suppressed wages, a more difficult organizing environment, and general regulatory erosion, even as large corporations will continue to benefit.” Unfortunately, by all accounts, including leaked TPP chapters and statements from the U.S. trade representative, this is exactly what the Obama administration hopes to achieve through these negotiations.
Expanding Investor Rights
Instead of breaking with NAFTA, the TPP expands it in almost every chapter, from intellectual property rights to “regulatory coherence,” and from rules for increased “competition” in state-owned enterprises to opening government purchases to foreign bidders.
Particularly worrying to Canadians and Mexicans, and not mentioned in the joint statement from North American unions, are the extreme investors’ rights foreseen in the TPP. Under NAFTA, Mexico and Canada continue to be pummelled by investor-state lawsuits from U.S. and Canadian companies, or international firms using their U.S. registration to challenge government measures that can be shown to interfere with profits, even if that interference is not intended. These investment disputes, launched under NAFTA’s Chapter 11 protections, have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in fines or settlements to be paid out from public funds. Two recent cases against Mexico and Canada help describe the problem.
In 2009, two separate NAFTA investment panels established through the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) ruled in favour of U.S. companies Cargill and Corn Products International in their nearly identical cases against a Mexican tax on drinks containing high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a sugar alternative. The tax was a means of levelling the playing field for Mexican cane sugar producers, who were having no luck accessing the U.S. market on equal terms to U.S. sugar producers despite NAFTA’s promises of open borders.
Cargill and CPI argued in part that the Mexican tax made soft drinks sweetened with HFCS less competitive on the Mexican market, depriving them of their national treatment rights in NAFTA. The ICSID panels did not agree that the HFCS tax amounted to a form of regulatory expropriation or performance requirement as the firms had also argued, but did agree on the national treatment claim. Cargill was awarded more than $77 million and CPI more than $58 million in damages. In the CPI case, the ICSID panel deprived Mexico of any countermeasures to defend against a one-way inflow of cheap sugar supplements from the United States.
Canada also just lost an important investor-state dispute with Exxon Mobil, which could cost the Canadian government as much as $65 million. At issue were measures requiring offshore oil and gas producers in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador to turn over a portion of their profits to research and development or education and training programs. A NAFTA investment panel ruled in favor of the company, which claimed that the measures were an illegal performance requirement on the firm. Three Canadian courts had previously upheld the legality of the measures, and the Canadian government had excluded the legislation enforcing the measures from national treatment and other investment protections in NAFTA, making the investment panel ruling extremely perplexing. The frustration is worsened by the fact that Exxon Mobil was the richest company in the world in 2011. Under NAFTA and the TPP, investors have rights but no enforceable responsibilities to the countries in which they are operating.
These are just two local cases amid a myriad of investor lawsuits against countries all over the world. Though the Obama administration recently released a new model Bilateral Investment Treaty, it is almost identical to NAFTA, with only modest safeguards for regulation in the public interest — safeguards that closed-door tribunals are under little obligation to take into account. In fact, the trend globally is for these secret tribunals to rule expansively in the interest of corporations, perhaps as a means of perpetuating the system by making it more attractive to investors. There is simply no justification for reproducing the investor-state dispute regime in the TPP. In fact, NAFTA should be renegotiated to remove investor-state dispute settlement from Chapter 11.
This outcome—removing extreme investment protections from the TPP—is not out of the question. In June of this year, before a negotiating round in San Diego, California, 130 state legislators from all 50 states and Puerto Rico signed a letter to President Obama’s senior trade official warning that they will oppose the deal unless the administration alters its current approach. In the letter they say that “Our experience with NAFTA and other trade deals shows that investor-state dispute settlement is used by large corporations to undermine state and federal laws they don’t like – laws that are fully constitutional, that do not discriminate, and that are needed to protect public health and safety.”
There is also the question of Australia, the one TPP partner refusing to abide by these investment rules. In April 2011, the Australian government released a new trade policy that discontinues the inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement in bilateral or regional trade agreements. Despite their second-rate status at the TPP table, Canada and Mexico could eventually help the United States put pressure on Australia and others who doubt the value of these extreme corporate rights. But public pressure might prove strong enough to foil these efforts, as it did when the Multilateral Agreement on Investment was ditched in 1999, followed by the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in 2005.
A New FTAA, A New Struggle
With Canada and Mexico joining the TPP, the agreement is looking more and more like a substitute for the FTAA. So it is not surprising that opposition to the TPP is growing as quickly as it did against that former attempt to expand the neoliberal model throughout the Western hemisphere.
The intense secrecy of the TPP negotiations is not helping the Obama administration make its case. In their statement, North American unions “call on our governments to work with us to include in the TPP provisions to ensure strong worker protections, a healthy environment, safe food and products, and the ability to regulate financial and other markets to avoid future global economic crises.” But the truth is that only big business is partaking in consultations, with 600 lobbyists having exclusive passwords to online versions of the negotiating text.
A majority of Democratic representatives (132 out of 191) have expressed that they are “troubled that important policy decisions are being made without full input from Congress.” They have written to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk to urge him and his staff to “engage in broader and deeper consultations with members of the full range of committees of Congress whose jurisdiction touches on the wide-ranging issues involved, and to ensure there is ample opportunity for Congress to have input on critical policies that will have broad ramifications for years to come.” In their letter, the representatives also challenge “the lack of transparency of the treaty negotiation process, and the failure of negotiators to meaningfully consult with states on the far-reaching impact of trade agreements on state and local laws, even when binding on our states, is of grave concern to us.” U.S. Senators, for their part, have also sent a letter complaining of the lack of congressional access to the negotiations. What openness and transparency can we in Canada and Mexico expect when the decision to join the TPP, under humiliating conditions, was made without any public consultation?
NAFTA turns 20 years old in 2014. Instead of expanding it through the TPP we must learn from NAFTA’s shortcomings, starting with the historic lack of consultation with unions and producers in the three member countries. It is necessary to correct the imbalances in NAFTA, which as the North American union statement explains enhanced corporate power at the expense of workers and the environment. In particular, we need to categorically reject the investor-state dispute settlement process that has proven so costly, in real terms and with respect to our democratic options in Canada and Mexico. The unions’ statement of solidarity provides a strong foundation for the growing trinational opposition to the TPP in Leesburg, Virginia, and beyond.
Manuel Pérez-Rocha helps to coordinate the Networking for Justice on Global Investment project, as part of the IPS Global Economy Project.
Stuart Trew is the Trade campaigner for the Council of Canadians.
This article was distributed by Other Words.UFC light heavyweight contender Alexander Gustafsson has heard Anthony Johnson’s request to fight, and for now, the answer is no.
Gustafsson (16-2 MMA, 8-2 UFC) recently told Swedish tabloid Expressen that Johnson(18-4 MMA, 9-4 UFC) isn’t qualified to fight him just yet and needs more wins to earn the opportunity.
“We are not in the playground anymore,” he said. “It’s not about who is the toughest. … I want to keep (fighting for) a long time to come. You have to think tactically, and so you can’t just go in and (fight) the first opponent.”
Despite UFC President Dana White’s opinion that a fight between the two light heavyweights “makes sense,” Gustafsson is reportedly eyeing a title shot in Sweden, which was discussed as a location for a title rematch with Jon Jones (20-1 MMA, 14-1 UFC) before the champ nixed the idea and then went into contract negotiations that produced a date in Las Vegas.
Johnson, meanwhile, isn’t too pleased with Gustafsson’s reaction to his respectful callout on Facebook.
“What did I just read? Gus must’ve bumped his head,” Johnson said. “I respect his opinion but one thing is this. I left the playground a long time ago, I’m on the BATTLEFIELD now!”
After a knee injury forced Gustafsson to withdraw from this month’s UFC 178 event, Jones was rebooked to fight rival Daniel Cormier (15-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC). Then, a Jones knee injury prompted the promotion to postpone the matchup to UFC 182.
Gustafsson’s future has been up in the air since he was passed over a second time for the belt. He was expected to rematch Jones earlier this year before the champ decided to fight Glover Teixeira in April at UFC 172.
Expressen reported that Gustafsson is ready to wait three years to fight Jones in his home country and has received assurances from UFC executive Lorenzo Fertitta that he’ll get the chance if he waits for the outcome of Jones vs. Cormier.
He added that the UFC is considering an event at the 50,000-seat Friends Arena in Stockholm for next summer.
“If it is so that they guarantee me a title match in Sweden … I can wait three years,” Gustafsson said. “Then it does not matter.”
What does matter to the Swede, however, is maximizing his career opportunities by fighting the most notable opponents. Right now, he said, that list doesn’t include Johnson.
“Had that fight taken me somewhere I had been the first to accept,” he said. “Since (Johnson’s) return to the UFC after being kicked out, he has beaten Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, who passed his expiration date a long time ago, and Phil Davis. He needs at least a couple (of more wins).”
For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.MATT Taberner’s management are not willing to enter contract discussions with Fremantle until the end of Peel’s WAFL season, according to reports.
Taberner’s development has been one of the major talking points surrounding the Dockers, with limited opportunities in the senior team this year being offset by some tremendous form in the final rounds of the home-and-away season.
The 24-year-old finished the season with the best contested mark average in the league and kicked 11 goals in his eight games.
Drafted as a rookie at the end of 2012, Taberner is one of the few key forwards heading into the trade period without a deal for 2018.
Speaking to the AFL website, Taberner’s manager Anthony McConville said he had already been approached by the club regarding a contract extension, but the young forward was not willing to enter talks until after he had played for the Thunder in Sunday week’s WAFL grand final.
"Matt played eight games this year so he needs to sit back and assess his season and what he wants to do going forward,” McConville said.
“Fremantle ideally would like to start talks now, but it will all be done once he completes his season.”
The Dockers have already indicated they will be undergoing another list cull this off-season as part of the club’s ongoing rebuild.President Barack Obama’s first post-debate rally will take place Thursday morning at Sloan’s Lake Park in Denver, his campaign announced Sunday.
Obama previously announced he planned to hold a rally in Denver the day after Wednesday’s first presidential debate at the University of Denver but had not specified the location.
Thursday’s rally will take place in the northeast corner of the park, which is in northwest Denver. Doors for the event open at 7:30 a.m.
Free tickets for the rally will be available to the public starting Monday at one of the following campaign offices in Denver: 3867 Tennyson St., 3131 W. Alameda Ave. or 77 W 9th Ave.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, meanwhile, will hold a rally Monday afternoon in Denver at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum. For tickets to that event, visit the Romney campaign’s Colorado website.
John Ingold: 303-954-1068, [email protected] or twitter.com/john_ingoldMystery surrounds suspension of Nauru police commissioner during detention centre unrest
Updated
Nauru's government says an Australian Federal Police (AFP) officer who was in charge of the nation's police force was dismissed from the role in the middle of a riot that destroyed the island's detention centre.
The Federal Immigration Department estimates Friday night's protests caused $60 million worth of damage and more than 100 asylum seekers have now been charged.
The department is calling the incident a "disturbance" but Nauruan authorities are calling it a "riot".
Detainees burned buildings to the ground, including accommodation blocks which can house 600 people. The health centre and the dining room were also destroyed.
The director of the Nauruan government's information office, Joanna Olsson, has confirmed to the ABC Nauru's police commissioner, Richard Britten, who was on secondment from the AFP, was suspended during the protest.
It is understood there was a disagreement between the police commissioner and the Nauruan government, perhaps on how to deal with the unrest.
"Yes, he has been suspended. A local has been appointed to be the director of police, Richard was the commissioner of police and for the full details of the reasons behind [it], I'm not quite sure of it," Ms Olsson said.
"I think there might have been misunderstanding, or something to that degree between... perhaps himself and the government.
"But I'm not sure to what, to what extent or the real reasons were behind that."
She says many Nauruans have been upset by the actions of the asylum seekers and the damage they caused.
"Mind you, there was no escapees so they never got out into the community, which was a good thing, so there are undoubtedly angry Nauruans, but in terms of having the camp here, I think people are still okay with it," she said.
"I'm told about 60 security guards were flown in over the weekend, some non-essential staff have been returned back to Australia, only because they've got no office to work from, so they've replaced them with security staff.
"I'm assuming they will probably stay back on island for a bit longer, because maybe they need added security presence at the camps."
Police on standby ahead of unrest
Ms Olsson says the detention centre is still being cleaned up and revealed the events leading up to the unrest.
Local police were on standby from 2pm on Friday afternoon ahead of anticipated unrest.
"But actually the riot started about, roughly about 6:30pm on Friday afternoon, ended around 11pm," she said.
"They were sort of protesting. I'm told they wanted answers about their asylum claims. So that all erupted into violence and fires in the end.
"The police were there until about 5am."
The violence prompted Nauru's acting president to recruit some extra people into the police force during the protest.
"[The] Nauru police force was established throughout the evening. There was a couple of hundred, I'm told, local men went up there to assist," she said.
"But the police did a great job, they were at the frontline, they managed to hold the rioters inside the camp.
"Behind them was the Wilson security, which is the Australian company, they were behind them with the local security company and then there was the rest of the locals who were behind that line."
Ms Olsson has told the ABC that representatives from both governments are now meeting to decide how to proceed.
"I was up there just this morning, all the buildings are destroyed, except the recreation centre, the new kitchen," she said.
"Most of that was destroyed, all the food reserves has been destroyed as well."
The hundreds of asylum seekers at the centre have been housed in tents and are expected to be moved later in the week.
"It is hoped to have them moved by the end of the week to the second camp, which was supposed to be built for family accommodation," he said.
"They're still going to be in tents, I presume, at the second camp until they do the rebuilding of the federal accommodation for them.
"About 150, I'm told, are in jail, approximately probably about 400 that were at the camp."
Topics: immigration, community-and-society, crime, law-crime-and-justice, foreign-affairs, government-and-politics, federal-parliament, parliament, federal-government, nauru, australia
First postedblackmattersus.com Hello, Rosie. Thank you for the consent to share your opinion on the matters that bother us. Tell us few words about your blog.
Rosie I started ‘Make Me a Sammich’ in 2012 because I was frustrated with all the ways that society seemed to want me to believe that I was worth less than a man. I wanted an outlet to talk about my experiences with abuse and to connect with and, hopefully, empower others with similar experiences.
blackmattersus.com Among the posts about struggles of a woman in America, you write a lot about police brutality against Blacks. Quoting you, “police kill Black people at a rate of two per week.” These stats are shocking! More than that, unarmed black people were killed by police at 5x the rate of unarmed whites in 2015. What is your opinion on the issue? Why does it happen?
Rosie This issue is very important to me. I don’t think that all police brutality is racially based, but I do believe that there is a culture in American police forces that allows racism to thrive and does not punish racist cops. It does seem that many (white) people believe it when cops say they don’t have a choice—who will even go so far as to blame Tamir Rice for his murder when the police didn’t wait three seconds before gunning him down. Part of this may be that we’re taught police have a super dangerous job (it’s dangerous, sure, but in truth, it isn’t even in the top ten most dangerous jobs in America) and so I guess we give them a lot of leeway in “defending” themselves, but obviously that doesn’t apply in the Rice case, which like that of Michael Brown, seems to stem from a perception of Black children and teenagers as older, larger, and more dangerous than they actually are. Darren Wilson described Mike Brown as though he became the Incredible Hulk before his eyes. Cops were told by a dispatcher that 12-year-old Tamir Rice’s gun was probably fake, but they shot him anyway, and then described him as an adult. Internal police force practices—such as LAPD’s internal code “NHI” (No Humans Involved) when responding to gang violence—teaches cops to look at Black people as criminals but not as humans deserving of rights. This must change.
blackmattersus.com I do agree and believe that your blog is a good instrument to bring the change. You put a good humor and positive energy in there. Also, being an active and open person, you don’t hesitate to show your opinion to the public. Does this attitude bring you supporters or haters mostly?
Rosie I do try to inject humor whenever I can, but the blog was funnier in the early days. The more I learned, the less humor I found in the topics I wanted to write about. As for meeting people through the blog, that has been one of the most important parts of this work—connecting with all the other people out there fighting the same battles, healing from similar abuses, working through the same issues. The support—and the education—I’ve received from this community have been utterly invaluable. At the same time, I get angry people (mostly men) yelling at me and trolls trying to get a rise out of me. I’ve had men wish me dead (describing their wish in gruesome detail) and I’ve had them send
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away, and I don't want to speculate," he said.Awake, after weeks of slumber In the abyss of un-scared disillusion Painstakingly drawn in by sheer laziness And an environment of bleak hopelessness
Thought I knew the end from the very beginning But this, I didn’t plan for at first suddenly, I was strapped From my head to my toes I found myself without real hope
Hours ran by, biting moments Slowly, at first it seems till days passed on Weeks and months And my pen lost its breathe While I lost the fire in-depth
Now I awake, jittery, unfeeling wishing to bridge the gap Created the months of inactivity Hoping to fill this still emptiness within
Like a carved lifeless image of yesterday This way I have been, now at hour 48 Deep in thought, attempting each piece to find the right words
Slow at first it seems, till your image, our image by the stream hit A piece in the depth of me One sweet reminder, to me, opening new pages
The say quitters don’t win, winners don’t quit But this time, quitting left me with no option Just a little piece…Prosecutors in the western city of Aachen are questioning a man for spying on schoolgirls using the web cameras on their own computers. Police used the man's Internet Protocol (IP) address to track him to his home, according to an association of German data protection specialists.
The daily Westfalenblatt reported that the man spied used a computer virus to spy on over 150 girls. Prosecutors confirmed an investigation was ongoing but declined to comment on the number of victims.
A widespread problem
One girl's chat contacts provided a list of victims for the hacker
The case was discovered by Thomas Floss, a data protection advocate who gives presentations in schools to promote awareness of safe Internet practices. Two girls came forward after one of his presentations to tell him that their web cameras lit up even when the girls had not activated them.
Floss said he believes the problem to be widespread.
"I've visited 50 to 60 schools, and each time at least one girl tells me she has had this kind of problem," he said.
Floss's suspicions were confirmed when he discovered a so-called Trojan virus on one of the girl's computers. It is now believed the hacker broke into one of the girl's accounts on the ICQ chat application and sent the virus to new targets he found on the girl's contact list.
'Reset the Internet'
The girls knew something was wrong when their webcams lit up by themselves
Politicians responded to the uproar surrounding the case, stressing the need to protect young Web surfers from dangerous hackers.
"This case has made clear how web cameras and other input devices can be manipulated," said Federal Data Protection Commissioner Peter Schaar. "They pose a greatly underestimated danger."
Wolfgang Bosbach, a leading member of the Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, meanwhile called for a systematic prosecution of Internet crime to discourage copy-cats.
"This is why it's so important to educate especially children and teenagers about the dangers of the Internet," he said.
Stronger demands came from Klaus Jansen, head of the Association of German Detectives, who insisted that there was no longer room for anonymity on the Internet. Jansen called for identification requirements for web surfers - and for the introduction of a "reset button for the Internet" that would allow the German chancellor to remove Germany from the Internet in the case of an emergency.
A simpler solution?
Constanze Kurz of the hacker association Chaos Computer Club, dismissed Jansen's suggestions. "He can put away his science fiction novels now," she said.
Kurz stressed that anonymity on the Internet was key to freedom of information and the formation of opinions.
She prescribed a "quite simple solution to the problem: Put a sticker over the lens."
Author: David Levitz (apn/dpa/GLP/ots)
Editor: Sean SinicoIndia has banned telecom equipment from China citing national security reasons, heightening trade tensions between the two Asian economic giants.
In a recent order, the government has told mobile operators not to import any network equipment manufactured by Chinese vendors such as Huawei and ZTE.
Indian officials say the ban was prompted by concerns Chinese telecom equipment could have spyware or malicious software — known as "malware" — embedded in it which could give Chinese intelligence agencies access to telecom networks in India.
The ban and other regulations come less than a week after media reports that Chinese hackers had broken into the computer networks of India's security, defence and diplomatic establishment.
Approval required
Under strict new conditions, Indian telecom companies will have to get "security clearance" from India's Home Ministry before projects are approved, an official said Friday.
"All service providers have to submit details of the equipment used, and their applications will have to get security clearance from the home ministry," said Satyendra Prakash, a Telecommunications Ministry spokesman.
The government also ordered that the operation and maintenance of telecom networks be carried out "entirely" by Indian engineers.
Prakash said most countries had similar rules in place making it mandatory for companies to reveal their service providers in order to protect their database and network security systems.
China wants tech secrets
China itself is involved in a tussle with Europe and the United States over Beijing's attempts to force foreign suppliers of computer security technology to disclose how it works.
The United States and Europe have said Beijing's requirement that global technology suppliers reveal the inner workings of computer encryption and other security products to conduct business in China was protectionist.
The immediate beneficiaries from the ban on Chinese equipment imports would be European, U.S.-based and Indian telecom equipment manufacturers who would fill the enormous demand for mobile equipment in India.
The number of mobile phone users in India is expected to hit one billion by 2014, roughly twice what it is now, with some 20 million new users added each month.
Last year, the government banned imports of Chinese handsets without the International Mobile Equipment Identity, or IMEI, number, again citing security reasons such as the use of stolen handsets to make terror or hoax calls.
The IMEI number of a mobile phone is a 15-digit number unique to every mobile handset. It prevents stolen handsets from making calls and allows security agencies to track down a specific user.Finding and stopping terrorists before they strike is often compared to looking for a needle in a haystack, a cliché that speaks to the difficulty of preventing a crime that, while deadly, is uncommon. Counterterrorism officials still suggest that the task would become easier if they could use profiling to target Muslim communities. In other words, if they could shrink the size of the haystack.
But a new book by Dr. Marc Sageman, a veteran counterterrorism researcher and former CIA operations officer, argues that this approach, even if carried to its fullest extension in a nightmare scenario for civil liberties, would still be ineffective, because jihadist terrorism is such a statistically rare phenomenon.
In his book “Misunderstanding Terrorism,” Sageman counts 66 Islamic jihadist terrorist plots in Western countries between 2002 and 2012, involving a total of 220 perpetrators. This figure works out to an average of 22 terrorists per year, across a population of roughly 700 million people. Even narrowed to just the Muslim population in Western countries, estimated at roughly 25 million people, that’s less than one in 1 million Muslims a year who could be considered terrorists.
Describing a hypothetical dragnet conducted by Western countries that correctly identified terrorists 99 percent of the time, but accused innocent people 1 percent of the time, Sageman asks us to imagine the following:
If all the various police departments operating in the West collaborate and carry out a gigantic sweep by applying this profile to their respective Muslim populations in order to catch terrorists hiding in their respective societies, they would arrest all 22 terrorists that emerge in a given year. However, they would make a mistake 1 percent of the time for 25 million people, which comes to 250,000 people. Therefore, in order to catch all 22 global neo-jihadi terrorists, they would put 250,000 Muslims in jail by mistake.
Because terrorism is so uncommon, he writes, any strategy for combating it that involves policing entire communities is likely to end up harming huge numbers of innocent people — thus feeding the same climate of alienation and hostility that fosters political violence in the first place.
In the 1980s, Sageman helped organize Afghan resistance fighters against the Soviet Union. Over the decades since, he has interviewed hundreds of individuals accused of involvement in jihadist terrorism, documenting the circumstances of their cases and their personal motivations.
“Misunderstanding Terrorism” analyzes every jihadist terrorist plot that occurred in the United States and Europe over a 10-year period ending in 2012. The study excludes nonviolent terror-related cases, such as those involving financial donations or other material support charges, as well as sting operations in which plots were developed by agent provocateurs — a tactic favored by U.S. law enforcement agencies but viewed with skepticism in many European countries. His research comes to two broad conclusions. The first is that violent terrorist plots in Western countries are a statistically tiny phenomenon, which makes blanket counterterrorism approaches an ill-suited response. The second takeaway is that “social identity theory” — that is, how people self-identify in a crisis — is the primary motivating factor behind terrorist attacks.
Despite efforts to protect civil liberties, Sageman writes that profiling-based approaches have led the United States to “grossly overestimate the violent terrorist threat and commit a very large number of assessment errors.” The politically driven manipulation of the threat of terrorism has led Americans to “fibrillate in fear and bankrupt [themselves] with security” in response to a threat that is much smaller than they have been led to believe.
But why does the threat of terrorism resonate so much more in the popular imagination than other dangers? Sageman argues that identity politics influence our response to violence, both for victims and for perpetrators. Most Americans perceive terrorism as something that comes from an “out-group” rather than from people with whom they identify. As a result, an attack creates a sense of solidarity, leading people to react emotively, in contrast to the oft-muted response to more common forms of violence. This identity-driven reaction to terrorist violence also causes people to overestimate how prevalent terrorism really is, making them willing to commit wildly disproportionate resources to fighting it.
Sixteen years after 9/11, the war on terror still appears to have no end in sight, driven on by a circular logic of violence and retribution. Under the Obama administration, the U.S. government tried to frame its counterterrorism programs as not specifically targeting Muslims, while still carrying out airstrikes overseas and launching controversial “countering violent extremism” programs in Muslim communities. Although in recent years some national security experts like Sageman have begun to point out the self-defeating nature of American counterterrorism policies, Donald Trump’s approach – focusing explicitly on Muslim communities, implementing discriminatory immigration policies, expanding military action abroad, and declaring an open-ended war against the amorphous concept of “radical Islam” – isn’t a course correction.
Sageman argues that identity politics are also what fundamentally drives the terrorists themselves. U.S. government policies can consciously or inadvertently fuel a sense of conflict between different groups, in this case Muslims and Westerners. (Several government studies have also pointed to politics as a driver of terrorism, finding U.S. foreign policy as the most frequently cited motivation.)
“All of us see the world through the prism of identity, so when we see an escalation of a conflict happening between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ it inevitably leads some people toward political violence,” Sageman told The Intercept in an interview. “Looking at it in terms of foreign policy, when the government attacks other countries, oftentimes people who have a link to that country or identify with the people there will start categorizing themselves alongside the victims of those attacks.”
By categorizing huge swaths of the global population as enemies or potential enemies, Trump is engaging in hostile posturing toward very large numbers of people who pose no threat to the United States. Meanwhile, the rising death toll from his military actions has the potential to be a force-multiplier for terrorist recruitment. Thanks to advances in information technology, the destructive effects of U.S. military actions are more easily recorded and disseminated than they were a few decades ago. As they escalate, these actions are likely to trigger an emotive “in-group” reaction among those people who perceive themselves as targeted, Sageman says. Likewise, terrorist attacks in Western countries will trigger an emotive “in-group” reaction among Americans, continuing the cycle.
In Sageman’s view, factors like ideological extremism and economic deprivation, sometimes cited as root causes of terrorist violence, are secondary to political identity.
He notes that the phenomenon of identity-based violence has been repeated in different cultural and religious contexts in American history – including by people most Americans would now consider part of the “in-group.” During the Mexican-American War of 1846, an entire battalion of Irish Catholics fighting in the U.S. Army defected to the Mexican side out of a sense of solidarity with the suffering of their Mexican co-religionists, and in protest of the discrimination then faced by Catholics in the United States. Although this episode is largely forgotten today in the U.S., its memory continues to linger for some in Mexico and Ireland.
Sageman believes that the only path to winding down our present conflict is to expand our own “in-group.” In the United States, Sageman said that would mean “bringing everybody into the fold and saying that we’re all Americans, equally, and not just focusing exclusively on one group and defining them as suspicious and not completely part of the fold.”
“Crafting a sense of national identity that includes people instead of driving them further apart is what a leader is supposed to do,” he added. “If we are unable to respond to real threats in a proportional and focused manner, and if we see continue to see this cumulative radicalization of discourse, we will end up with more political violence at home, not less.”Feminism and Islam, The Unholy Alliance.” “Why Do Lesbians Fake So Many Hate Crimes?” “Fat Shaming Works.” These are a few of the speeches given by journalist and senior editor for Breitbart News, Milo Yiannopoulos, on his nationwide college speaking tour.
On Jan. 25, Yiannopoulos is scheduled to speak at University of Colorado Boulder, leaving many at CU and around town anxious as to what inflammatory remarks he’ll make about transgender people, Muslims and/or members of what he calls the “regressive left.”
In response, a group of CU students and staff have organized an alternative event called “BuffsUnited,” followed by a talk later that evening from transgender actress Laverne Cox (one of the stars of Orange is the New Black), while others are working to get Yiannopoulos’ talk canceled.
A 33-year old openly gay, Catholic, British conservative of Jewish and Greek descent, Yiannopoulos is perhaps best known for being banned from Twitter in July following racially-charged insults directed at actress Leslie Jones, one of the stars of the reboot of the movie Ghostbusters.
[Yiannopoulos didn’t respond to several interview requests by Boulder Weekly. All quotes from Yiannopoulos are from YouTube videos of his campus speaking engagements.]
Considering himself an “eternal 14 year old” and a “virtuous troll” whose main focus is to ridicule liberals with often ornate and usually profane language, Yiannopoulos was an early and ardent supporter of President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign. His former boss at Breitbart News, Stephen Bannon, is now Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor.
CU Boulder sophomore Nicolas Reinhardt is chapter president of Turning Point CU, the organization that invited Yiannopoulos, which is part of a national nonprofit dedicated to fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government, with chapters on over 300 college campuses.
Calling himself a moderate libertarian, Reinhardt points to the “high level of homogeny of the political ideology” at the mostly liberal CU, and says the purpose of inviting Yiannopoulos to campus is to “expose people to all perspectives so that … when they decide what they really believe in, they’re taking into consideration all viewpoints, not just the one that they may hear in their daily lives.”
He agrees that Yiannopoulos can be contentious and admits that “a lot of the things that he says we don’t agree with,” though his “trolly nature” can make politics fun.
With over 1 million Facebook likes, over 400,000 YouTube subscribers, and a packed house at nearly all of his talks, it’s clear that Yiannopoulos appeals to a certain segment of the population.
In late December, 24 hours after the announcement of his book deal with Simon & Schuster, pre-orders of Dangerous launched it to No. 1 on Amazon.
In early January, Yiannopoulos was declared LGBTQ Nation’s 2016 “Person of the Year,” having won almost 70 percent of votes in an open poll. The publication alludes to an orchestrated campaign from his supporters that may have skewed results in his favor.
Of course, not everyone is amused by Yiannopoulos, as shown by the many interruptions of his speaking events by members of the public who consider his statements to be both hateful and hurtful, especially to marginalized groups.
In May, two protesters interrupted his talk at DePaul University in Chicago by climbing on stage, snatching the microphone, chanting and blowing a whistle, resulting in the talk’s cancellation.
In December, seven protesters were arrested before Yiannopoulos’ event at Michigan State University for trying to prevent attendees from entering the building.
On January 14, protesters blockaded access to a planned talk by Yiannopoulos and former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli at University of California Davis. Citing security concerns, the hosting group, Davis College Republicans, canceled the talk 30 minutes before its scheduled start.
On other occasions, his talks have been canceled after universities imposed last-minute security fees, which hosting groups were unable to afford. Yiannopoulos receives no payment for his campus talks.
Two separate petitions are circulating at CU Boulder in an effort to get Yiannopoulos uninvited from speaking on campus. One of the petitions, which urges CU Chancellor Philip DiStefano to “revoke the invitation for Yiannopoulos to speak,” has over 1,800 signatures.
Buffs for Reproductive Justice and Fairview [High School] Students for a Democratic Society are organizing a protest on the night of the talk.
Reinhardt says he not only supports people’s right to question Yiannopoulos’ ideas, but welcomes the debate. However, he hopes that the opposition can “channel their passion in a way which will challenge Milo’s beliefs, instead of silencing them entirely.”
In early December, Chancellor DiStefano released a statement on the controversy, maintaining that while “discrimination and harassment have no place on our campus … to be a university dedicated to the free exchange of ideas, our students should be exposed to views that are both in line with their beliefs and those that are not.”
In response, over 200 CU faculty members signed a letter to the Chancellor asking that future university communications “differentiate more clearly between free speech and hate speech.”
Reinhardt disagrees with the notion that what Yiannopoulos has to say is hate speech, saying that people may be not be differentiating his snarky “comedic commentary from his political analysis.”
The name of Yiannopoulos’ tour — depicted in large letters on his bus with his cartoon likeness sitting on a throne, golden scepter in hand, carried by four shirtless men — is called “The Dangerous Faggot.”
Yiannopoulos often brings up the fact that he is gay during his talks, making jokes on the topic at his own expense. Is Yiannopoulos using humor to reclaim the “other F word” for the LGBTQ community?
Not so, says sophomore Brady Itkin, student outreach coordinator for CU’s Gay Straight Alliance. “If you’re just being disrespectful and hateful it doesn’t matter whether you’re gay or straight, or black or white, or red or green.”
Mardi Moore, executive director of Out Boulder agrees with Itkin’s assessment of Yiannopoulos. “I think he’s using it for shock value. He’s not reclaiming a word.”
Scarlet Bowen, director of CU’s Gender and Sexuality Center, also doesn’t think Yiannopoulos is advancing the LGBTQ cause, bringing up his remarks about transgender people being mentally ill. “I think that qualifies as hate speech,” she says.
In a December talk at the university of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Yiannopoulos showed a slide of and derided a transgender student who had recently been featured in the Media Milwaukee school newspaper for filing a complaint against the school after being asked to leave the women’s locker room. Following the incident, the individual reportedly quit school, according to the LGBT online newspaper Pink News.
It’s not just Yiannopoulos’ comments about transgender people that bother Bowen. “Pretty much any member of any protected class that the University covers in its policies against discrimination and harassment, Milo Yiannopoulos has something negative to say about them,” she says.
Few will disagree that what Yiannopoulos has to say can be disrespectful, unkind and even cruel at times, though whether his remarks qualify as hate speech may be up to interpretation. But if it is hate speech, is it against the law?
“In the United States there is no legal category for hate speech,” says Robert F. Nagel, Rothgerber Professor of Constitutional Law at CU (now retired) and visiting fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University.
“That means that what is commonly referred to as hate speech is in fact speech that is protected by the First Amendment,” he says. “It is, of course, a complicated question to determine what sort of speech should be considered appropriate on universities’ campuses, but people who think that issue can easily be resolved — by excluding ‘hate speech’ because it is legally unprotected — are operating from an inaccurate view of the law.”
One of Yiannopoulos’ main talking points is that members of the left, particularly “social justice warriors” and modern feminists, are trying to censor him, as well as anyone else using language they don’t approve of or expressing opinions they disagree with.
He points to political correctness, “language policing,” safe spaces, and trigger warnings as tactics for shutting down free speech and, ultimately, opposing viewpoints. As he sees it, the election of Donald Trump is, in part, a backlash against those looking to impose free speech restrictions on others.
As an act of protest following the announcement of Yiannopoulos’ book deal, The Chicago Review of Books refuses to review the book, nor any other book published by Simon & Schuster in 2017.
Brittany Gutermuth, an intern with Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center and a graduate student at Naropa, has worked for years on social justice issues, with a focus on fighting racism. What Yiannopoulos has to say is “really counterproductive to what I feel America needs right now,” she says.
However, while she thinks that it’s “good to oppose him and make that verbal,” she also acknowledges that some of the pushback, such as attempts to censor him, might be “making him more famous.”
Yet, Bowen says CU community members’ concerns about Yiannopoulos aren’t “a free speech issue so much as a campus safety issue.”
“When we prepare for him to be on campus, we’re not preparing just for him but for escalated levels of hostility that accompany people who come to his talks,” Bowen says. “We just wouldn’t want anyone protesting the event to get hurt in any way, physically or psychologically.”
“I don’t believe that he encourages hateful behavior,” Reinhardt counters. “Some things aren’t easy to talk about, but we need to talk about them.
“For true ideological diversity, we need to be able to have civil conversations with each other and understand where we’re coming from. It’s hard to express your opinions to people who don’t want to listen to them.”
His progressive politics aside, Brady Itkin is sympathetic to the plight of more conservative students such as Reinhardt. “I know I’ve had Republican friends who’ve felt not only disenfranchised, but felt hated on just as much as the vast majority of my friends in the LGBT community.”
Like Reinhardt, Itkin believes the way forward is through dialogue. However, Itkin also thinks Yiannopoulos is a “nonstarter to that conversation.”The 'Fast for Families' activists have been on the National Mall for 11 days.
On their 11th day without food, Vice President Joe Biden visited a group of immigration reform advocates who are going without food to bring attention to their issue.
Speaking at the “Fast for Families” tent on the National Mall, Biden told the fasters, “As my father would say, come hell or high water, we’re going to win this.” Eliseo Medina, a former Secretary-Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union called the visit inspiring.
“I was humbled and strengthened by his words and commitment to immigration reform,” Medina said in a statement. “He gives me more hope that we can finally address this moral crisis.”
Medina, who is a longtime immigration reform advocate, is fasting along with Cristian Avila, of Mi Familia Vota, and Dae Joong Yoon, of the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium. All three have said they’ll continue fasting until they can no long sustain or are “medically prevented from continuing their efforts,” according to a news release
Yoon said House Speaker John Boehner’s comments Thursday that the immigration reform effort is “absolutely not” over, along with Biden’s visit, is providing encouragement.
“This movement, our fast, is only a small sacrifice we make compared to the suffering endured by the families torn apart due to a dysfunctional immigration system,” said Yoon, a Korean immigrant. “It’s time we stop this suffering and get immigration reform done.”Move over Geelong. Fremantle, by virtue of their past seven days, have become the most interesting team in the AFL. What comes next will shape their fortunes for not just the next season, but the next five.
Ross Lyon has two years remaining on his current deal with Fremantle, which will take him to a full, six-year term with the Dockers upon its conclusion.
The departure of two of his lieutenants, Brett Kirk and Simon Lloyd, who had been at his side from the 2013 and from the start of Lyon’s reign respectively, have given him the chance to go after some fresh talent to help take the organisation to the next level.
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Do Fremantle bite the bullet, and extend their leader’s tenure for another year or two, giving him the space to properly mould his list and his coaching staff in an effort to bring the Dockers their first flag?
The brass have already shown faith once, extending Lyon’s original tenure by two years in 2014. To me, they would be wise to do so. After all, Lyon’s ascension to Fremantle was unmistakably about stewarding a solid young list, crafted over successive drafts, and taking it to the promised land.
These are the first in a series of very interesting decisions to be made at Fremantle over the next few months.
Make no mistake, Fremantle are not done. In fact, there’s plenty to suggest they haven’t peaked, and have further growth ahead of them. Don’t write Fremantle off yet.
In case you missed it, the Fremantle Dockers went down to the Hawthorn Hawks in last Friday’s preliminary final, by 27 points. That doesn’t do the game justice, though, with an unheard of 15.3 on shots for goal off Hawthorn boots putting the game beyond the reach of a less polished Fremantle side. The Dockers and Hawks were within two scoring shots of one another for the vast majority of the game, excluding Hawthorn’s period of dominance to end the first quarter.
All told, the Dockers kept Hawthorn, now the undisputed greatest team of the modern era, to just 19 scoring shots, down from a season average of 29. The Hawks averaged 23 shots in their six regular season losses: Lyon won the tactical battle, but just couldn’t quite get it done where it matters.
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It caps another year in the Ross Lyon era that fell short of the mark, albeit an improvement on the straight sets finals exit in 2014. If we extend Lyon’s record out further, beyond his tenure at the Dockers (and I’m sure you’ve seen this stat elsewhere), it takes his record in finals to sub-50 per cent, compared to his regular season record of close to 70 per cent.
But, please, this does not make Fremantle a bad football team. In fact, they’ve accumulated the third most wins of any single team over the past three years, behind premiers Hawthorn and Sydney. It’s just yet to translate to a win in the last game of the season.
Indeed, it’s fascinating to see how all of a sudden Fremantle have become this ‘unfulfilled’ football team, just five months after many were saying they would miss the eight all together this season. I wasn’t one of them. It’s almost as though many in the media just make it up as they go along. But I digress.
The Dockers showed in the first half of 2015 that they have the skills and physical attributes to play premiership-standard football. They never really put sides to the sword, Hawthorn style, but when they were at their peak Fremantle would play their opponents out of the game early. More often than not, it was lights out at quarter time.
It is another finals exit, nonetheless, and what has followed in the hours and days after Friday night’s disappointment have added a level of intrigue at Fremantle that exists at no other team in the AFL.
Most of it centres on the coach, and whether he will persist with his adherence to defensive structure or look to score more often in an effort to build a premiership team. I see this as far too simplistic an argument: offence versus defence isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition.
Indeed, this year’s two grand finalists ranked second (Hawthorn) and fifth (West Coast) in defensive efficiency rating (DER) in 2015 despite being the first and second most potent scoring sides.
It sounds like an obvious thing to say, but the only way you can score goals is with the ball in-hand, and the only way your opponent can score goals is if they have the ball. Offence and defence are interrelated; you can prioritise one over the other, sure, but the overlap between the two is too much to treat each independently.
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Fremantle’s first half of the season is a testament to this. In the first nine games, the Dockers were the highest ranked defence in the league, but were also in the top six on offensive efficiency rating (OER) as they forced their opponents through a fine mesh screen. They got out to nine wins early on, and effectively coasted to the Round 23 finish line.
They did the same against a stodgy Sydney in the first week of the finals, and did their utmost to do it to Hawthorn. Well, they actually did, before some interventionist umpiring closed the gap. Fremantle were on. David Mundy’s filthy move in the first minute spoke to where his team were at mentally.
David Mundy flat out ignoring his Hawthorn opponents (@AnnaHarrington_): pic.twitter.com/7qzcHIDi4Q — Ethan (@ethan_meldrum) September 27, 2015
But alas it didn’t come to pass.
Ross Lyon’s post match press conference – have a listen if you haven’t already – was incredibly honest, open, and the coach didn’t hold back. He acknowledged his team’s success, but also its failings. He protected his players, and put himself up as the one accountable for the loss.
When the journalists fell back on tired heuristics about lack of forward line players, he got the baseball bat out. It had all of the markings of a man invested in his team and its success: improvement, development, getting better.
But more than that, it was finally an admission. Ross Lyon understands Fremantle’s problem: his team doesn’t have the forward line stars that those around him have acquired or developed. His assessment in his press conference was quite cutting: “We don’t have an extra $1 million in the salary cap to attract those big key forwards… we went after Kurt Tippett, Travis Cloke, Lance Franklin, Tom Hawkins, they didn’t want to come.”
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Its been the Achilles heel of Fremantle for as long as I can remember – every time a key position player comes on to the market, Fremantle are mentioned as a team kicking the tyres. The biggest fish they’ve landed in recent times is Scott Gumbleton, who would have been a handy piece if not for his twine-like hamstrings. Chris Tarrant came before Lyon’s time, but ended up playing as a defender. Jake Carlisle has reportedly already rebuked the Dockers.
Indeed, the last time the Dockers landed a bonafide key position player that has made a lasting contribution was Luke McPharlin in 2001, 14 years ago. That says a lot.
It isn’t just the key forward stakes, though. Outside of Michael Walters, the Dockers are running dry in the small forward department too. Hayden Ballantyne simply can’t be relied upon to kick goals these days. Sure, he’s a great forward pressure artist, and demands a defensive assignment, but he’s too hit-and-miss where it counts.
The Dockers have a number of young up-and-coming small players, but none that project to be in the class of those available to the teams around them on the ladder.
That makes this upcoming trade period so important. And for the first time in the club’s history, a number of forward line players have publicly stated they wish to come to Western Australia. Sydney’s Lewis Jetta, Gold Coast’s Harley Bennell, and Greater Western Sydney’s Cam McCarthy have all stated, publicly or privately (to the media…) that they wish to continue to ply their trade in more familiar surrounds.
But Fremantle have historically been an incredibly conservative team when it comes to trading. Indeed, in the past five years, Fremantle have traded in just three established players (Jonathon Griffin, Tendai Mzungu, and Gumbleton), preferring instead to build through the draft. That’s worked for them well at this stage, and has meant that the Dockers have a sneaky-young list heading into 2015.
Which briefly brings us to the prospects of a number of their senior players. Fremantle’s 2015 list now has eight players that are 30 years or older on it – sounds pretty dire, right?
Here they are:
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Luke McPharlin
Matthew Pavlich
Aaron Sandilands
Ryan Crowley
Michael Johnson
Paul Duffield
David Mundy
Colin Sylvia
We can already put a line through Sylvia. McPharlin will almost certainly retire, while the futures of Crowley and Duffield must be up in the air given how their 2015 seasons have unfolded. Sandilands (contracted for another year), Mundy (career best year) and Johnson will all play on, with Mundy in particular showing no signs of slowing down – indeed he hit the little red button.
That leaves Pavlich. The champ, who will be a walk-up hall of famer regardless of whether he plays on for another year and wins a premiership, has most certainly earned the right to take his time deciding whether he’ll play on for another season. While he may not be the around-the-ground threat he once was, like Ballantyne he commands a match-up, and still has the strength to match it with the big boys at AFL level.
My record on picking what players will do is patchy at best, so take this with a pinch of salt, but I think he goes around one more time. Perhaps he plays 12 or so games during the regular season – gets the Tim Duncan treatment – to keep him fresh for another tilt at September.
I don’t even think it’s that that will keep him going, to be honest. It will be the prospect of working alongside Matthew Taberner (who is still just 21 years old, everyone), Michael Apeness (20 years old) and McCarthy as they grow and develop in Fremantle’s system. Sort of like a player-coach, even though by all reports Pavlich sees his future in the media, not in the trenches.
But wait, I hear you gasp, Fremantle don’t trade! Well, I have a feeling this is about to change, big time. Club CEO Steve Rosich was on Melbourne radio over the weekend, and sent a very clear message to clubs right around the country: ‘We don’t do deals that don’t make sense, but guess what? We now know what we need, and are prepared to deal in order to get it.’
You see, Fremantle have used anywhere from four to eight picks in the national draft since 2010, and have built a list bursting at the seams with young talent. Contrast that to Lyon’s St Kilda teams, who were so top heavy and bloated by the time he was finished there that a full rebuild was required. Once you take out the four 30-year-olds from Fremantle’s 2015 list, the Dockers are actually almost as young as the West Coast Eagles.
They don’t need to pick high in the draft over the next two or so years, and can be expected to leverage the hell out of their first and second round draft picks, and perhaps a couple of their younger players, in order to bring in the forward line talent they need. Like Geelong’s quest for Patrick Dangerfield, Fremantle may find that the ability to trade future draft picks has come at just the right time for them.
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Cam McCarthy and Lewis Jetta will be first round pick worthy, no bones about it. The Swans, by virtue of their trading ban (which limits them to bringing in a single player with a contract value of less than $450,000 in addition to players with salaries less than the AFL average) will likely be restricted to taking draft picks from the Dockers – although one of Fremantle’s young, emerging midfielders may help grease the wheels and keep Jetta out West Coast’s hands.
Cam McCarthy, who projects as a very good, 10-year key forward, will command at least one first round draft pick. Yet a player whom the Giants would target is a little more uncertain given they’re stacked at every position.
Harley Bennell is the interesting one. There have been stories linking him to Melbourne teams, but equally there have been stories stating he would prefer to come home to Western Australia. Bennell would add an outside presence that has been managed by Danyle Pearce and Stephen Hill to this point, in contrast to the three-prong sets available to most other teams around the top of the ladder.
Both Pearce and Hill are left-footed, too, while Bennell can kick on both sides. As ‘damaged goods
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virtuosity that are arguably without precedent for a female ballerina. (Rudolf Nureyev had a famously late and chaotic start, his early training having been limited by the vagaries of the post-Second World War Soviet Union.) Many professional ballet dancers begin their training around the age of three. Every dancer is a synthesis of givens—height, limb length, natural turnout—and intense effort, but Copeland’s late start can exaggerate the tendency we might have to regard a ballerina as simply touched by something divine. When she was thirteen, and very shy, Copeland followed the lead of her older sister Erica and tried out for the middle-school drill team. She choreographed her own piece, set to George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex.” The closing move was a split, head held high. The evening after the audition, she received a call saying that she had been named captain of the squad of sixty. The team’s coach, Elizabeth Cantine, was new, and Erica, who had been a drill-team star, told Misty that this was unfortunate; the old coach had led the team to wins all over the state, while Cantine was an unknown, just someone who’d been hired to teach history and English. But Cantine had a background in classical dance, and, after working with Misty for a short time she suggested that she try the ballet class at the Boys & Girls Club. “I wasn’t excited by the idea of being with people I didn’t know, and though I loved movement, I had no particular feelings about ballet,” Copeland said. “But I didn’t want to displease Liz.” Cindy Bradley, who taught the class, told me, “I remember putting my hand on her foot, putting it into a tendu pointe, and she was definitely able to go into that position—she was able to go into all the positions that I put her into that day—but it wasn’t about that.” Bradley said she had a kind of vision, “right then, that first day, of this little girl becoming amazing.” Copeland recalls her first class differently: “I was so embarrassed. I didn’t know anything that the other girls in the class knew; I thought I was doing everything wrong.” But she kept attending the class. Copeland had an unusual body: her shoulders were sloped, her legs were long, her knees were hyperextended, and she was effortlessly flexible and strong even as she was very slight. She was in the habit of entertaining her siblings (and slightly weirding them out) by linking her hands together, putting them over her head behind her ears, and then getting her elbows to bend in the wrong direction. She also had a natural ability to quickly memorize and mimic any movement she saw. She began attending ballet classes five days a week, at Bradley’s studio in San Pedro. “One day, it just clicked,” Copeland told me. “I began to understand what it was.” According to Copeland, the beginning of her ballet career overlapped with her family’s abrupt move out of her second stepfather’s spacious home and into a single room of the Sunset Inn, near a highway and liquor stores, in Gardena. The move left her with a long commute to school and then home from ballet practice. Her brother Douglas recalls them missing their bus one afternoon, and walking the thirteen miles home. Seeing an exhausted Copeland one evening, her mother, Sylvia DeLaCerna, told her that she had to give up ballet. Copeland didn’t protest; that wasn’t what she was like. But the next evening DeLaCerna and Bradley spoke, and they decided that Misty would spend the weekdays at the Bradley home and weekends with her family. “I hadn’t been married that long,” Bradley explained, “and we had a two-year-old son, but I just walked into our home that night and called out to my husband, ‘I have Misty here with me, and she’s going to be staying with us.’ ” Bradley waived Copeland’s ballet-school fees, and other community members contributed to the cost of her leotards and pointe shoes. “When I was dancing, I felt in control, and happy,” Copeland said. “I’m a Virgo, so I really like to be in control.” For most of the next three years, she lived with the Bradleys. Fairly predictable tensions arose between the two families. “I felt very loved and accepted by the Bradleys—I felt like a member of the family,” Copeland told me. “I’m not sure my attitude was so great when I would go home and complain about canned string beans, and say that I preferred shrimp scampi. My mom was working all day, and she had six children.” Copeland shared a room with the Bradleys’ young son, Wolf, attended synagogue with Bradley’s parents, and at the dinner table all attention was centered on her and her goals. Bradley’s husband, a modern-dance teacher, was Copeland’s pas-de-deux instructor and partner. “I loved the attention,” Copeland told me. At fifteen, Copeland attended the San Francisco Ballet summer intensive program on a full scholarship; at the end of it she was invited to study with the school. (She turned the invitation down, planning to try out for her dream company, A.B.T.) Copeland believes, in retrospect, that her mother saw her summer success as evidence that she no longer needed the Bradleys—she could now move back in with her family and attend a ballet school nearby. At the time, however, both Copeland and the Bradleys felt that this would damage Copeland’s career. Everyone panicked. In her memoir, Copeland relates that the Bradleys introduced her to a lawyer, and she filed for emancipation. DeLaCerna filed restraining orders against the Bradleys, claiming that they had brainwashed her daughter. Copeland was too young, by a few weeks, to take action anyway. At one point, police officers picked Copeland up, so that she could be reunited with her mother, and for the next decade she saw little of the Bradleys. “It was a nightmare,” Copeland told me. Her story was covered extensively in newspapers and on television. “I had no places left for privacy, where I could feel safe. Everyone had an opinion about what happened.” Eventually, all sides withdrew their claims. A while later, Copeland went with Elizabeth Cantine to try out for A.B.T.’s summer intensive session; she was accepted, and at the end of the program she was invited to join the studio company. Her mother expressed reservations, but ultimately said that the choice was Copeland’s. After spending another year at home, Copeland moved to New York. “All of our plastic utensils are manufactured locally.”
“None of this is a fairy tale,” Craig Salstein, an A.B.T. soloist who has danced with Copeland since her earliest days in the company, told me. He was talking about ballet in general, but it applies equally to Copeland’s career path. Only a few months after she became a member of A.B.T.’s corps de ballet, at the age of eighteen, she found out that she had a lower-vertebral fracture. She had to wear a brace twenty-three hours of the day, and for a year she was unable to dance at all. A doctor, learning that she had not yet menstruated, told her that this was likely contributing to weakness in her bones. He recommended that Copeland begin taking birth-control pills to induce puberty. Within ten days, she began menstruating, and in a short time her figure changed from ballet-tiny to Marilyn Monroe. Her body, which at the start of her career had been considered perfect for ballet—she was said to have the “Balanchine body”—was suddenly no longer the ideal. “I was scheduled to do Clara, in ‘The Nutcracker,’ before that injury,” Copeland said. More than a decade passed before she was offered the role again. Copeland says that eating disorders are not as pervasive among ballerinas as people think. Nearly every woman has at times felt that the shape of her body has determined an overwhelming proportion of someone’s response to her; ballet dancers, so much more intimately aware of their bodies’ appearance and ability both, might—through professionalism, through necessity—have a healthier way of relating to their bodies than the rest of us. Then again, the stakes are higher. Copeland had never given much thought to her diet, but when it was suggested to her that she needed to “lengthen”—balletspeak for losing weight—she rebelled. This was pretty much the first time in her life that she had done so, and, in the way of a young person, she mostly damaged herself. “I didn’t want to be seen ordering huge amounts of food, but the local Krispy Kreme would do deliveries if the order was large enough,” Copeland said. “After practice, I would order two dozen doughnuts and then, alone in my apartment, eat most of them.” She felt that her ballet career was getting away from her, that she was far from family, that she was alone. “I was barely over a hundred pounds, but I felt so fat, and even a stranger at a club, when I told him I was a ballerina, said, ‘No way,’ ” Copeland recalled. “It took me about five years to figure out how my body worked, and to understand how to make my muscles more lean.” Even though Copeland now has a more elongated—more classical—physique, and no longer has a double-D chest, she remains more buxom than most ballet dancers, and also more visibly athletic. A significant part of what distinguishes her is her un-classical body. Marie Taglioni, the nineteenth-century ballerina, is thought to have had special appeal because her proportions didn’t conform to the ideal; her rounded back made her lean forward a tiny bit, so that she seemed on the verge of losing her balance; her physical limitations ended up shaping what became her definitive style. And it was arguably with Taglioni that ballet—a man’s game until a hundred years before, with men “en travesti” even playing the roles of women in most serious productions—began to be about ballerinas. In a recent production of “La Bayadère,” at the Metropolitan Opera House, Copeland played Gamzatti, a raja’s daughter who has been promised the warrior Solor as a husband, even as Solor has declared his love for a temple dancer, Nikiya. Copeland’s scene with Alina Cojocaru’s Nikiya was tense and complicatedly erotic—a highlight of the ballet. But it was the scene that followed, in which Gamzatti mostly sits at the side of the stage, that stayed with me. While Nikiya dances for Gamzatti’s betrothal, Gamzatti has to put on a game face about the love triangle. Copeland’s commitment to the minimal movement required by her role—to the expressiveness of her neck and her long-fingered hands—means that emotion must be compressed into the smallest gestures. Even her simple walk was mesmerizing, her stiff yellow tutu moving as softly as a sea anemone. (Ballet costuming often seems ridiculous at first glance, but usually reveals its own special mechanics.) When I went backstage after the show to meet Copeland, a very slight, smiling woman came out, wearing a black sports bra and overalls that left her narrow back exposed. The formidable Gamzatti was gone. The actors Nicole Ari Parker and Boris Kodjoe had brought their two young children to meet Copeland, and when she posed for a photo with them she might have been the third child. People often find that ballerinas seem smaller offstage, an effect attributable, in part, to the elongation of their legs in pointe shoes, but also to charisma.
Those of us who are outside the world of ballet tend to think of it as a very old art form: Louis XIII wrote ballets, and Louis XIV danced in forty productions. But ballet, like so many venerable and beautiful things, has been too easily co-opted into the fallacy of our assumption that its worth today is best measured by fidelity to its original form. In the ballet of the French aristocracy, different body types were assigned to different character types—tall people played nobles, shorter people played comic roles—and, in a dance, the choreography emphasized the king’s literal superiority over the court. After the French Revolution, those norms changed, and the ballet we now think of as classical is, in large part, derived from a radical reaction against original ideals. The story of ballet in America also began as a devotion to ballet as it once was; it was seen as something from across the ocean. In the nineteen-forties, Ballet Theatre, the precursor to A.B.T., an American company, was billed as “The Greatest in Russian Ballet.” As the historian and former dancer Jennifer Homans details, in “Apollo’s Angels,” it was not until after the Second World War that a distinctively American ballet began to form. (This followed some tender failings with ballet scenarios about Billy the Kid and Pocahontas.) The United States government, which took a Cold War interest in developing an American ballet—and culture—that could rival the Russians’, began to fund émigré dancers and choreographers who had fled to New York. When the dance companies toured abroad, they travelled in Army buses and slept at Air Force bases. “I could represent America... better than ice boxes and electric bathtubs can,” George Balanchine said. Russian dancers who came to America were treated like trophies: Rudolf Nureyev was flown on a private plane to have tea at the White House with Jacqueline Kennedy. Ballet, and ballerinas, have been deployed to extoll the king, and then the Politburo, and then the President—but the art often exceeded what was asked of it. With the mixed blessing of generous funding, choreographers like Balanchine, Antony Tudor, and Arthur Mitchell created a ballet scene in America that was like nowhere else in the world—radical, classical, old, new, constrained, and wild. Perhaps it’s not surprising that some of the ballets most beloved in the U.S. are about captive birds and mistresses treated other than ideally yet remaining devoted.
When I visited Copeland backstage after “La Bayadère,” I met a friend of hers, eighty-year-old Raven Wilkinson, an elegant older woman who wore her hair twisted into a topknot. Wilkinson was born in Harlem, and in 1955 joined the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo for its American tours. “I had been told not to try out, that they wouldn’t take me, because they toured through cities in the South,” Wilkinson said to me, when we met for lunch a while later. She has African, Native American, and European ancestors; she is pale, and onstage she wore powder. “But I thought, Well, if I don’t even try out I know I’ll never have what I want.” Wilkinson toured with the Ballet Russe for two years, dancing the Chinese solo in “The Nutcracker,” a solo in the famous waltz of “Les Sylphides,” and in the pas de trois in “Raymonda.” Then, in 1957, at a hotel for whites in Atlanta, Wilkinson noticed the hotel manager talking to the director of the ballet. The manager walked over to the elevator operator, who was black, and asked her to point out who among the dancers might be “colored”; she pointed to Wilkinson. The manager called a cab for her—one that served colored people—and she spent the night at a colored hotel. After that, booking agents in the South were aware of the colored ballerina; Wilkinson would sometimes skip the company’s Southern engagements and, instead, rejoin the company when it reached Baltimore. Eventually, Wilkinson left the U.S. to dance with the Dutch National Ballet, encouraged by the black American dancer Sylvester Campbell, who had joined the company. “I swear, he was better even than Nureyev—I used to think his joints were ball bearings,” Wilkinson told me. Europe had a reputation for being more open to dancers of color, and the Dutch treat their dancers very well; they receive pensions, and after retirement they are offered training for other work. “But I felt I was American,” Wilkinson said. “And, when I was done dancing, I wanted to come home.” For many years, she played small roles with the New York City Opera. The original dream of a uniquely American ballet was of a company that mixed whites and “Negroes”—the term used by George Balanchine, one of the co-founders of New York City Ballet. Balanchine had been influenced by working with Josephine Baker, the black American dancer who became a celebrity in France during the twenties. His vision was only occasionally realized: in his famous “Agon,” he choreographed a pas de deux for Diana Adams and Arthur Mitchell, a white woman and a black man. “Agon” was performed in 1957, to critical celebration, even though it could not be shown on television until 1968. Balanchine also made Maria Tallchief, who was of Osage heritage, an early star of the New York City Ballet. (For a time, he also made her his wife.) Many black ballet dancers, including Wilkinson, were encouraged to concentrate on “African dance,” or maybe modern dance or musical theatre—even if they had spent years training in classical ballet. Virginia Johnson, long a lead ballerina and now the artistic director of Dance Theatre of Harlem, a predominantly African-American ballet company, once said she had been told by someone with good intentions that she could never be a ballerina because there aren’t any black ballerinas. That is not quite true today, but it’s in the neighborhood of true. “Let’s be honest,” Susan Fales-Hill, a writer and a philanthropist who served on the board of A.B.T., says. “Most ballet companies look like an Alabama country club in 1952.” There is a small number of Asian-American ballerinas, and a small number of black ones. The reasons usually cited include the holdover of antiquated ideas of beauty, the lack of role models, the preference for a uniform look among the corps dancers in a company, and the high cost of years of training. (Pointe shoes, for example, are around seventy dollars a pair, and a serious dancer can easily go through a pair a week.) Lauren Anderson, a longtime principal dancer with the Houston Ballet, was the first African-American woman to reach the rank of principal ballerina with a major American company other than D.T.H. (Principal is the highest rank for a dancer, above soloist.) She played Odette/Odile a number of times before she retired, in 2006. “When we think of ballerinas, we think of pink and pale and fluffy,” she told me. “We’re not accustomed to thinking of black women’s bodies in that context. We’re accustomed to thinking of black women as athletic and strong. But all ballerinas are athletic, all ballerinas are strong.” In 2004, when D.T.H. went dormant for nine years, because of financial difficulties, only one of its dancers was offered a job with a major American ballet company. “For many people, even if the physical things are there, this one physical factor—skin color—makes it hard to see the others,” Johnson told the critic Marina Harss, in an extended interview that appeared in DanceTabs. Johnson has said that she regularly gets calls from ballet companies saying that they are looking for more dancers of color, but the problem goes beyond casting. D.T.H. hosts a summer session for kids from around the country, and “for so many of them this is the first time they’re in a classroom that really welcomes them,” she said. “But I look at these dancers and I see that they’re not being corrected. There are some very basic things going on that reveal that they’re being ignored.” Copeland told me, “People will say, ‘Isn’t it really about class, not race?’ ” She explained that she sometimes felt a more natural connection to some of the A.B.T. dancers who grew up abroad; in Russia and Cuba, for example, ballet is more a part of popular culture, and dancers come from all social classes. “But I think there is more to it than that. I can see now how I was so well supported, even in my low times, but I don’t know if I ever felt like I belonged.” “You can’t imagine how much it means to people, to see themselves onstage,” Fales-Hill said. At a crowded luncheon held in Copeland’s honor by the New York alumnae chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority (founded at Howard University, in 1913), Copeland answered questions about her life and her career, but she also simply listened, as one woman after another—engineers, lawyers, journalists—stood up to praise and bless her. One woman asked her what her goals were, now that she had achieved so much, and Copeland said, right off, like a mantra, “My goal is to become the first African-American principal dancer with A.B.T.” After a pause, she added, “And, you know, of course, to get married and have kids.” (Copeland lives with her boyfriend, Olu Evans, a lawyer.) Copeland acts as a mentor to aspiring dancers, including Makeda Roney, a young woman who wrote Copeland a letter while she was in tenth grade, after seeing her perform. Roney, who was recently accepted into a yearlong program with the Joffrey Ballet, in Chicago, says that she calls or writes to Copeland whenever she feels anxious or discouraged. “She’s like a sister to me,” Roney said. Copeland has also been a public face for A.B.T.’s recent Project Plié initiative, which provides training and scholarships for kids who live in communities where there is little exposure to ballet. Copeland’s artistic and commercial successes make us all feel good—about ballet, about America—and yet that feeling is somewhat tendentious. It is impossible to distill the current role of race in ballet (or in any field) from one woman’s career. Copeland’s race makes her immediately distinctive in the ballet world, and this has undoubtedly helped her commercial career, but murmurings, on some online dance-discussion threads, that she has been excessively promoted within A.B.T. because of her race overlook not just her virtuosity but also the many years in which she wasn’t a soloist, or even a lead dancer. The immensely talented young ballet dancer Michaela DePrince, an orphan from Sierra Leone who was adopted at the age of four by a New Jersey family, danced for a short time with D.T.H., but said that she yearned for “the frills, flounce, and romance of classical ballet” that connected her to her childhood love of fairy tales. (D.T.H. is a classical ballet company, but its repertoire largely consists of shorter pieces, rather than long crowd-pleasers like “Romeo and Juliet.”) Raven Wilkinson said to me, toward the end of our lunch, “I don’t want to sound bitter—I’ve never been a protester—but when I saw that Michaela DePrince had left for the Dutch National Ballet, as I had, I felt like nothing had changed.” She continued, “I asked Michaela, ‘What about American companies?’ She said she was told she didn’t have the right body type.”
In April, 2012, Copeland danced her first full lead role in an A.B.T. production, as the Firebird in the Stravinsky ballet. Alexei Ratmansky, the former artistic director of the Bolshoi, modelled the choreography, in part, on Copeland’s body, as well as on those of the two other lead dancers playing the role. In “Firebird,” an enchanted bird is caught by a prince who will not free her unless she promises to exercise her powers on his behalf; eventually, she does so, and, along the way, she helps free some enchanted maidens and reunite the prince with his beloved. The Los Angeles Times praised Copeland’s Firebird as “abandoned” and “creaturely,” and, in this magazine, Joan Acocella wrote that her performance showed that her artistry merited promotion to principal dancer. Days after Copeland’s first Metropolitan Opera House performance in New York, she discovered that she had six stress fractures in her left tibia; she had surgery to insert a titanium plate in her shin. The hyperextended knees that are part of what makes Copeland’s lines so lovely also make her more vulnerable to certain kinds of injury, just as the pointe shoes that foster the illusion of a ballerina’s length also damage her feet. Already, Copeland was approaching an age when dancers don’t have many years left, and now she wasn’t sure how long she would be sidelined. “I went to the J.C.C. near my house, because I knew I would want to swim as part of my recovery,” Copeland told me. “I just took the Pilates class, on a whim. After class, in the locker room, I had showered—I didn’t even have clothes on—and this tiny little woman, smaller than me, she comes up to me while I’m naked, saying, ‘You look like that ballerina Misty Copeland. You look too small to be her—not tall enough—but those look like her legs,’ ” Copeland recounted. “I thought, Great, here’s a crazy person.” It was Marjorie Liebert, a former dancer, now in her sixties, who taught a class in her apartment, in something that Copeland had never heard of: barre-à-terre, a method of doing ballet while, basically, lying on the floor. “My résumé says I’m five feet tall, but I’m not,” Liebert told me. “I’m four foot eleven. It didn’t help my ballet career: many people wouldn’t even let me try out.” After an accident and a subsequent surgery, in the nineteen-seventies, Liebert went to Paris, intending to dance. She had heard of a healing class taught by a man named Boris Kniaseff, who had a devoted following. “I went, and first I thought, This is interesting. I went again, and I thought, This is important. In a month, I grew an inch and a half. I know that sounds unbelievable, but it’s true.” Kniaseff supposedly developed barre-à-terre after seeing circus performers begin their exercises while lying on the floor. Liebert became a disciple of sorts, and when Kniaseff died she began to teach his technique; eventually, she moved back to New York, bringing it with her. For seven months, Copeland worked with Liebert nearly every day. “I absolutely wouldn’t be the dancer that I am now without her,” Copeland told me more than once. Liebert explained to me that many people are unable to stick with a barre-à-terre class. Transitioning between positions while lying on the floor requires using muscles in a different way than people are accustomed to. “Lying on the floor, you have a different perspective. You really have to find your center to make yourself better, to hold yourself up.” Copeland hesitated to admit that her injury, which healed slowly, had been a difficult time for her. She joked, “There were a couple days when Marjorie was sick, and that was very hard for me, it’s true. My boyfriend said to me, ‘That’s what happens when your closest friend is in her sixties.’ ” In May, 2013, Copeland was back onstage. Her first performance, as Queen of the Dryads, in “Don Quixote,” disappointed her. But a week later she felt that she was performing at a new level. When I asked Kevin McKenzie, A.B.T.’s artistic director, why he has had the confidence to cast Misty in so many lead roles in the past two years, he said, “She learned so much from her periods off.” He continued, “Even though she had this late start and meteoric rise, in the end her training was as long as anyone’s. She had gone through puberty and had a different body, and then she excelled again. She had a heinous injury; she came back better—more mature, more analytical. Because she had to be, because she knew she couldn’t take her body for granted. I’m a firm believer that, no matter how talented you are when you’re young, there’s a certain amount of life experience you can’t accelerate. Misty could have done these same roles—technically—ten years ago, but she wouldn’t have been ready.” Lauren Anderson told me that she had played the Sugar Plum Fairy for twenty-five years, and that the role kept evolving as she herself changed. “You’re playing someone else, but you’re also yourself—you have to be in order to be believable,” she said. When Anderson premièred the Odette/Odile role, she was coming out of a divorce. “I took all the tragedy and heartbreak and just brought it out onstage with me. When I was onstage, I was free from the problems of my life. I was someone else.” Liebert said simply, “We dance who we are.”BY: Follow @CharlesFLehman
Imran Awan, former IT aide to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.), was indicted Thursday on charges of bank fraud and making false statements.
Awan's wife, Hina Alvi, was also indicted by a U.S. District Court grand jury, Fox News reports. Awan was arrested last month at Dulles International Airport while trying to board a flight to his native Pakistan.
Awan and several coworkers have been under suspicion for months, specifically concerning the theft of computer equipment from House lawmakers' offices. Federal authorities have been concerned about double billing, equipment theft, and access to sensitive computers. While most of her colleagues fired Awan in February, Wasserman Schultz retained his services through July.
The indictment alleges that Awan and his wife obtained home equity lines of credit from the Congressional Federal Credit Union using false information. They then sent money from the loans home, to Pakistan.
The ongoing scandal surrounding Awan has been embarrassing to public Democrats, especially Wasserman Schultz, the former chair of the DNC. While they retained his lucrative services, House Democrats paid Awan some $4 million.
Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, have begun an investigation into Awan and his coworkers' misconduct.Christopher Pyne has spoken on the Today Show saying that a double dissolution is a live option. Courtesy: Today Show/Nine Network
OPPOSITION leader Bill Shorten says the government is threatening an early election to cover up for a lack of an economic plan.
Coalition strategists are weighing up whether to use the blocking of workplace laws in the Senate as a July double-dissolution election trigger.
Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne today said a double dissolution election remained a “live option” with $30 billion of savings being blocked by the Senate.
Mr Pyne said the Federal Government’s efforts to address bracket creep and curb Australia’s ballooning debt were being hampered by Labor and the crossbench, along with attempts to clean up union corruption in the construction industry.
“The Greens are more co-operative than Labor and the crossbench,” he told the Nine Network.
But Mr Shorten said government members were like magicians trying to make voters look somewhere other than where the trick was taking place.
AGGRESSIVE CAMPAIGN: Abbott, Bishop could face challenge
“They need to stop threatening the Australian people with the threat of early elections, just to cover up their lack of action on the economy of Australia,” Mr Shorten said.
The latest a double-dissolution election could be called is May 11, the day after the budget is delivered.
Mr Shorten said voters wanted to know what the government planned to do on tax reform, school and hospital funding, tackling climate change and providing jobs.
“I and Labor do not intend just to run a happy second — what we will do between now and the election (is) try our hardest not only to be a strong opposition but to be a strong alternative government.”
According to a report by Fairfax Media, senior ministers and party strategists have all confirmed an early poll and a double dissolution election.
An early election would have to be called no later than May 11 and held no later than July 16.
Senior Labor figure Anthony Albanese took a swipe at the government saying it had no plan for the economy, just talking points.
He said the Liberal leadership change in September had achieved nothing.
“The whole of Australia was pleased when we got rid of Mr Angry and we got Mr Smiley.
“Now we know that what we’ve got is Mr Waffle.”
But Treasurer Scott Morrison said the government’s plan for jobs, economic growth and tax relief would be outlined in the May budget.
“The budget is in May, the election is later in the year,” Mr Morrison told 3AW radio.
“The budget will be there... for everyone to see and the election will be held after the budget and that gives everyone the opportunity to have their say.”
Greens Leader Richard Di Natale said his party was ready for the election.
It will present a strong platform on climate change, tax reform — including addressing the growing gap between the rich and the poor — and making a transition towards a new innovative economy, he told ABC TV.
“They’re the sort of things that need to happen at this election and we’re going to be ready whenever it happens.”
Christopher Pyne jokes about Blankety Blank 0:30 Christopher Pyne jokes that he would have made a good host of former game show Blankety Blank. Courtesy: Today Show/Nine Network
The Greens have come under fire for proposing the decriminalisation of ice and the testing of party pills.
Greens leader Richard Di Natale and Queensland Senator Larissa Waters will tell a national drug summit next month that drug addicts should be able to use without fear of being charged. They also want law enforcement resources diverted to rehab services.
On a lighter note, Mr Pyne has done his best to sidestep more questions on the timing of the election with a somewhat odd reminiscence to 1970s TV game show Blankety Blanks.
Making his weekly appearance on Nine’s Today show alongside Labor opponent Anthony Albanese, Mr Pyne wouldn’t say more than the election was due in September.
When pushed further, he deflected by recalling his enjoyment of the long-gone panel show hosted by Graham Kennedy — or a potential election strategy.
“I would have been good at Blankety Blanks. All you had to do was pick what the audience was saying was the most likely thing. The easiest show in the world,” Mr Pyne mused, while Today host Karl Stefanovic broke out in laughter.“Fiddling temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever,” says Christopher Booker, not pulling his punches. And I think he’s right not to do so. If – as Booker, myself, and few others suspect – the guardians of the world’s land-based temperature records have been adjusting the raw data in order to exaggerate “global warming” then this is indeed a crime against the scientific method unparalleled in history.
Sure you could make a case that Lysenkoism or Hitler’s war to discredit “Jewish science” were more evil but these were confined to discrete geographical regions under specific totalitarian regimes. What’s so extraordinary about the manipulations to the global land-based temperature sets is that they affect every one of us, wherever we live.
Whether you’re an elderly couple in mid-Wales who have just had 20 per cent knocked off the value of your retirement cottage by the new wind farm on the hill opposite, or you’re a tribesman in the South East Asian jungle whose virgin forest home has been trashed to make way for a palm oil plantation to grow eco-friendly biofuels, or you’re a scientist in New Zealand who has been hounded out of your job because your research doesn’t fit the “global warming” narrative, or you’re a science teacher in Ohio who is obliged, whether you like it or not, to lecture your charges on the dread perils of climate change, or you’re a Republican senatorial candidate who has been targeted as a “denier” in a green attack dog campaign financed by Tom Steyer, you’re all victims of the same global scam: a scam perpetrated by a tiny handful of individuals whose junk statistical manipulation of the global climate records have transformed routine weather patterns into the world’s biggest and most influential ever science scare story.
Here, in the letters pages of today’s Telegraph, is yet another example of what I mean. It’s a letter protesting against the devastation of the Scottish landscape by bird-slicing, bat-chomping eco-crucifixes and it’s signed by the director of the Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland, the president of the Mountaineering Council of Scotland, the president of the Munro Society, the chairman of National Trust for Scotland, the convener of Ramblers Scotland, and the co-ordinator of Scottish Wild Land.
It begins:
“Few dispute the necessity of reducing our energy use and pursuing renewable energy alternatives to fossil fuels, in order to help address climate change…”
They feel, for understandable reasons, that they are obliged to preface their complaint with the usual obeisance to the Great Green Climate Change Emperor. But what if that Great Green Climate Change Emperor is wearing no clothes?
What then?
Just to recap, here is what we now know about the world’s land-based temperature records. The raw weather station data appears to show in many cases that the 1930s was the warmest decade in the last 100 years (not, as activists like James Hansen have insisted, the period since the late 1990s). Yet this data has now been “adjusted” – so far without any convincing explanation – in order to make the 1930s look cooler than they were and recent periods warmer. The net effect of this has been to make Twentieth century warming look much more dramatic and extreme than it may actually have been – generating concomitant panic among the scientific establishment which has been using this “adjusted” data as the basis for its narrative that we are currently experiencing a dangerous and unprecedented phenomenon sometimes known (though they keep changing the name) as Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.
A common defence used by alarmist “experts” to shore up this shaky theory is that lots of different scientific institutions have reached the same conclusion independently of one another.
But here’s the rub: they are not independent. They are all in cahoots because they are all pushing the same narrative, as Booker explains using the example of the “suspicious” one-way adjustments to the weather stations in Paraguay. (And also, it has subsequently been shown, in the Arctic).
First these were made by the US government’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). They were then amplified by
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implying you are measuring to that precision.
This fallacy may have its roots in the past, when the available precision of a measurement device or construction device (like a mill or lathe) might have limited how far down one could measure or fabricate to a given accuracy. If a person had a problem measuring or constructing to a particular precision and accuracy because of tooling limitations, one might be tempted to argue not to bother with places beyond what they thought was possible.
Unfortunately this argument could be turned around into a rationalization that if that’s the best one can do that’s the best one actually needs. I was told many times, by many school teachers to choose medieval units which reflect expected precision, and if I used smaller ones that this was very poor practice. It was overkill. The size of the units chosen would imply the precision of the measurement, so use as large of units as possible. As you see when the size of units are used a priori as an argument of precision, then they are a chosen limitation, and not a well informed limitation. They are in fact a guess.
I have run into many situations in my career where data looks like noise, and then using signal processing, useful information is obtained. The GPS signal you use to guide your car trips is well below the noise level at that frequency. It is like standing in the top row of a football stadium and trying to hold a conversation with a person with a person on the other side of the field also on the top row while the crowd cheers. Impossible—right? Well, perhaps not. Signal processing can do amazing things, but if you argue there is no way to make a measurement precise enough, you will not. It is a psychological self-imposed measurement limit, not a technical one.
This brings me to the measurement of people’s height and the mass of babies. I have been taken to task for arguing that height should be measured in mm, just like lengths are in the Australian construction industry. Some commentators argue that this is too much precision, that a person’s height changes so much that millimeters just have too much precision to have any meaning. There is no use taking measurements which are calibrated to millimeters, because we already know we don’t need them. This is a very platonic argument. It is also nonsense on a number of levels. First, the data itself should reveal where the precision no longer exists. If one can show that a certain set of digits on the right are randomly distributed, then one can obtain an implied measurement precision, but that is not the end of the story. Even digits which appear to be random may contain information which may be extracted. I’ve never seen a situation where measurements have been too precise, and led people to miss an effect, but I have seen situations where they have been masked by truncation. Measuring a person’s height as 1753 mm does not assault good technical practice, it is an example of it. One can always write this value as 1.75 meters immediately just by inspecting the millimeters, but one has taken a simple integer and needlessly introduced a decimal point. The two representations use the same number of symbols.
The grouping of three for numbers appears to be of great utility in our society. From one thousand (1,000) to one million (1,000,000) to one billion (1,000,000,000), these values have been designated in groups of threes long before I made my appearance on this planet. The breaks in metric prefixes, are at the locations of the commas. In other countries only a space is used above four digits: 1000, 1 000 000, 1 000 000 000 (one can use a space with four digits also—it’s just not my preference). This is also done in many US numerical analysis references.
Pat Naughtin, in his TEDx Melbourne lecture on 2010-03-13 discussed a scale which measured the weight (mass) of babies. The baby would wriggle and it would require the device to take large numbers of measurements and statistically extract its mass. The precision and accuracy of this scale was to within a gram. The weight of a baby is supposed to increase with time. A decrease, even a very small one, could indicate a potential health issue.
Should the baby have an infection, accurate knowledge of its mass is important so a properly proportioned amount of medicine can be prescribed. Naughtin points out that yet again there is no measurement policy in this instance, and no one in charge of one. Naughtin argued there is a potential danger when babies are measured in Kilograms, and rounded to the nearest tenth of a Kilogram, which is the accepted practice in Australia. The use of a decimal point, and rounding, creates numbers which are decanted of information. The number is too close to unity for a clear understanding of changes in its magnitude. Using grams allows for one to eliminate fractions—decimal or otherwise—and compare simple integers.
Years ago when I lived in Montana, I encountered shade tree mechanics, small engine mechanics, construction contractors and others. One phrase which seemed to be ubiquitous was:
“He’s the kind of guy that will measure something with a micrometer, mark it with chalk and cut it with an axe.”
It showed a common understanding that over-precision does not hurt one, and a person who would throw it away is not good at his profession, be it mechanic, welder, contractor, or any other skilled vocation. The Australian construction industry has saved large amounts of money by measuring in millimeters. They have no need for a decimal point, and the numbers are simple. The argument that measuring a person’s height in millimeters, or a babies weight in grams is “too precise” is a cultural argument, not a technical one. Arguing that lots of people perform a measurement, or an authority like the EU or the medical profession has endorsed it is an argument from authority.
In my essay Metamorphosis and Millimeters, I point out that for thousands of years people had created bee hives which were made of clay. They had to be destroyed in order to obtain honey. It was only in the 19th Century that an American inventor had the temerity to question this dogma, and created the modern bee-hive. Common usage over a long period of time does not imply that common usage is optimum. This is a version of a technical Darwinism argument that is used by anti-metric people as a straw man cudgel. It has been increasing measurement precision (and accuracy) which has allowed the creation of a modern technical society and is at the forefront of scientific discovery. Arguing otherwise is arguing against all the benefits increased measurement accuracy has provided. There is no “common person’s measurements” and a separate set of “scientific people’s measurements” there are only precise measurements.
If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page
Updated 2015-01-21After running our survey over the past couple of months we confirmed our belief that many of our customers are freelance WordPress developers. And one thing that we know is always difficult as a freelancer is deciding how much to charge your client.
It isn’t our place to tell anyone how much to charge. In reality, it boils down to two fundamentals. How you value your time, and how much a client is willing to pay. It isn’t always so simple though. The point of this article is to discuss some of the factors involved with pricing, and give new (or experienced) freelancers some points to consider when setting a price.
Knowing how much to charge as a freelancer is a crucial aspect of your business. There are a lot of things to think about too when it comes to pricing your services. You have to take into consideration how much you need to make to be able to cover your living expenses.
Then, of course, you need to offer an attractive price to your prospective client. If you charge too high, there is a chance a potential client will walk away and look elsewhere. If you charge too low, you’re barely making ends meet.
The race to the bottom
The subject of pricing is a matter of hot debate, emotions run strong. Some developers feel that too many charge too little and cause a ‘race to the bottom’. Undercutting the competition is a tried and tested business method. The logic behind it is valid, it is simply human nature to expect a client to go for the best deal.
However, the problem with this approach is that pretty soon someone else will be undercutting you and the next person will be undercutting them, and so on. In the end, the prices drop so low that they not only devalue your time but often leave customers with the impression anyone can do the job.
But giving a good deal to a client shouldn’t come at the cost of devaluing the market on the whole. If you look at the pricing of projects on Upwork for example, you will see how much damage this undercutting can cause.
On the other hand, there is a second approach to this. This approach claims we should see other freelancers as colleagues. By seeing them as colleagues, we will be able to empathize with them and create a sense of solidarity in the freelance market. A solidity which could go a long way towards preventing such value decay.
Instead of undercutting and offering the lowest bids, it is always worth remembering that pricing is a psychological game too. People don’t always like to eat the cheapest food or drink the cheapest wine.
If you price your services too low, some clients may doubt your level experience and consider you too inexperienced to successfully complete the project. Keep in mind that a higher price can actually be reassuring to a client, as it demonstrates knowledge and shows them that you know your worth.
Understandably, freelance bidding platforms like Upwork are built to encourage competition and cheap prices. Hence, it is important to understand how these platforms work to get the best of it. Time Doctor did an excellent review of Upwork which suggest that despite setting rates at the prevailing underpriced market threshold, companies ultimately want to hire top-notch talent. Hence the argument is that for the common good of the freelance marketplace, instead of competing on price, freelancers should choose to compete on value, quality and differentiation. This means freelance developers can collectively reinforce a value-based pricing system. A good way to do this also involves applying for underpriced projects but with the goal to show the potential client the value you can provide. This is because many clients do not know what the budget should be for a project but are happy to pay for a good freelance developer.
What to Consider Before Setting Your Prices
As mentioned earlier, there are a number of things to consider before you set your prices. Below, are some common factors that can influence your freelancer rate.
What is their budget?
Ask the client upfront, be confident about it. This is a perfectly legitimate question to ask. Any serious, professional outfit will tell you what they want to spend. Sometimes, you’ll find clients willing to pay more than what you were planning to charge and sometimes, you’ll run into clients who have very limited budget or understanding of how much their project is worth.
Don’t be afraid to negotiate with the latter type of client or educate them on what is really involved with their project. This is most likely expected. If they are willing to negotiate with you, it’s a sign of a potentially misinformed client willing to agree to a higher price. If they stick to their guns, it could be a warning sign of a client that’s simply not the right fit.
What kind of site is it?
Understanding how your client will use their site is a good indicator of how much you should charge. This is simply basing your price on the estimated value you add to their business.
For example, you usually charge $1,000 for a site, but you are now re-making a site for a successful e-commerce business. If they will earn $5,000/month from your site, it is worth a lot more than $1,000. This can be difficult for some people to implement. It may seem opportunistic, but you should have this consideration at the back of your mind. eCommerce is a very hot topic now and in case you need an optimized WooCommerce theme for conversions on mobile, WoonderShop is what you’re looking for.
What are others charging?
Have a look around and see what kind of prices other freelancers charge for similar services. This is a great reference point. And, by charging similar rates to one another you won’t be driving the value of the market down either.
What are you offering?
The type of service you offer will also play a large part in how you price your services. For example, if you offer simple WordPress maintenance alone such as installing WordPress updates and making sure a backup solution is in place, you won’t make the same amount from one client as a WordPress freelancer developing custom themes or WordPress apps would.
In a similar fashion, your ideal client avatar will play a role since not every website owner needs a complex WordPress app or a full-blown e-commerce store. Let’s take a look at two of the most common scenarios and how the pricing varies.
WordPress Turnkey Solutions With Commercial Themes
On Reddit r/Freelance someone asked the question ‘How many people just install WordPress themes and charge clients $1000s?’. This excellent answer from a deleted user summed up all of the things you need to take into consideration when setting your price for a client.
I am a WordPress designer, and I do plenty of custom work, but I use commercial themes for my clients for a variety of reasons. But “just installing WordPress themes” for a well done website can involve: In-depth technical and roadmapping sessions to determine what the client’s needs and goals, the scope of the project and his/her target audience are, all of which influence and even determine the direction of the audience. Consulting for the most appropriate web hosting solution for the client’s needs. Organizing the pre-existing branding materials and determining any gaps (usually in the form of written content) that will need to be filled by the client or me during the course of the project. End-to-end project management. Securing the site with a CDN, firewall and other best-practices security measures. Vetting any premium themes the client may want to make sure that they’re buying a well-documented lightweight well-reviewed theme from a developer that isn’t going to disappear in 3 months. Designing the navigation and information architecture of the site, organizing the content in intuitive logical ways for the client if they don’t have a sitemap. Basic on-page SEO for all pages. Configuring custom plugins and platforms, including BuddyPress, Multisite and other stuff that actually, you know, takes skill and experience to do properly. Determining the necessary plugins for complete functionality that meets the client’s needs and project requirements. Several rounds of detailed revisions. API integration of social media, mailing lists, etc. Customer service answering your client’s 39471231 questions. Post-project client education and documentation. etc. Answer: Yes, sometimes I charge thousands just to install a WordPress theme.
I could not have described these complexities better myself. But of course, all of this depends on what your clients’ needs are, and how you value your time in relation to their project.
WordPress Custom Development From Scratch
On the other side of the spectrum, we have custom WordPress development from scratch. This usually involves coding a completely custom WordPress theme and it can also include coding custom plugins or implementing a specific API functionality.
Custom development involving WordPress is the realm of expert WordPress developers, in some cases, often those who have contributed to the core of WordPress or have a few popular plugins under their belt.
These WordPress developers are proficient not only in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP, they also know mySQL, understand how the API works, and are capable of writing clean and efficient code that can easily scale as the needs of the website grow.
While this type of work also comes with a price tag of thousands of dollars, it’s worth mentioning that those prices usually start at the top of the price range that someone would charge for a turnkey solution as in the example above. In other words, a completely custom WordPress website or an app starts at around $6,000 and can often go beyond $60,000.
No matter which of the above scenarios is more in line with your skills and the type of work you do, remember to take into account everything you do for a client during a project. If you’re also a skilled writer, will you provide copy for their website? Can you help them optimize the site for SEO? Will you provide ongoing maintenance? All of these factors can and do play a role when you’re quoting a price for a project.
A Basic Guideline
In case your client won’t disclose a budget and it is difficult to determine how much value you will add, you can just use the old expenses + time model. This can be adapted if you think it would be more suitable to charge per page rather an hourly rate.
Many may disagree with being so simplistic about a pricing strategy. Of course, as described above, there are nuances and variables. But for a beginner, or when dealing with an uncertain client, this is a simple start.
$Theme + $Plugins + $Domain/Hosting + $Hourly Rate
Your hourly rate is completely dependent on how much you think you are worth to your client. From what I have seen for beginners, this can be around a modest $20/hr. For more advanced developers it can be $50/hr and way beyond.
For example, if you look at WordPress developer category on Upwork, you’ll notice that the hourly rate ranges from $25-$90, whereas Freelancer.com has the rates between $15 and $49.
According to PostStatus, beginner WordPress freelancers should charge between $25-$40 per hour while more experienced freelancers should charge between $40 and $400 per hour. That price goes up if you’re running a WordPress agency as opposed to running solo.
Calculating Your Hourly Rate
An hourly rate is easy to use in calculations, once you are comfortable with your pricing and putting a value on your time. But if you’re just starting out, you might find it difficult to know what is an appropriate rate. Luckily, there are a few tools that you can use that can point you in the right direction.
Minimum Hourly Rate Calculator
The first tool on the list is the Minimum Hourly Rate Calculator by Brian Krogsgard. This WordPress developer found inspiration in an article about pricing by Matt Henderson and built his own version of it.
The calculator takes into account national holidays, vacation days, average yearly salary, overhead, and more.
Hourly Rate Calculator by ApproveMe
Similarly to the calculator above, Hourly Rate Calculator by ApproveMe takes into consideration billable hours, vacation time, and overhead expenses. This calculator is flexible, given the fact that you can add more lines to it to add expenses that aren’t listed.
You can also adjust how much you’d like your current salary to improve in the next year. Overall, it’s a decent starting point for any freelancer that needs to come up with an hourly rate.
The chances are you will have to quote a price at the beginning. However you calculate this price, it is a good idea to add 20% from the start. This will cover the possible cost of a client’s excessive revisions without raising the quoted price at the end, which could create a conflict.
Using Estimates
Another way to determine how much you should charge as a WordPress freelancer is to use a method called bottom up estimating. According to Dick Billows, this is “the most accurate approach to estimating cost and duration”. While Billows recommends this approach for companies and agencies that have more than one employee, it’s worth mentioning that this method works rather well for solo freelancers as well. Here’s how bottom up estimating works.
1. List out all the tasks involved with the project
The first thing you need to do is list all the tasks needed to execute the project. The easiest way to do this is to split the project into key phases and then break those phases down into individual tasks.
The most important thing to keep in mind during this process is to include even the smallest of tasks so that you can get a more accurate estimate. Don’t forget to include potential revision requests by client as they add on to the total list of tasks and time needed to complete the project.
2. Estimate how long each task will take
Once you have a list of your tasks, you need to provide an estimate on how long each task with take. Do this for each and every task and avoid grouping “smaller” tasks together.
If you already have a few projects under your belt, you should have an idea of how long it takes you to complete each task on the list you’ve made. Remember to include extra padding time and be generous with the estimate rather than underestimating the time you need.
3. Add up all the estimates and divide with your hourly rate
The final step in this process is to add all those time estimates together and then dividing them with your hourly rate. The result is what you should charge for the project.
If you want to play it safe, your estimates above should also include time spent on communication with the client plus a few extra hours to accommodate for unforeseen circumstances.
Additional Factors to Consider
As you’re working on the estimate, there are some additional factors you might want to consider before settling on final cost.
The ultimate result or benefits that clients will get from working with you — will a new website that you’ve designed and developed help them meet their business goals? If they see an increase in profits as a direct result from working with you, then your rate should accommodate for that.
Your own income goals — it goes without saying that freelance income can turn into a feast and famine cycle if you’re not careful. Consider taking your income goals and your living expenses into consideration as you get more projects under your belt.
The type of client you’re working with — as mentioned above, the same project can vary greatly in terms of price depending on the type of client you’re working with. A custom website for a local small business will not cost as much as a custom website for a large corporation breaking into international waters.
Final Thoughts
Even if you are a beginner, never undervalue yourself. Although your skill set may be basic – no matter how simple – your client is definitely going to benefit from a functioning website. Always remember that your value is defined in terms of the benefit to the client, not your experience.
Finally, keep in mind that quoting a price for a project depends on a lot of factors. But, if you use the tips in this article and apply them to your freelance projects, you’ll have an easier time of quoting a fair price that will satisfy both you and your clients.Detroit’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital spent $311,000 on TVs that were never used and remain in storage.
The federal agency’s facility ordered the 300 TVs “because they had funds available,” which “may have violated the bona fide needs rule,” according to a new report from the department’s inspector general (IG).
Now, the TVs have sat “in storage for about 2 1/2 years. Further, warranties for the TVs expired.”
Officials were going to use the TVs for a new patient area that had not been built. In May, 2013, they met with the contractor who was planning the future stalls and agreed they would have Ethernet hookups instead of cable. A month later, VA ordered cable-powered TVs instead of Ethernet-powered sets.
“This information was not shared with the … contractor and the compatibility issue with the TVs was not discovered until November 2013 when the facility received the first shipment of TVs,” the IG said.
At that time, they decided to pay the contractor more to install cable rather than return the TVs.
But the new patient area still hasn’t been constructed.
“The TVs and related accessories should have been purchased closer to the award date of the construction contract. By purchasing these items at least 2 1/2 years before a construction contract to install them was awarded, the Detroit VAMC prevented the use of about $292,500 that could have been better spent on other facility priorities. As of June 21, 2016, the facility had not yet awarded a contract to install these TVs,” the IG said.
In response to the IG’s claim the agency broke the “bona-fide needs rule” — that purchases should only be for items needed the same year — VA officials claimed they had received a legal opinion on the issue, but didn’t describe its conclusion.
The regional “director has obtained a legal opinion regarding the determination of violation of bona fide needs rule from the Office of General Counsel, District Contracting National Practice Group and will follow their recommendations and provide immediate remedy,” the VA said.
Senior VA officials frequently claim their department has too little funding to care properly for patients, and have threatened to close down hospitals unless Congress gives the VA more money.
Although much attention has been paid to the fact that VA managers falsified statistics showing how long veterans had to wait for care so that they could get bonuses, an audit found that VA contracting officials did the exact same thing.
Jan Frye, deputy assistant secretary for acquisition and logistics, the top contracting official at the VA, said a culture of “lawlessness and chaos” reigns on high-dollar contracts, with officials wantonly misusing credit cards and managers ignoring procurement rule violations.
Fry said there was $1.2 billion of problematic credit card purchases in the prosthetic department alone in an 18-month period, including $70,000 spent on veterinary care for a pet dog.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected] is the last day to register to vote
Monday is the last day residents can register to vote in the November election.
Registration application forms can be downloaded online or picked up at a variety of locations, including any Harris County Tax Office location or U.S. post office. For additional information and links to download an application, visit www.hctax.net/voter/Registration.
Residents also may call 713-368-VOTE (8683)to be assisted in English, Spanish, Vietnamese or Chinese.
Completed registration applications can be dropped off at the tax office or mailed to:
Mike Sullivan
Tax Assessor-Collector
P.O. Box 3527
Houston, TX 77253-3527
Early voting for the Nov. 5 election begins Oct. 21 and ends Nov. 1.
The election is the first since a new state voter identification law took effect that requires voters to show photo identification before their ballot is accepted.
The seven forms of acceptable photo ID are: a Texas drivers license, a Texas Election Identification Certificate issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety, a state-issued personal identification card, a concealed handgun license, a U.S. military photo identification, a U.S. citizenship certificate with photo or a U.S. passport.
The identification, except for the U.S. citizenship certificate, must be current or have expired no more than 60 days before being presented at the polls. If a voter does not have proper identification, the voter will be permitted to cast a ballot, but will have to present proper identification to the county voter registrar within six days or the ballot will be rejected.Welcome to the first in a series of articles that will be released over the next few weeks. 25 Years in 25 Days takes a look back through the history of the Zelda series. Right now you’re probably not thinking about Zelda’s past so much as its future and are eagerly waiting to get your hands on Skyward Sword, but this series aims to count down the days and keep your inner Zelda fan satiated until the game is released. A good number of people have been working hard on writing articles for this series, and we hope that while you’re waiting for Skyward Sword you’ll enjoy this journey as we explore where the Zelda series has come from and how it has developed to be at the point where it is now, along with some of the more memorable moments in its history.
1986
Ah, 1986. A year when Madonna ruled the charts, Top Gun and Crocodile Dundee were the biggest films, and Lindsay Lohan was still in diapers. The Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, was well on its way to proving that video games were not just a short-lived fad, although poor Australia, New Zealand and the UK were yet to even see the console until the following year. Many games were released this year, and when The Legend of Zelda first appeared on the scene in Japan it was initially just another game, for unbeknownst at the time it was the start of a series that would go on to become one of the most popular, influential and beloved video game series of all time. While we know this first Zelda game as simply The Legend of Zelda, it was released in Japan under the title The Hyrule Fantasy. In fact, the NES wasn’t even called the NES in Japan. It was called the Family Computer, or Famicom for short, and it looked rather different to the NES too.
The Legend of Zelda was released on February 21 in Japan as a launch title for the Famicon Disk System, a peripheral for the Famicom console that allowed the use of rewriteable disks. Before the battery backup system was invented for cartridges, the Disk System allowed a save feature to be added to games, which was essential for something like The Legend of Zelda due to the sheer size of the game. Although we celebrate 1986 as the year of Zelda’s birth, the game was in development since at least early 1985. Series creator Shigeru Miyamoto drew inspiration for the game from his childhood days of exploring the forests, caves and lakes around his home town of Kyoto, Japan. Who knows, maybe as a child he was already imagining himself stumbling upon magical relics like the Triforce and battling fearsome monsters such as Octoroks and the world of Hyrule was already taking shape back in the 1950s!
The game was initially developed under the working title “Adventure”, with Miyamoto wanting to capture the sense of adventure he felt in his childhood into the game. During development, Miyamoto and his team came up with so many ideas that could not all be incorporated into the first game, and some were used in later games in the series. Ganon was initially referred to as “Hakkai” after a pig-like character from a popular story. Princess Zelda was named after the wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald; Miyamoto heard the name and simply liked it, along with the fact that Zelda Fitzgerald was said to be a very beautiful woman. Link was the player’s “link” into the game and intended to be someone the player could identify with as he starts out as an ordinary boy and grows stronger during his journey in order to overcome Ganon’s evil.
A long, long time ago the World was in an age of Chaos
In the middle of this chaos, in a little kingdom in the land of Hyrule, a legend was being handed down from generation to generation, the legend of the “Triforce”; golden triangles possessing mystical powers. One day, an evil army attacked this peaceful little kingdom and stole the Triforce of Power. This army was led by Ganon, the powerful Prince of Darkness who sought to plunge the World into fear and darkness under his rule. Fearing his wicked rule, Zelda, the princess of this kingdom, split up the Triforce of Wisdom into eight fragments and hid them throughout the realm to save the last remaining Triforce from the clutches of the evil Ganon. At the same time, she commanded her most trustworthy nursemaid, Impa, to secretly escape into the land and go find a man with enough courage to destroy the evil Ganon. Upon hearing this, Ganon grew angry, imprisoned the princess, and sent out a party in search of Impa. Braving forests and mountains, Impa fled for her life from her pursuers. As she reached the very limit of her energy she found herself surrounded by Ganon’s evil henchmen. Cornered! What could she do? … But wait! All was not lost. A young lad appeared. He skillfully drove off Ganon’s henchmen, and saved Impa from a fate worse than death. His name was Link. During his travels he had come across Impa and Ganon’s henchmen. Impa told Link the whole story of the princess Zelda and the evil Ganon. Burning with a sense of justice, Link resolved to save Zelda, but Ganon was a powerful opponent. He held the Triforce of Power. And so, in order to fight off Ganon, Link had to bring the scattered eight fragments of the Triforce of Wisdom together to rebuild the mystical triangle. If he couldn’t do this, there would be no chance Link could fight his way into Death Mountain where Ganon lived. Can Link really destroy Ganon and save princess Zelda?
The story is fairly simple: the fair princess of the land has been captured by the dastardly villain and our courageous hero must battle to save her. It doesn’t sound too different from many a fairy tale, or even another popular video game released just a year earlier. What set The Legend of Zelda apart was its gameplay. The developers of The Legend of Zelda wanted to move away from the linear, platform-style gaming of titles such as Super Mario Bros.. Rather than being told where to go next, gamers would need to work out what to do through exploration and by solving puzzles. The large overworld offered plenty of freedom and gamers could even complete the dungeons out of order if they so wished. The dungeons, labyrinths named Levels 1 through 9, offered puzzles and were teeming with enemies. The further you journeyed, the more difficult the game became as you encountered stronger enemies and more complicated labyrinths, keeping you constantly on your toes. One of the biggest surprises offered by the game was a second quest that opened up after the game was beaten. This presented an even more challenging adventure with different dungeons and tougher enemies.
The Legend of Zelda established many elements that continue to be used in Zelda games to this day. The idea of journeying from dungeon to dungeon to collect items needed to face the final boss has become part of a formula used in many Zelda titles. Over the years, Link’s hair color has changed but he still wears a green tunic just as he did in this first game. Link, Zelda and Ganon, along with numerous enemies from this game such as Stalfos, Dodongos, Like Likes and Peahats are series regulars. The Triforces of Power and Wisdom featured in this game, and the Triforce mythology has been expanded upon since, with the Triforce itself becoming the most widely-recognised Zelda symbol there is. In fact, it’s almost more interesting to look at the things from this game that never appeared in the Zelda series again.
Every single enemy from this game has appeared in at least one other Zelda title except for one. Patra was an enemy found exclusively in level 9. It looks like an eyeball with wings and they attack in groups, with one large Patra surrounded by several smaller ones. While pondering what it was about this enemy that caused developers to shy away from using it again I’ll admit that “eyeball with wings” doesn’t exactly incite terror the same way that “sword-wielding skeleton” (Stalfos) does, but then again a “ghost of a flower” is a pretty bizarre-sounding enemy too and Peahats made it into other games. On top of that, Patra was pretty tough and a challenging enemy to fight. You actually need to defeat one before you can enter Ganon’s room. All that said, a similar, albeit weaker enemy called an Eyesoar did appear many years later in Oracle of Ages. And Patra made a brief appearance in one of the episodes of the 1989 Zelda cartoon series, an honor bestowed upon only a select number of Zelda enemies.
Of the items, the recorder (also called the whistle), the ladder, and the clock were not seen again after this game. The recorder did however begin the trend of music playing an important part in Zelda games, and other wind instruments have featured in other games. The ladder is an item that Link didn’t use to climb to high places but to cross holes or rivers as wide as he is. Other Zelda titles, particularly the 3D ones, offer plenty of ladders for Link to climb, but The Legend of Zelda was the only game to offer the ladder as an item in Link’s inventory. The clock was an item that sometimes appeared after defeating an enemy and stopped time around Link, freezing all enemies on the screen. This was a very useful item that would often appear at just the right time during a tough battle. The letter to the old woman that allows Link to buy potions can also be considered unique to this game, although Link’s no stranger to delivering different letters in various titles. Another unique concept surrounding items in The Legend of Zelda is that it costs Link one rupee each time he fires an arrow. Link needs to initially purchase arrows before he can use them, but his arrow supply is linked to his wallet, which means that, if Link runs out of money, he can’t shoot any arrows.
The game was received very well both in Japan and in Western markets when it was released the following year. It went on to become the first NES game to sell one million copies and has ultimately sold more than 6.5 million. It’s lauded for being one of the most, if not the most influential games of all time. It has been re-released several times and is widely available today via the Wii Virtual Console. Its legacy speaks for itself – it’s the reason why we’re celebrating Zelda’s 25th anniversary this year. Without this game, there would be no Zelda series.
So when this highly-acclaimed adventure game set in a beautiful fantasy world full of magic and monsters was released in the US, how did Nintendo choose to advertise it? Why, with two geeky kids rapping of course!
Oh and there’s also this one with actor John Kassir from Tales of the Crypt running around looking for Zelda. Link he ain’t.
After this game’s great success, its sequel was released within a year. Don’t forget to check back tomorrow as we take a look at 1987 and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.Nuclear, wind and solar power in UK each generated more electricity than gas and coal combined for first time ever
The windy weather across Europe in the past 24 hours may have been a curse for summer picnics, but it has set records for renewable power.
'Spectacular' drop in renewable energy costs leads to record global boost Read more
In the UK, wind, nuclear and solar power were each generating more electricity than gas and coal combined at 1pm on Wednesday, for the first time ever.
Including hydropower and biomass burned at power stations such as Drax in North Yorkshire, renewables provided 50.7% of demand at lunchtime.
High wind speeds and the growing number of windfarms off the coasts of the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and other European countries have also set what are understood to be records.
On Tuesday, 2.7% of all the
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in fast food chains... they only think about money." In the "Arepera Socialista," the cash register is in a corner of the room and customers pay only after eating, self-reporting how many of the "arepas" they ate.
Comment: Let Them Eat ArepasCarbon nanoparticles can be incredibly useful in the treatment of many types of disease, as they can evade our natural immune defences and deliver medicine to wherever it's most needed in the body. They're also relatively easy to track as they move through the system, but so far creating these nanoparticles has been a long and expensive process.
Now researchers at the University of Illinois in the US have found a much easier way to create a certain type of nanoparticle: using a process that involves plain old honey and a microwave. The resulting particles are less than 8 nanometres thick (a human hair is around 80,000-100,000 nanometres) so your body's immune system won't try and interfere with them as they deliver their medicine.
"These tiny particles are kind of camouflaged, I would say," explains bioengineering professor, Dipanjan Pan, who worked on the study alongside his colleague Rohit Bhargava. But the real beauty of the new procedure is how simple it is - you can even give it a try in your own kitchen.
"If you have a microwave and honey or molasses, you can pretty much make these particles at home," says Pan in a press release. "You just mix them together and cook it for a few minutes, and you get something that looks like char, but that is nanoparticles with high luminescence. This is one of the simplest systems that we can think of. It is safe and highly scalable for eventual clinical use."
That clinical use involves the carbon spheres being coated with polymer - a polymer that can gradually release drugs into the system to fight cancer and other diseases. Based on the tests carried out by Pan and his team, the microwave-produced nanoparticles are effective in delivering the drugs where they're needed, and vibrational spectroscopic techniques were used to monitor how the polymers gradually released their payload.
The researchers ran a series of different experiments to check the temperatures required for the drugs to disperse, as well as the depth at which they did so. Different polymer coatings were tested too as the team works towards getting these 'homemade' carbon nanoparticles ready for clinical use.
"This is a versatile platform to carry a multitude of drugs - for melanoma, for other kinds of cancers and for other diseases," says Rohit Bhargava. "You can coat it with different polymers to give it a different optical response. You can load it with two drugs, or three, or four, so you can do multidrug therapy with the same particles."
H/T: TechRadarA new study from the Pew Research Center shows that Mormons score among the highest of all religion groups in their knowledge of Christianity, the Bible and other religious information. The nationwide poll of 3,412 individuals was conducted in May and June of this year. While the study showed that “large numbers of Americans are uninformed about the tenets, practices, history and leading figures of major faith traditions — including their own,” there were positive findings.
In the study, Mormons scored higher than any other group in questions about the Bible and Christianity. Church members are often asked whether Latter-day Saints use the Bible. The Bible is one of the foundational volumes of scripture used in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is used in conjunction with other scriptures, including the Book of Mormon.
Sunday school classes offer open discussion and discovery of scriptures and Church doctrine. © 2010 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved1 / 2 Sunday School lessons, like this one in Draper, Utah, are taught by an instructor with participation and discussion from the class. © 2010 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.2 / 2 Download Photos
The study also found that Mormons, “black Protestants” and “white evangelicals” are the most frequent readers of material about religion. “Fully half of all Mormons (51%) and roughly three-in-ten white evangelicals (30%) and black Protestants (29%) report that they read books or go online to learn about their own religion at least once a week.”
The study also found that Mormons had the highest score of any religious group in their knowledge of what the Constitution says about religion and the government. In a recent address, Elder Dallin H. Oaks, an apostle, spoke about the four major fundamentals of the United States Constitution.
Mormons also score higher than the general public in their knowledge of world religions. With regards to the public’s knowledge of Mormonism, the study found that four in ten Americans know that the “Mormon religion” was founded sometime after 1800 (44%) and that the Book of Mormon tells the story of Jesus appearing to people in the Americas (40%). About half (51%) correctly identify Joseph Smith, the “founder of the Church,” as a Mormon.
Regarding the survey, research director Luis Lugo and associate director Alan Cooperman said in the preface, “There was no comprehensive, national survey assessing the general state of religious knowledge among U.S. adults.” To address this gap, they said, “the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life set out to gauge what Americans know about their own faiths and about other religions.”
The Church places great emphasis on helping and encouraging its members to increase their religious knowledge. Mormon Sunday services include two hours of religious instruction as well as an hour-long worship service. One of those hours is spent in a study of the scriptures, including the Holy Bible. Additionally, high school-age Mormons attend seminary classes, and college-age students attend religious education classes (called institute). The study found that people who attend a college religion class (as many Mormons do) answered three (out of 32) more questions correctly. Many Latter-day Saints also serve full-time gospel teaching missions where their knowledge of religion is expanded further. Additionally, Mormons are encouraged to have daily personal scripture study and to study with their families. And the Church also recently relaunched its LDS.org website, which is a significant resource for Mormons and others to read religious information online.
See additional coverage on the study below:
On Faith: Knowledge Not the Same as Religious Experience
Associated Press: Americans don’t know much about religion
USA Today: Most Americans believe in God but don’t know religious tenets
The New York Times: Basic Religion Test Stumps Many Americans
Chicago Tribune: Religious ignorance hurts
The Dallas Morning News: Agnostics, atheists, Jews, Mormons score highest on Pew religion quiz
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Most Americans uninformed about religions, survey says
Salt Lake Tribune: Survey:LDS know more about the Bible than other Christians
Deseret News: Agnostics, Jews, LDS score high in religion pollThief rips off Daly City man she met on Craigslist, takes selfie
An unidentified woman who is suspected of stealing a Daly City man's electronic devices snapped a selfie from his iPad. Police are seeking help from the public in tracking her down. An unidentified woman who is suspected of stealing a Daly City man's electronic devices snapped a selfie from his iPad. Police are seeking help from the public in tracking her down. Photo: Daly City Police Department Photo: Daly City Police Department Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Thief rips off Daly City man she met on Craigslist, takes selfie 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
A Daly City man proved to be an easy mark for a selfie-snapping swindler he met on Craigslist, police said.
Authorities are now sharing the glamour shot of the thief on Facebook, hoping to track down the woman and return several electronic devices to the poor sap she plundered.
The crime in question went down on Sept. 23 when the 26-year-old victim picked up a stranger he met on Craigslist from San Francisco and drove her to his apartment on Poncetta Drive, according to Daly City police.
The victim told officers he talked with the woman for a few minutes in the apartment before she told him to take a shower.
While he was scrubbing down, the woman swiftly made off with his iPhone, iPad and MacBook, police said.
But she gave police their best clue when she let vanity get the best of her. She slipped up by snapping a selfie with one of the stolen Apple products, and the victim was able see it by logging on remotely to the device, police said.
Daly City police posted the picture on their Facebook page on Wednesday, hoping someone will recognize her and call them.
Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @EvanSernoffskyRecently there has been a fair bit of discussion around the mechanisms by which proposed changes to GHC are evaluated. While we have something of a formal proposal protocol, it is not clearly documented, inconsistently applied, and may be failing to serve a significant fraction of GHC's potential contributor pool.
Over the last few weeks, I have been doing a fair amount of reading, thinking, and discussing to try to piece together a proposal scheme which better serves our community.
The resulting proposal is strongly inspired by the RFC process in place in the Rust community, the leaders of which have thought quite hard about fostering community growth and participation. While no process is perfect, I feel like the Rust process is a good starting point for discussion, offering enough structure to guide new contributors through the process while requiring only a modest investment of developer time.
To get a sense for how well this will work in our community, I propose that we attempt to self-host the proposed process. To this end I have setup a ghc-proposals repository and opened a pull request for discussion of the process proposal. Let's see how this goes.
Cheers,
~ BenOn November 10, 2012, Gaza terrorists fired a guided missile at an army jeep. All of the soldiers inside it were injured, two gravely. Over the ensuing days, Hamas rained rockets and missiles down on Israel, which responded with cautious airstrikes. On November 14, both then defense minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ostentatiously toured the northern front in the Golan Heights. The move cloaked the strike that followed: the targeted killing of Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari and the elimination, by the air force, of the majority of Hamas’s long-range Fajr-5 rockets.
Those moves, made possible by meticulous and penetrating intelligence, rocked the Islamist organization back on its heels as the army began an eight-day operation, which, despite the 1,500 projectiles fired at Israel, many saw as a success.
The army will be hard-pressed to duplicate that sort of opening move this week in what now seems, after the launch of over 100 rockets and mortars at Israel in the past 24 hours, as a possible coming offensive in Gaza.
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Partially this is because Hamas has goaded Israel into action – whether because of unpaid salaries, or hopes of fanning the flames of the unrest in Israel and the West Bank, or a need to stave off its rivals Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the assorted Salafi organizations, or in-house disagreements between its political and military wings, or as an expression of its alienation from Egypt and Iran (and those are just a few of the current theories).
There could still be surprises. Egyptian mediation could produce an agreement. It stands to reason, too, that Israel has learnt the lessons of the 2006 Second Lebanon War. It will likely, as in November 2012, first call up the reserves en masse before launching a major operation, giving the troops time to train and signaling to the other side that a major blow may soon fall.
But if Hamas is not to be deterred, then Israel, terribly, as a sovereign state, will be left with no choice but to respond to Hamas’s attacks and defend its citizens through military action. Blood will be shed. Innocents on both sides will pay a price.
The question, then, is not so much if Israel will respond to the barrage of rockets, but what shape that response will take; what sort of ambitions the government will have if it is forced into an operation in Gaza.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman has called for the sort of operation that would enable reassertion of Israeli control over the Gaza Strip. Economy Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday refused to state his position over the air waves but likely advocates for a similar move. This, Brig. Gen. (res) Udi Dekel and Dr. Kobi Michael of the INSS wrote recently, would require a massive reserves call-up, unlike the one issued thus far for 1,500 soldiers total; a lengthy operation in the Gaza Strip, including ground troops; and a prolonged toll on the Israeli civilian population, which would be under fire for weeks if not months. The researchers put the economic toll of such an action at 15 billion shekels ($4.4 billion).
It would also leave Israel in charge of 1.5 million Palestinians.
Therefore, Dekel and Michael argued, “it is best to have a modest and attainable strategic objective.”
Maj. Gen. (ret) Amos Yadlin, the head of the INSS and former commander of Israel’s military intelligence directorate, called the notion of a re-occupation “a strategic mistake.”
Writing on his Facebook page on Sunday he advocated instead for an offensive that targets the military wing of Hamas, the organization’s leaders, its firepower, and its weapons-production capabilities.
Such an operation, Yadlin wrote, which would combine aerial fire power and limited ground actions in order to secure strategic locations, “might include damage to the fabric of life in Israel, the Israeli economy, and even fatalities. But it is necessary.”
Ideally, if forced into a limited war, the army will begin with a coordinated strike, probably against Hamas’s long-range rockets, which are less mobile than its leaders, who have probably gone underground. From there it will attempt to score maximum gains in minimum time.
But as former Mossad head Efraim Halevy said during a recent phone interview, one knows where a war starts, but never where it ends. “The fortunes of war,” he said in his native English, “are not pre-destined.”Many prospects come through the CHL leagues: the QMJHL, the OHL, and the WHL. The Tampa Bay Lightning have had three prospects eliminated from the playoffs just recently. They are all eligible to join the Syracuse Crunch for the remainder of the season, much like defenseman Libor Hajek.
Center Brett Howden of the Moose Jaw Warriors (WHL), winger Dennis Yan of the Shawinigan Cataractes (QMJHL), and forward Otto Somppi of the Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL) have had their team eliminated. Howden and Somppi’s teams were expected to be eliminated because they were mid-level for their league. Shawinigan was supposed to be a threat to win the QMJHL championship, so their elimination came as something of a surprise.
The Syracuse Crunch have been dealing with injuries, as well as call-ups to the Lightning, that have depleted their forward corps. The last game the Crunch played, they dressed eight defensemen. The two games prior to that, they dressed nine. This has been going on for a while, and the Crunch could really use the help up front that these prospects can provide.
Dennis Yan
Yan was a third-round pick of the Lightning in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft. American born, but of Russian lineage, Yan played for the U.S. National Team Development Program for a season before joining Shawinigan. He has just completed his third year in the league. Over his three seasons, he has put up 64, 69, and 75 points with 33, 32, and 46 goals respectively.
Yan has a sniper’s shot, but has a long way to go on the defensive side of the puck. Development in the AHL will determine if he makes it to the NHL or not, and he could be a long-term project. If he makes it to the NHL, it will be as a third-line winger with a good shot that can help on the power play.
Yan has already signed an entry-level contract and should be with the Crunch to start next season. Getting a head start going into the summer will be beneficial for getting him off on the right foot in his development at the professional level.
Update, good news:
Groulx said Lightning 2015 third rounder Dennis Yan is likely to join Crunch for practice Thursday. — Jeremy Houghtaling (@JGHoughtaling) April 4, 2017
Brett Howden
The Lightning’s first-round pick from the 2016 NHL Entry Draft, the organization’s scouts saw a lot of him while checking up on Brayden Point. Howden followed Point as Captain of the Moose Jaw Warriors. He’s also the younger brother of Winnipeg Jets forward Quinton Howden, formerly a first-round pick of the Florida Panthers.
Howden is a center with size that plays a solid two-way game. He’s listed as 6’3” and 191 pounds. He has room to fill out his frame with some muscle and at 19 year old he’s not done growing yet. Howden dealt with some injuries this year that caused him to miss time. His offense hasn’t quite reached the level in the WHL that Point’s did, but that was to be expected. After scoring 24 goals and 64 points in 68 games during his draft season, Howden scored 38 goals and 81 points in 58 games.
Howden has signed an entry-level contract. However, he is too young to play for the Crunch next season and will head back to Moose Jaw for another season. He has the offensive punch to be able to contribute to the Crunch now as they go into the end of the season and potentially the playoffs.
Otto Somppi
Somppi was a late-round lottery ticket in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft, selected in the seventh round, 206th overall. The Finnish forward had a lackluster year and didn’t take much of a step forward in his offense, but was also surrounded by a not very good Halifax team.
Somppi separated his shoulder a couple weeks ago and is not likely to play again this season, so we won’t get to see him in the AHL just quite yet. He has yet to sign an entry level contract, which is not a surprise given his low draft status and lack of progress in development this season. He’ll have another year to play in the QMJHL before the Lightning have to make a decision on him.Byron Sonne, the so-called “G20 geek” accused of plotting to bomb the 2010 summit of world leaders in downtown Toronto, was found not guilty Tuesday of all charges, ending his nearly two-year legal saga. “I've been waiting to do this a long time,” Sonne said as he greeted reporters outside the University Ave. courthouse.
Byron Sonne, pictured in May 2011, spent almost a year in pre-trial custody after being charged with possessing explosive substances and counselling the commission of mischief. ( TARA WALTON / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO )
He then pulled out his bail papers – the documents that first kept him behind bars for 11 months in pre-trial custody and then restricted and confined his activities upon his release last year – and ripped them in a theatrical show of celebratory defiance. “I'm sorry I'm just totally high on happiness right now,” the 39-year-old Internet security expert said, before acknowledging one part of his life still lost despite his legal vindication. Sonne's former wife, Kristen Peterson, ended the couple's eight-year marriage while Sonne was in jail. Their divorce was finalized in December.
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“Obviously the biggest, most painful thing through all of this is having my marriage fall apart and be abandoned that way, and it would be nice to walk out of the court and into her arms, but that's just not going to happen.” Then, with his lawyer Joe Di Luca at his side, Sonne returned to happier thoughts. “... I can't believe how good this feels, just to be completely vindicated.” Tuesday's verdict comes nearly two years after Sonne was arrested on June 22, 2010, as the first high-profile detention of the chaotic G20 weekend. He was first charged with six offences, including mischief, weapons possession and intimidating justice officials. But by the time the case reached trial, most of the charges were dropped – the “weapon” was a legal potato cannon and the other charges did not pass muster at the preliminary inquiry – and Sonne was left with four counts of possessing explosive materials and one count of “counseling the commission of mischief not committed.” The Crown alleged he had all the necessary ingredients to build a homemade bomb and was encouraging people, through social media, to disrupt the G20 security apparatus.
Sonne, who had no criminal record, spent 330 days in pre-trial custody and was twice denied bail before he was released last May. Although he had not assembled any explosive devices and police found neither bomb-making plans nor a detonator, the Crown argued that the fact he possessed the ingredients to build a bomb and was criticizing the G20 through his Twitter and Flickr accounts showed he had the motive to violently disturb the summit.
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Sonne – a hobby chemist and computer hacker – admitted to having materials that could be made into an explosive, but said he hadn’t combined them and hadn’t intended to. He defended himself in recorded police interviews, which were entered into evidence and can be viewed online here and here. Justice Nancy Spies took more than 100 minutes to deliver her thorough verdict, concluding that the Crown could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Sonne was guilty of any offence. “[Spies's judgment] picked apart each and every argument put forward by the Crown and ultimately rejected those arguments,” Di Luca said. After Spies delivered her final verdict and left the University Ave. courtroom, the body of the court, filled with friends and supporters of Sonne, erupted in clapping and cheers. Sonne shook hands with defence lawyers Joe Di Luca and Peter Copeland, pumped his fist and then made a beeline to his teary-eyed mother in the second row. He hugged both his parents, who had attended every hearing throughout the case. “I knew he was innocent,” said his mother, Valerie Sonne. “... I just hoped that justice would prevail, and it did.” Of all the G20 accused, the computer hacker from Forest Hill seemed the least likely to be a terrorist when he was pulled off a Bathurst St. bus and accused of assembling explosives in his basement laboratory while inciting others through social media to disrupt the G20 security apparatus. Sonne said some of the potentially explosive chemicals he possessed had household uses, while others were part of his model rocketry hobby. Sonne also never disavowed himself of his Twitter and Flickr accounts, through which he published photos of the $9.4 million security fence, surveillance cameras and pictures of police officers, some with disparaging headlines such as “bacon on wheels” and “stationary bacon.” Sonne also used his Twitter account to suggest ways in which one could scale or pull down the security fence, and the Crown argued this amounted to counseling others to commit mischief. Sonne, whose day job was testing the vulnerabilities in online security systems, said he was just pointing out flaws in the G20 security apparatus and encouraging others to practice good security culture. Further evidence given in court suggested that Sonne, who admits to being an irreverent mischief-maker, was intentionally provoking police to test the limits of civil liberties. Sonne said Tuesday he was unrepentant and will not stop testing the limits of civil liberties and challenging government authority. “It's more important than ever that we fight against the slippery slope of what's being done with our rights, against our ability to participate how we see fit,” he said. “This may have felt like it was done to me, but the fact of the matter is this is all paid for with our tax dollars; they work for us, they work for you,” he said. Sonne explained his decision to publicly criticize the G20's “security theatre” and defended his right to engage in civil disobedience. “I got kind of sick of them making my city look like it was some kind of armed camp, like it felt offensive,” he said. “It offended me seeing this fence.” Sonne’s long and winding case generated interest from across North America and Europe, where Sonne became a cause célèbre for hackers and others interested in the intersections of security culture and technology. Toronto police used extensive resources in Sonne's case, from daily surveillance before his arrest through to last month's envoy through the city to transport newly earthed chemicals from Sonne's yard. But the force said Sonne's acquittal does not mean their work was wasteful or unnecessary. “You're engaging in hindsight, which of course is 20-20,” said police spokesman Mark Pugash. “... There was sufficient evidence to arrest, there was sufficient evidence to charge,” he added. Pugash said it was a “dangerous assumption” to think that because a case was acquitted it should not have made it to court. “We investigated, we arrested, we charged... the Crown took the case forward.” Asked if he was bitter about his ordeal – his 11 months in pre-trial custody, the restrictive bail conditions which followed, the financial burden of the trial – Sonne paused briefly, before quoting Jack Layton. “Don't agonize, organize,” he said. “... I don't want to be consumed by bitterness, I would rather go out there and make a difference. Love's always more powerful than hate.” Sonne's lawyer then interrupted to remind his client of a more pressing concern. “Byron, there's a pint calling your name.”When exactly did coffee become so important? It has long been Germany's favorite drink, but for decades it was hardly anything to get excited about. Ads touted its "rich aroma" in an attempt to turn it into a lifestyle commodity, but it was long merely a symbol of housewife heedfulness - in the same league as washing powder, detergent or low-fat margarine.
Times have changed. These days, coffee is a luxury product, almost a fashion accessory. Or at least that's the way it's presented. Coffee pods, as advertised by George Clooney, are presented in Nespresso shops as if they were pieces of jewelry.
Starbucks, too, is increasingly seeking to present its paper-cup lattes as luxury products. In Seattle, the company is testing a new café concept, with coffee beans not just ground but also roasted on site - in stout black machines made from cast iron, reminiscent of steam engines and designed to convey tradition. Cafés in Shanghai, Tokyo and New York are to follow.
The German company Probat, the world's leading manufacturer of roasting machines, built the model specifically for Starbucks. "A coffee brand's success," says Wim Abbing, the company's managing director, "is 90 percent about the story it tells."
And the stories that people want to hear are changing. Two decades ago coffee ads featured cozy family celebrations. Then Starbucks' paper cups began to represent a new laptop elite, always on the go, where home was nowhere and everywhere. Then along came George Clooney and his Nespresso pods, representing coffee individuality produced by a machine. Top-class espressos at home, as easy as frozen pizza.
"Quickly pop in another pod of this drug before your energy begins to wane and you will always be awake. It suits the new pace of our accelerated, individualized, thoroughly economized era," says Munich sociologist, Stephan Lessenich.
The new Starbucks roaster-steam engine is an attempt to tell a new story, one for our post-globalized age. Coffee roasted on site before your eyes by people you know. A place to slow down amid the hectic pace of life. An artisanal product, not an industrial one. It's a story told in thousands of smaller coffee shops where the barista celebrates the preparation of every cup of coffee as if it were a spiritual act and talks shop with the customers about the influence of the Arabica and Robusta beans on the structure of the crema.
It's part of coffee's success that no one talks about the reality behind these stories. The brutality of speculators, who push the price of coffee beans according to their whims. The global concentration of the coffee market. The protectionism of German roasters. The ridiculous prices for expensive espresso machines. The terrible quality of the 500-gram vacuum packs of supermarket coffee.
This is about one of the most important raw materials being traded globally. The market for roasted beans is worth over 50 billion euros and each year, around 1 trillion cups of coffee are drunk around the world. In Germany alone, each adult drinks an average of 162 liters annually.
Coffee is constantly being reinvented and repackaged for consumers. But its history is as old as the hills. It shows that much of what we today call globalization, is really just another name for colonialism.
I: The Harvest
A Nespresso pod contains 5.2 grams of coffee and costs between 30 and 40 cents. That's the equivalent of 60 to 80 euros a kilogram.
Starbucks charges 3.85 euros for a latte, paper cup included. Each cup contains roughly 15 grams of coffee.
It's possible that Juan Gonzales picked the beans for that coffee. He is 12 years old and works alongside his mother Maria, a Mayan woman, harvesting coffee on the slopes of Toliman, a volcano west of Guatemala's capital city. The beans that grow here are the Arabica variety, in high demand across the West. The boy and his mother work for a finca that belongs to Carlos Torrebiarte, who sells his coffee to Starbucks, among other clients.
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"That sack weighs over 50 kilograms and Juan carried it himself," his mother says, looking at her son with a mixture of exhaustion and pride. She is barely 30 but looks over 50. She has a steel pin where one of her teeth is missing.
The coffee harvest is in full swing on the mountain and women with droves of children are making their way up the slope. It's difficult for journalists to speak with them, with an armed guard from the plantation immediately intervening. It's really only possible to speak with Maria, Juan and the other women and children if you jump on one of the flatbeds that take them back to the village.
The costs are low here at the start of the supply chain. The coffee-bean pickers earn 42 quetzales, around 5 euros, for a 50 kg. bag of picked coffee, a pittance compared to what will be earned with that coffee later on. And even in a country like Guatemala, it's a starvation wage. In a European Starbucks, it would be just enough for a particularly large caramel macchiato.
Maria shows a yellow control slip, which shows how much she and her son have picked each day. She is paid every 15 days, with the amount dependent on the total weight of the beans she has picked. Sometimes it's 75 kilograms a day, but usually it's less. Early in the season, after all, many of the beans have to be left on the bush because they're not yet ripe.
DER SPIEGEL Graphic: Where Coffee Comes From
Maria's daily wage is usually under the 87 quetzales, or 10 euros, that constitute the legal minimum for a day's labor in Guatemala. It would be even less without the help of Juan, who is not officially allowed to work, since child labor is forbidden for those under 14. Yet it is a normal part of life for children to work on the big plantations. Without them, it wouldn't be possible to harvest the coffee so cheaply.
"If you saw children on the plantations," owner Torrebiarte later tells DER SPIEGEL, "then they are children who want to be with their families." He does not employ children, he says, adding that he even offers daycare for families.
Coffee company Starbucks also claims not to have seen anything untoward on the farm. The Santo Tomas Perdido plantation was designated a "Top Performer" after an inspection of suppliers in October 2016. The company claims it has a "zero tolerance" policy regarding child labor and that there would be consequences were the plantation found to have been violating it.
The drive home passes the farm's so-called galeras, concrete and stone huts that house around 100 pickers. Up to two families, including their children, are housed in just one room, which has little more than a bare concrete floor. Cooking takes place out in the mud in front of the huts. There are no private toilet facilities. This is where migrant workers, the poorest of the poor, live during the harvest season.
Emanuel Sabuc has a fair amount of experience with the less pleasant side of the global coffee trade. The 26-year-old lived as a child in one of the huts on the Santo Tomas Perdido plantation. "Back then, it was really like a village, every family had their own shack and lived there permanently," he said.
Then around 20 years ago, Torrebiarte bought the plantation and that precarious idyll was over. "The entire village was forced to leave the farm," Sabuc says. Torrebiarte, who is one of the most influential members of the national coffee association, Anacafé, dismissed this accusation. No workers were pushed off the farmland, he says.
Today the harvest is carried out by seasonal workers, while the plantation is cared for by so-called parcelistas, Sabuc says. They are employees of the farm and responsible for specific parcels - and are completely depended on the plantation owner or his foreman, Sabuc says. "If you complain, you're out."
II: The Roasting
Coffee prices have hit rock bottom. For too long, companies like Kraft and Melitta have prioritized mass production and in doing so, they have promoted monoculture in addition to environmental overexploitation in the source countries. They have also hurt their own margins: A kilogram of coffee often costs just 6 euros in supermarkets.
The parsimoniousness often displayed by German consumers is particularly apparent when it comes to the standard, 500-gram vacuum-packed block of ground coffee. The price has remained low for years - with devastating consequences for the quality of the beans that go into the product.
DER SPIEGEL Graphic: Where Coffee Is Roasted
To keep the supermarket prices low, roasters have to work with beans that are of poorer and poorer quality. Indeed, to produce a product that is at all palatable, they are forced to rely on tricks. It used to be that the different varieties of coffee that make up each brand were roasted and ground together. With the quality of the beans falling, that's not enough anymore. Each different variety is roasted separately to pull the last bit of flavor out of it. And they are ground separately so that the size of the grains can be varied according to quality. Only at the very end is everything combined, a procedure that allows good roasters to get the last bit of flavor out of even the poorest quality beans.
Roasting is the most interesting point in the production process, not only for connoisseurs, but also from a profit-margin perspective. It's here that cheap coffee beans are turned into a sometimes-expensive consumer product. It is at this point in the supply chain where value is added.
Brazil is the world's biggest exporter of green coffee, the raw material that is eventually turned into the coffee we drink. The country sells every kilogram that is laboriously picked in the fields for $2.70. Germany, meanwhile, is the world's biggest exporter of roasted coffee - and sells each kilogram for $6.21. That's a markup of over 100 percent.
Germany and the European Union protect their coffee industry. A tariff of 7.5 percent is imposed on roast coffee imported from most countries while green coffee can be imported tariff-free. One can call such an economic policy coffee protectionism or colonialism. The result, however, is the same.
Probat head Wim Abbing, the man who believes that narrative is one of the most important factors of success for coffee, knows more about coffee roasting than almost anybody in the world. His factory is located in Emmerich, a town just across the Rhine River from the Netherlands. The company founder invented the world's first "ball roaster" in 1870. Before that, most people had simply sizzled their coffee beans in a pan at home. Probat soon began supplying the entire world with its machines, from small coffee manufacturers to major companies.
Abbing speaks enthusiastically about the roasting process, about roasting time and amount, and how adding air can speed up the process. He notes the trend toward smaller, artisanal production. From big plants to drum roasters. He doesn't, though, want to say much about the tricks used by the coffee roasters themselves and avoids talking about the problems faced by his clients. He only says that he is sometimes surprised by the "swill" that is sold to the masses.
Probat doesn't sell any coffee itself but it produces its own brand of beans to test its machines, which is then only sold to employees at cost. "It's around 12 euros per kilogram," Abbing explains. "You can't seriously produce good coffee for anything less." However, most consumers are not prepared to pay that much.
III: The Pods
For a long time, no one at Nestlé, the world's largest food and beverage company, believed that coffee sold in small aluminum tins could ever be a success. Within the company, working for Nespresso was seen as a career killer.
Jean-Paul Gaillard was also warned before he began working in the hapless department back in 1988. Many of his coworkers tried to persuade him against making the switch.
But the executive managed to infuse the small tins with the allure of class, opening boutiques in which grand cru coffees were celebrated like expensive wines. Within a few years, a sort of sect had emerged, one that was as loyal to the Nespresso pods as Apple consumers are to its products. "We were the iPhone of coffees," Gaillard says.
The staging is phenomenal. George Clooney is the face of Nespresso in the ads while black-clad employees welcome visitors to the shops. In the "Tasting Area," they gently inquire about a customer
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. The subpoena seeking donor identities and a wide array of other information connected to EFF's fight against the patent was revealed by EFF in a Wednesday blog post. EFF has moved to quash the subpoena in court, saying that while some donors are very public about their support, they also have a First Amendment right to contribute anonymously.
The fundraiser in question was kicked off by EFF to pay for what's called an "inter partes review" at the US Patent and Trademark Office. EFF sought to raise $30,000, but Personal Audio's attempt to make patent demands against podcasters struck a nerve: to date, about $80,000 has been raised from more than 1,300 donors.
Personal Audio CEO and general counsel Brad Liddle explained this morning that the company is just trying to make sure its opponents don't get two bites at the apple while the fight over the patent goes forth. With the IPR petition moving forward at the patent office and litigation proceeding in Texas federal courts, Personal Audio apparently suspects that the same people are behind both.
"EFF insinuates the information we are seeking is not relevant to the Texas litigation," said Liddle in a brief interview with Ars. "But to the extent that other third parties have donated or assisted to the PTO proceeding—to the extent they've been working on the inter partes review—they should be bound by the result."
Much of the prior art that has been presented to the patent office has also been brought up in the Texas cases, said Liddle. He believes that if the Texas defendants are involved in the patent office proceeding, they shouldn't be allowed to present their same defenses all over again in federal court.
"If there's a corporation or a person that has assisted EFF in the PTO proceeding, there's an estoppel argument" that should stop them from using the same defenses again, he said. Personal Audio shouldn't have to "engage in duplicative validity challenges, in expensive litigation."
The defendants in the Texas lawsuits include the Discovery Channel-owned HowStuffWorks podcast, NBC, CBS, and Fox, as well as Ace Broadcasting (which produces Adam Carolla's podcast), and a smaller Internet radio company called TogiNet.
The inclusion of Lindale, Texas-based TogiNet appears to be a play to keep the larger defendants in Personal Audio's chosen venue, the Eastern District of Texas, which continues to be a popular venue for patent plaintiffs.
"If they want to find out whether the defendants in Texas donated, they can ask the defendants," pointed out EFF's Nazer—a point made in the group's motion to quash. "They don't have a reason to invade the privacy of more than 1,000 donors."
While the legal wrangling continues, old Internet shows dredged up by the EFF petition have gone a long way to set the historical record clear. Episodes of "Internet radio" shows date back to at least 1993, years before Personal Audio founder Jim Logan's filed patents connected to his failed "news-on-cassettes" business.
Given that there's no question Internet broadcasting pre-dated Logan's business, Ars asked if Liddle and his colleagues at Personal Audio felt that it was justifiable to keep pursuing small podcasters for royalty payments. "I'm not going to comment on that," he said.
Personal Audio's response to the EFF patent office petition is due next week, and the office is expected to decide whether or not to review the patents by early May. If it does institute a review, that process could take a year or more.
In addition to the Texas lawsuits, Personal Audio has sent out demand letters that have been recorded on EFF's "Trolling Effects" site. It's unclear how many letters it has sent.Facebook is testing a new feature called “Saved Replies,” which will allow business Page owners the ability to write, save and then re-use canned messages when communicating with their customers over Facebook. The addition will save businesses time when handling incoming customer service inquires and responding to other customer feedback via the site.
The feature, which is available now to a select group of business owners via the messaging interface on Facebook Pages, offers a simple tool that lets a Page admin create a new reply, save it for later use, and even search through their list of replies to find the one they need. This latter option is especially helpful for those who have a longer list of replies and don’t want to scroll to find each one.
Businesses are initially offered a couple of sample replies they can use out-of-the-box or customize, we’re told, or they can simply create their own. After set up is complete, to use a saved reply, you just click on it from the list and it automatically appears in the body of the email. You can also access the option from the messages reply box, where a new option lets you click a small icon to respond with a Saved Response.
Above: a Page owner’s Saved Replies interface
Also handy is the fact that the replies themselves can be personalized using auto-populating placeholders similar to what you would use with form email messages, for example. There are personalization options that let you insert a person’s first name or last name, the admin’s first or last name as well as the website URL.
Saved Replies appears to be in limited testing right now, as one of the businesses with access to the option tells us that they were not informed by Facebook of the feature’s launch. Instead, when they opened up an email to craft a reply to a custom, the option just appeared. Several other Page admins we spoke with report that they don’t yet see this available on their Pages.
It’s not unusual for Facebook to test a new feature with a smaller group of users before a larger, public rollout, of course.
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Saved Replies was first spotted by the blog MyTechSkool, as well as several others posting about it on social media, including Twitter. We’ve asked Facebook for additional details surrounding the feature set and rollout of Saved Replies, and will update if the company responds. Some Page admins say they don’t yet see the option on mobile, but that could be due to how new it is, at present.
While larger businesses today may utilize professional helpdesk platforms like Zendesk or Freshdesk to handle customer service messages initiated via Facebook, the new Saved Replies feature will likely be of more use to smaller businesses, including startups, home businesses, and mom-and-pop shops, who today often keep a list of standard replies they copy-and-paste into messages.
Over the years, Facebook has been slowly ramping up its community management and Page management tools for business users, helping them save time by automating tasks that would have otherwise involved more manual efforts. For instance, years ago, Facebook introduced a keyword moderation blocklist feature for Page owners, which helped them reduce the time it took to fight spam as well as moderate and remove other unwanted (e.g. profane, offensive, etc.) comments.This week, the White House released a list of the 2013 summer interns. The list of 147 college and graduate students is full of bright young things — dozens from Ivy League schools — and (surprise, surprise) several with connections to the administration.
Steven Rattner (AP)
There’s Harry Summers, a student at Bowdoin College and son of former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. Michael Klain from Harvard, the son of Ron Klain, former Chief of Staff to Al Gore and Joe Biden. Adam Baer, at student at Dartmouth and son of former Clinton senior adviser Don Baer. James “Izzy” Rattner of Brown University, the youngest son of New York financier and major Democratic fundraiser Steve Rattner. And Madeline Broas, another Dartmouth student and daughter of D.C. lawyer and Democratic donor Timothy Broas.
But it’s not all about politics: Consider Grant Tanenbaum, a student at Wesleyan University and grandson of Washington Nationals owner Ted Lerner.
Larry Summers (WPA)
Like most Washington internships, the process is highly competitive: Applicants need to submit a resume, two essays and two letters of recommendation for the full-time, unpaid jobs in the West and East wings. After months of deliberation, interns are selected based on their public service, community leadership and “commitment to the mission of the Obama Administration,” according to the White House web site.
It’s fair to assume these future leaders are already accomplished and savvy about high-powered networking, whether learned at the family dinner table or in the trenches of student government. Plenty of the names on the list have no obvious link to the White House but do have a dazzling resume, such as Rhodes Scholar Rhiana Gunn-Wright who grew up in inner-city Chicago or Haywood Perry from Penn, who served on the Prince George’s County Board of Education as a teenager.
Ron Klain (Getty Images)
So it’s unclear how far a good word from a VIP parent goes. “What I liked most about this is that Adam pursued it himself,” said Don Baer, who told us he deliberately stayed out of the process.
Still, knowing a power broker or two can’t hurt. We asked the White House if any intern slots are reserved for “legacies” — kids of former administration officials. They didn’t get back to us for comment.
See also: Full list of White House summer interns for 2013
Also in The Reliable Source:
Paula Deen replaces legal team, hires D.C. lawyer Grace Speights
Teresa Heinz Kerry transferred to rehab hospital
Timonthy Geithner sells Bethesda home
Jay-Z on his friendship with President Obama
Justin Bieber apologizes to Bill Clinton, thank goodness
Celebvocate: Ray Allen on juvenile diabetesSenate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, this week pushed the FBI to turn over all documents relating to Peter Strzok, the official who was removed from special counsel Robert Mueller’s team due to political bias.
Grassley asked Strzok in October for an interview, which never happened, so Grassley asked FBI Director Christopher Wray in a Tuesday letter for answers. Grassley is one of a handful of Republican lawmakers who had questioned the FBI and Department of Justice months ago about Strzok, and is renewing his effort after reports that Strzok exchanged "politically charged texts disparaging President Trump and supporting Hillary Clinton."
Strzok was working on the investigation of Clinton's private email server at the time, but Grassley said his bias could have influenced that case, as well as the special counsel's investigation of members of President Trump's team, such as former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
"The communications between members of the Clinton email investigation team raise questions about the integrity of that investigation, and about the objectivity of Mr. Strzok's work for the Special Counsel and in the FBI's investigation of Mr. Flynn," Grassley wrote in his letter.
Grassley asked Wray for all communications involving Strzok during his work in those investigations, including any communications involving the FBI's decision to change the finding that Clinton was "extremely careless" instead of "grossly negligent" in handling emails. That change, which Strzok was reportedly behind, helped Clinton evade possible criminal charges.
Grassley demanded that information by Monday, Dec. 11.The educational experience of raising butterflies is something that your children will never forget. They will learn about the life cycle of the butterfly because they will watch the transformation day by day from the small caterpillar state all the way through the metamorphosis to a butterfly. Be sure to watch each stage of butterfly development carefully. You may observe how the caterpillar eats and moves, and how it changes features and perhaps color as it grows. Check on the pupa often so you can release the adult outside soon after it emerges. If it drops below 55 degrees during the day where you live, you can keep the adults inside for their lifespan on 2-4 weeks. These kits come with directions and supplies to keep the adult butterflies. Order butterflies online (below) from one of the largest butterfly kit suppliers in the country. We like Nature Gift Store, who specializes in Painted Lady butterfly kits for children. Ages 4+.
Parents are always looking for the most unusual, interesting gifts to give their kids that the children will love to receive and that they can learn from. Raising butterflies is truly an educational experience that every child will want to do over and over again. You can take the kids on a hike to search for butterfly eggs and collect them, then make a home for them so you can observe their development. OR you can make it easy on yourself and buy butterfly kits for children to raise Painted Lady Butterflies (although the hike to find the eggs in their natural habitat is a good idea, too, just don't collect them).
Please do not order if below 40 degrees or above 85 degrees in your area. Our live arrival guaranty will be void if ordered during these temperatures.
5 caterpillars are sent in 1 cup, 10 are sent as 2 cups of 5, and school size of 30 are sent with 30 little cups for the students.
5 LIVE Caterpillars: REFILL ONLY (All Except the Net cage) $14.95 On Sale! $12.85 10 LIVE Caterpillars: REFILL ONLY (All Except the Net cage) $24.95 On Sale! $21.49 30 LIVE Caterpillars: School Size REFILL ONLY (All Except the Net cage) $42.95
Please do not order if below 40 degrees or above 85 degrees in your area. Our live arrival guaranty will be void if ordered during these temperatures.
5 caterpillars are sent in 1 cup, 10 are sent as 2 cups of 5, and school size of 30 are sent with 30 little cups for the students.
The Educational Experience of Raising Butterflies
Parents are always looking for the most unusual, interesting gifts to give their kids that the children will love to receive and that they can learn from. Raising butterflies is truly an educational experience that every child will want to do over and over again.
You can take the kids on a hike to search for butterfly eggs and collect them, then make a home for them. Make sure to provide them with the appropriate food for the caterpillars to eat (the plant you found them on), something for them to climb on to make their cocoon, and something for the butterflies to eat once they emerge. Make sure you have adequate fresh food growing nearby for your hungry caterpillars! Punch small holes in a jar lid, or cover the top with a fine screen mesh held on with a rubber band. Keep a damp paper towel in the container. Frequently clean the cage of frass (droppings). Replace the food plants as necessary, when the leaves have been eaten or turn dry. As the newly hatched caterpillars grow, they will need plenty of food and space.
OR you can make it easy on yourself and buy butterfly kits for children to raise Painted Lady Butterflies or Bright White butterflies (although the hike to find the eggs in their natural habitat is a good idea, too, just don't collect them).
The educational experience of raising butterflies is something that your children will never forget. They will learn about the life cycle of the butterfly because they will watch the transformation day by day from the egg state all the way through the metamorphosis to a butterfly. Be sure to watch each stage of butterfly development carefully. You may observe how the egg changes color before hatching, how the caterpillar eats and moves, and how it changes features and perhaps color as it grows. Check on the pupa often so you can release the adult outside soon after it emerges. (Biology)
The children will also learn about the conservation of butterflies, and they will be helping to save them. Butterflies are disappearing at an alarming rate, as are many insects, because of urban development. There is just no place left for them to lay their eggs that is safe enough for the caterpillars to survive. Raising butterflies, and then releasing them into the wild once they transform, is one of the best ways to help save the species. (Ecology)
Children will be responsible for cleaning the butterfly house, as well as making sure that there is enough food and spritzing the butterfly house regularly (according to the directions on the Painted Lady Butterfly kit, if you choose to go that way). This is a wonderful alternative to, or practice for, a more permanent kind of pet, like a dog or a cat. (Responsibility)
Watch Caterpillars grow into Chrysalis
Once the butterflies have emerged from their cocoons, the children should be allowed to watch them for a day or two, but the butterflies should be released within that time so that they can reproduce in the wild. Also, it should be noted, that butterflies only have a life span of a few weeks once they have turned into butterflies, so it is probably best to make sure that they are released before their life span ends. Remember your first goldfish? The death of any pet is tragic for a child, but the feeling that they are saving the butterflies is a wonderful experience and they will be proud of themselves for letting them go. (A little growing up)
You can order butterflies online from one of the largest butterfly kit suppliers in the country. We like Butterfly & Nature Gift Store, who specializes in Painted Lady butterfly kits for children.The troika of Jimmy Haslam, Joe Banner, and Michael Lombardi seemed doomed from the beginning, and the shit finally hit the fan yesterday with the announcement that the CEO and GM are out. We'll be hearing more and more insidery stuff as the days and weeks go by, but here's one early nugget on how the relationship went south so quickly, and it involves franchise-killer Greg Schiano.
From The MMQB, Peter King reports in typical awkward, value-neutral fashion:
Bill Belichick and Urban Meyer were strong in recommendations for fired Tampa Bay coach Greg Schiano—Belichick called twice—and here's where I hear there was a major rift in the organization. Banner wanted nothing to do with Schiano. Haslam was intrigued with him after the over-the-top recommendation from Belichick. The group flew to Tampa to interview Schiano, and one source said Banner was cold to Schiano, not participating much in the interview. Banner likely thought Schiano would be a disastrous hire, given all the negatives in recent Cleveland history. He was probably right, but the owner was open to it, and when the owner's open to it, the man running football operations should at least consider it.
Schiano, you'll remember, was a late and surprise entry into the endless coaching search, where the Browns saw themselves turned down by basically all their top choices. (The Plain Dealer lists three who took themselves out of the running because they didn't want to work under Banner and/or Lombardi.) The idea that Joe Banner is unemployed because he didn't want to hire Greg Schiano is just so very Browns.
Which makes you wonder why Haslam waited so long to pull the trigger on Banner, especially since the two appear to have clashed multiple times during the coaching hunt. The Plain Dealer says that Banner was high on Seahawks DC Dan Quinn, and wanted to wait until after the Super Bowl to try and bring him aboard; the paper implies that Haslam unilaterally hired Mike Pettine, a move Banner was against.
Lombardi had to go, and the Banner-Haslam relationship seems to have been getting increasingly toxic, so maybe the Browns are in a better place now. Or maybe this is a never-ending mess, and firing a head coach after one year and a GM a month after the season ends means you end up with a seventh-choice coach and a GM who had no hand in his hiring and an owner who's already shown a proclivity for cleaning house when he doesn't get his way.
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Free Brandon Weeden!If you are a renter like me, you are unlikely to be lugging around an authentic coat of arms or a suit of armor as heirloom art. What if you want to decorate your home in a lightweight, funkier way than the usual wall art? After visiting museums this week with Afghan-Italian embroidery, European silver, and African barkcloth, I have some fresh ideas to share for home decor art.
Here are my 5 Uncommon Tips for Displaying Art at Home:
1. Consider carvings. Home accessories such as carved wood and soapstone can be so much more than knick knacks. Select items that have meaning to you. Like me you are not likely to purchase an 18th-century carved Italian door even at architectural salvage, but you might be interested in buying a carved panel from a contemporary local artist. For example, I’ve seen many sculptures by Venice Beach artists that would make great conversational art pieces for the home.
2. Navigate a non-Western culture. Paul Gaugin and Vincent Van Gogh were studio-mates for a time. Did you know they shared a love for Japanese woodblock prints? Yes, it’s true. Consider fan art by the two. My favorite is Gaugin’s Design for a Fan: Breton Shepherd Boy(1888) on silk.
In this case, fan art refers to an actual fan rather than a sentient admirer. This means Western scenes painted to fit the shape of an Eastern-style fan. You can also learn about African headdresses and South American drinking vessels. None of these art pieces you choose for your home need to be expensive. Find inexpensive copies and miniatures of displays that you love. Research the religious or symbolic meaning of such art because displaying in your apartment to avoid offending visitors.
3. Treat yourself to texture. Handwoven paper, pressed pulp, and upcycled cloth can be lovely for framing. Why not showcase white on white texture? Why not hang embroidered veils, lace shawls or vibrant traditional costumes on a wooden dowel? If you have any doubt about what the fingers can “see”, check out painter Carvaggio’s attention to the hands of his subjects.
Though jacquard and chintz are feminine, you have many manly options as well. You can even consider framing a piece of tweed for a man cave. French nails used for monograms are another masculine example.
House Beautiful 1000 Sensational Makeovers suggests textures such as rich leather and relief wall sculpture. Treat your home art in the way museums display artifacts. For an example, see the Central African barkcloth display at the UCLA Fowler Museum. My favorite pattern there is the “frog-hip” tattoo pattern on barkcloth. Discover inexpensive alternatives such as traditional patterns in fabrics and throw blankets as art for your home.
4. Target Tin. Decorative tin inserts for kitchen cabinet frames add funkiness at a low cost. If you want to spend more, embossed tin ceilings provide art for home decor with a vintage flair.
5. Nurture Nature. The Wall Street Journal featured “living walls” earlier this summer. These are modular, stackable living plants that decorate your interior. If such an interior garden will make you sneeze, you can even fool the eye with pollen-free, artificial flowering branches placed in a dust-free, faux plaster urn.There is no shortage of stories about lone developers who made an app for the iPhone or iPad and had runaway success. But in the real world, the majority of app makers struggle to break even, according to a recent survey by marketing firm App Promo. Though the survey's methodology is a bit on the light side, numerous developers that we spoke to agree that the results—59 percent of apps don't break even, and 80 percent of developers can't sustain a business on their apps alone—are close to accurate.
High expectations
Apple often boasts that the App Store offers users hundreds of thousands of apps to choose from. But while the incredible variety may benefit consumers, the mature market can make it more difficult for small developers to get noticed.
"Over the years I have seen visibility of applications I've worked on greatly reduced," developer Pat McCarron told Ars. "Right now your app is likely not going to be found if you never break the Top 100 or Top 200 lists. Users won't navigate forever down the list of top apps to find yours sitting lonely at the bottom."
Rogue Amoeba's Paul Kafasis agreed that the App Store has become more of a lottery, and less a chance for small developers to succeed along with well-established companies.
"The App Store is very much like the lottery, and very few companies are topping the charts," Kafasis told Ars. "It's a hit-based business. Much like music or book sales, there are a few huge winners, a bigger handful of minor successes, and a whole lot of failures."
Some developers even said that App Promo's assertion that 59 percent of apps don't break even is a bit on the generous side. Former NetNewsWire developer Brent Simmons suspects the figure is "more like 85 percent," while Lucius Kwok believes it may "fall in the range of 90 percent or higher."
Apple encourages practically anyone to try their hand at iOS development. Just $99 per year gives you access to Apple's developer program, the development tools are a free download, and numerous books line bookstore shelves (both physical and virtual) offering tips to budding iOS developers. While this creates a large developer base for the platform, it also creates a huge group of developers who grossly underestimate the amount of time, effort, and money that can go in to developing a quality app.
"Development costs are generally much higher than folks realize," Kafasis said. "Making an app still requires tens of thousands of dollars in development, if not hundreds of thousands. Recouping that kind of money 99 cents—or really, 70 cents—at a time is not easy."
Part of the problem can be attributed to consumer expectations. Whereas $20-30 was not an uncommon price for desktop software created by small developers in the past, the App Store quickly led consumers to expect to pay 99 cents, or maybe $1.99 for most mobile apps. Many more are free, supported with in-app ads or "freemium" in-app purchases.
"Paid apps, despite likely being only $1, is a surprisingly high barrier of entry," McCarron told Ars.
Kafasis agreed. "Users still expect quite a lot, even for 99 cent apps," he said. "Worse, anything over perhaps a couple bucks on iOS is a 'premium' price, and you'll get dinged on the price everywhere, by both users and journalists. That can make it very difficult to recoup costs, let alone turn a profit."
Discoverability, app demos, and marketing
Another part of the problem is that Apple has done little to change how the App Store works since day one over four years ago. Discoverability is a real problem, and the search algorithms have led some developers to try and "game" the system with SEO techniques like overloading titles, descriptions, and other metadata with keywords.
To illustrate the problem, McCarron noted that his company's app, Words Play, isn't even the top result for a search for "words play." Instead, that top result currently belongs to an app called "Words With Cheats for Friends ~ The Best Word Finder For Games You Play With Words And Friends."
"We knew these other results would come up for those words when we chose the name," McCarron said. "But we assumed since our name is an exact match for the search terms that we'd get slotted in at number one no matter what. Instead, we bounce around the top five randomly, it seems; I haven't seen us at number one since the week we launched."
Developers agreed that Apple could improve browsing and discoverability, and the company seems to be making an effort to move in that direction. It recently bought Chomp, a service designed to help navigate app stores for various mobile platforms. Apple recently discontinued Chomp's Android offerings, so it seems likely that tighter integration with the App Store is coming sooner rather than later.
In addition, Apple still needs to offer some kind of demo mechanism for paid apps. Shareware and commercial software on the desktop benefit largely from time- or feature-limited demos. Though Photoshop costs hundreds of dollars, users can at least download a free 30-day demo to decide if the investment is worth it.
"I've hit many places where this would have been useful myself when shopping for an app to do a certain task," McCarron said. He feels that consumers would be more willing to pay $5, $10, or more for an app if they were convinced it would prove useful after having tried a demo.
Of course, developers themselves could help by more tightly focusing their development efforts. Many developers are encouraged by the App Store's "lottery" effect to develop several apps in the hopes that one might be a hit, but they could benefit themselves by honing in on apps that perform their intended functions exceptionally well.
"Developers would be better served by investing more strongly in fewer, better apps, trying to build a real business," Simmons said.
"I think the best answer is to create narrow or shallow apps that do just one thing and do it well," Kafasis added. "This can result in great, focused apps." He warned, however, that always taking this approach will leave a gaping hole where apps with greater functionality could be successful. "Deeper, more expensive apps do have a place."
App Promo's reasoning behind the survey is to show the benefit of marketing to app success—51 percent of developers didn't set aside any budget for marketing. The developers we spoke to agreed it was critical to fuel early adoption, which could lead to breaking into the top charts.
"It used to be easier to get away without spending any money on marketing, but now it's quite hard to make a dent in the market without that," McCarron said.
"If an app isn't charting, and it isn't featured by Apple, the only way users are likely to find it is through the developer's marketing efforts," added Kafasis.
Even still, success isn't guaranteed.
"I think that there's little correlation between how much time and effort you put into an app and how successful it is," Kwok told Ars. "My most successful apps were fairly easy to make, but just happened to be in the right market at the right time. The apps I've spent the most time and effort on ended up being flops."
Developer Jonathan Rentzsch had slightly more cynical advice for developers considering breaking in to the iOS market. Instead of going into business for yourself, consider contracting out work to larger companies with big budgets.
"It's no secret that the money in the App Store is the contracts writing the apps, not in selling the apps themselves," he said.A frequent question is: "I've heard the participation rate for older workers is increasing, yet you say one of the reasons the overall participation rate has fallen is because people are retiring. Is this a contradiction?"
Answer: This isn't a contradiction. When we talk about an increasing participation rate for older workers, we are referring to people in a certain age group. As an example, for people in the "60 to 64" age group, the participation rate has increased over the last ten years from 51.1% in April 2004 to 55.7% in April 2014 (see table at bottom for changes in all 5 year age groups over the last 10 years).
However, when we talk about the overall participation rate, we also need to know how many people are in a particular age group at a given time. As an example, currently there is a large cohort that has recently moved into the "60 to 69" age group. To calculate the overall participation rate we need to multiple the participation rate for each age group by the number of people in the age group.
Click on graph for larger image.
This graph shows the population in each 5 year age group in April 2004 (blue) and April 2014 (red). Note: Not Seasonally Adjusted, Source: BLS.
In April 2004, the two largest groups were in the "40 to 44" and "45 to 49" age groups. These people are now the 50 to 59 age group.
In April 2004, there were also a large number of people in the 50 to 59 age group. These people are now 60 to 69.
The following table summarizes what has happened if we follow these two cohorts (40 to 49 in April 2004, and 50 to 59 and April 2004).
Cohort 11 Apr-04 Apr-14 Population 44,508 43,455 Participation Rate 83.8% 74.9% Labor Force 37,294 32,535 Cohort 22 Apr-04 Apr-14 Population 35,373 33,322 Participation Rate 76.1% 45.2% Labor Force 26,915 15,065 1Cohort 1: People aged 40 to 49 in April 2004.
2Cohort 2: People aged 50 to 59 in April 2004.
Populaton and Labor Force by Age Group (000s) NSA Apr-04 Apr-14 16 to 19 Age Group Population 16,198 16,652 Participation Rate 40.7% 31.1% Labor Force 6,600 5,174 20 to 24 Age Group Population 20,173 22,107 Participation Rate 74.2% 69.2% Labor Force 14,970 15,287 25 to 29 Age Group Population 18,886 21,151 Participation Rate 81.4% 79.8% Labor Force 15,383 16,871 30 to 34 Age Group Population 20,027 20,877 Participation Rate 83.4% 81.4% Labor Force 16,712 17,001 35 to 39 Age Group Population 20,595 19,332 Participation Rate 83.3% 81.9% Labor Force 17,151 15,841 40 to 44 Age Grou[ Population 22,683 20,232 Participation Rate 83.9% 82.6% Labor Force 19,026 16,701 45 to 49 Age Group Population 21,825 20,554 Participation Rate 83.7% 81.4% Labor Force 18,268 16,737 50 to 54 Age Group Population 19,247 22,306 Participation Rate 80.4% 78.1% Labor Force 15,480 17,416 55 to 59 Age Group Population 16,126 21,149 Participation Rate 70.9% 71.5% Labor Force 11,435 15,119 60 to 64 Age Group Population 12,499 18,441 Participation Rate 51.1% 55.7% Labor Force 6,384 10,273 65 to 69 Age Group Population 9,716 14,881 Participation Rate 26.6% 32.2% Labor Force 2,585 4,792 70 to 74 Age Group Population 8,349 10,915 Participation Rate 15.3% 19.0% Labor Force 1,280 2,070 75 and older Population 16,434 18,841 Participation Rate 6.0% 8.3% Labor Force 986 1,563 Total Population 222,758 247,438 Participation Rate 65.7% 62.6% Labor Force 146,260 154,845
So even though the participation rate for an age group is increasing, the participation rate for a cohort decreases as it moves into an older age group. This shows we need to follow 1) the trend for each age group, and 2) the number of people in each age group.Note in the table below that the participation rate has been falling sharply for younger age groups (staying in school - a positive for the future) - and that the population is increasing for those age groups. This is another key trend that has been pushing down the overall participation rate.This table is population, labor force and participation rate by age group for April 2004 and April 2014.Frederick I Barbarossa was born in 1122, to Frederick II, Duke of Swabia and his wife Judith. Members of the Hohenstaufen dynasty and House of Welf respectively, Barbarossa's parents provided him with strong family and dynastic ties which would aid him later in life. At the age of 25, he became the Duke of Swabia following his father's death. Later that year, he accompanied his uncle, Conrad III, King of Germany, on the Second Crusade. Thought the crusade was a tremendous failure, Barbarossa acquitted himself well and earned the respect and trust of his uncle.
King of Germany
Returning to Germany in 1149, Barbarossa remained close to Conrad and in 1152, was summoned by the king as he lay on his deathbed. As Conrad neared death, he presented Barbarossa with the Imperial seal and expressed his desire that the thirty-year-old duke succeed him as king. This conversation was witnessed by the Prince-Bishop of Bamberg who later stated that Conrad was in full possession of his mental powers when he named Barbarossa his successor. Moving quickly, Barbarossa garnered the support of the prince-electors and was named king on March 4, 1152.
As Conrad's six-year-old son had been prevented from taking his father's place, Barbarossa named him Duke of Swabia. Ascending to the throne, Barbarossa wished to restore Germany and the Holy Roman Empire to the glory it had achieved under Charlemagne. Traveling through Germany, Barbarossa met with the local princes and worked to end the sectional strife. Using an even hand, he united the princes' interests while gently reasserting the power of the king. Though Barbarossa was King of Germany, he had not yet been crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the pope.
Marching to Italy
In 1153, there was a general feeling of dissatisfaction with the papal administration of the Church in Germany. Moving south with his army, Barbarossa sought to calm these tensions and concluded the Treaty of Constance with Pope Adrian IV in March 1153. By the terms of the treaty, Barbarossa agreed to aid the pope in fighting his Norman enemies in Italy in exchange for being crowned Holy Roman Emperor. After suppressing a commune led by Arnold of Brescia, Barbarossa was crowned by the Pope on June 18, 1155. Returning home that fall, Barbarossa encountered renewed bickering among the German princes.
To calm affairs in Germany, Barbarossa gave the Duchy of Bavaria to his younger cousin Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony. On June 9, 1156, at Würzburg, Barbarossa married Beatrice of Burgundy. Never idle, he intervened in a Danish civil war between Sweyn III and Valdemar I the following year. In June 1158, Barbarossa prepared a large expedition to Italy. In the years since he was crowned, a growing rift had opened between the emperor and the pope. While Barbarossa believed that the pope should be subject to the emperor,
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in 2012."
Meanwhile, investment in other forms of sustainable transportation, such as efficient mass-transit systems, remains in limbo due to the new administration in Washington. The Department of Transportation recently withheld of funds for Caltrain electrification in the San Francisco Bay Area – a project that would have widespread positive mobility and sustainability impacts – worrying many in the region and beyond.
Still, there is much to be optimistic about. We're heading in the right direction. Now we just need to focus, bring more renewables online faster, and target greening the transportation sector just as we have, successfully, shifted the electricity sector from dirty fossil fuels toward clean, affordable renewables.
Image credit: Max PixelYesterday in Gay Teen Girl Abducted and Tortured at For-Profit American “Re-Education” School(s), we related the account, first posted to Reddit, of Xandir, whose story includes accounts of physical and verbal abuse, dishonesty on the part of staff, and a blatant program of brainwashing.
Xandir will now be coming out about her story live and speaking at the “Bawdy Storytelling” event. This will be a pretty big deal for Xandir: tonight, June 8, 2011, at the Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission Street in San Francisco, $10 at the door, doors 7pm, start time 8pm.
Xandir, who is preparing to speak with various media outlets after this interview, identifies as queer (all original posts – such as Reddit’s – reference her as “gay” and this is a formal correction as noted in this interview). “Storytelling” event organizer Dixie La Tour put me in touch with Xandir, who was willing to answer a few questions for Tiny Nibbles readers.
Thomas: First, Xandir, let me say that you are phenomenally brave for going public with your experiences. I stand in stunned admiration for someone your age who is able to face down an experience like the one you had at Cross Creek. What advice do you have, if any, for people who have had similarly abusive situations and are trying to find the bravery to speak out and confront what happened?
Xandir: Thank you. It has not at all been an easy journey, but the support I’ve gotten from those around me, people who have had similar experiences, and complete strangers has definitely kept me going and I feel good about shedding light on this subject. The advice I would give people who have experienced abuse of any sort and want to share about it is to take their time and be gentle with themselves. One of the most traumatic things about Cross Creek was the fact that we were forced to talk about things long before we felt ready or willing to talk about them. This method was absolutely humiliating, counter-productive, and downright damaging. Talking about these sort of things is extremely difficult for most people, so I would encourage people to do it when they feel ready. While it’s important to take your time, and feel safe, I also think it is important to not stay silent about these experiences forever. The only way these facilities can be shut down is if they are exposed.
Thomas: Your story got out into the world in classic viral-media fashion. How exactly did you decide to “go public”? Or had you already “gone public” and it only thereafter started getting questions? Has it all happened very quickly or was this something that built over time?
Xandir: My post started as a FaceBook note which I wrote after reading in a Cross Creek alumni group that there was going to be a class action lawsuit against WWASP for child abuse and human rights violations. People in the group were getting rather heated about their opinions on it, so I decided to write my experience. Later, one of the moderators of the “Troubled Teens” section of Reddit, a section dedicated to helping survivors of these schools share their experience, as well as help parents find alternatives to “tough love” schools, contacted me asking if she could post my story. I agreed, and with in days everything blew up. It all happened very quickly. I went on a camping trip shortly after it was posted and returned to an inbox full of messages, including some from reporters wanting to talk to me. I never could have imagined my story would receive this much attention.
Thomas: What is your hope in telling your story? Do you hope that the word getting out about these programs will shut them down, expose them as at least partially fraudulent, cease the use of public funds to send students there? Or do you merely want to tell your story so that others who went through this know that they are not alone and that they, too, can reject what they were “brainwashed” with and find a new community.
Xandir: Originally my intention was just to share my story, to validate my own experience as well as others, as I didn’t think sharing it alone would cause such a buzz. Without a doubt though, I definitely would rejoice in seeing facilities like this shut down. They’ve hurt far too many children and have gotten away with it for far too long. It needs to stop and I want to do everything in my power to end this type of abuse. I hope too, that sharing my story will show those who have experienced similar things that they are not alone, and they by no means need to feel ashamed, blame themselves for it, or continue to believe the lies they’ve been told.
Thomas: In telling your story, what do you hope will change?
Xandir: I hope people will start listening to people with stories like mine. I hope people will stop trying to numb themselves out and ignore the fact that these things happen. I want places like this to shut down and I want there to be laws put in place to prevent them from popping back up again with different names like they have done in the past.
Thomas: You mentioned to me that, while the posting of your story affixed the label “gay” to you, that’s not a label you’d choose for yourself, and you prefer the term “queer.” I know the person who posted your story certainly had positive intentions, but do you think that the ease with which many of us (myself included) can label someone, for instance, a “gay female,” is a little bit scary in the context of how non-transparent your experience at Cross Creek was. That is to say, is it eerily reminiscent of the fact that you had NO IDEA for quite some time that you were being sent there primarily because your perceived sexual orientation — using, in a sense, a label you had not chosen?
Xandir: Pixel8 definitely had good intentions and apologized profusely for the mislabeling. I prefer the word “queer” to “lesbian”, “gay”, or “bisexual” as I’m attracted to all genders (not just those within the binary,) and I’m also in the midst of figuring out my gender identity, which is something I’ve been unsure about since childhood. “Queer” as a reclaimed word feels very empowering and fits me better than any of the other terms, as my understanding of it is that it is sort of an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or cisgendered. This to me feels very liberating and unrestrained.
Throughout my life I’ve definitely been mislabeled by many, but the one that has had the most difficult impact on me was my mother. At 13 I came out to my mom as bisexual (at the time, as you might imagine, I was unaware that there were more encompassing terms) and she absolutely would not talk about it with me. I overheard her at one point having a phone conversation with someone saying “my daughter’s declared herself a lesbian.” This was infuriating to me. I felt very unheard and unaccepted. She didn’t speak of it again until after I had been in the program a for a while, and we were in one of the mandatory Parent-Child seminars, and she had been asked to talk about the reasons she had sent me to Cross Creek. She once again used those exact words. That I had “declared myself a lesbian.”
I later tried asking her about other factors which therapists, staff, and other students there had told me were likely the reasons I had been sent there. I asked her if it was because of the drug experimentation, and she said that she never saw that as all that big of a deal. I asked her if it was because I had had sex a couple times (which was with a guy, by the way) and she said she didn’t even know about it prior to the program forcing me to disclose this info to her, much to my humiliation. I had had a boyfriend before the program whom my mom knew about, but somehow in her mind I was still a “lesbian” and I needed to be punished and reprogrammed for liking girls.
Thomas: You are going to be relating your story at Bawdy Storytelling on Wednesday night, which I’m sure will be a very intense experience. Having written of it and had it get such a powerful response from the community, if people can come to see your tale, what would you like people to know first?
Xandir: Just that this story is one that needs to be retold. I feel as though this is something people hear about in passing, but never really think or talk about. Silence and secrecy is what keep these places thriving. Others with similar stories should start speaking up when they feel ready too.
Thomas: What did it feel like when your story began to get media traction? Are you concerned about the distortion of your story in the media? Especially given the strong media ties of many of Cross Creek/WWASP’s associates?
Xandir: It’s been some what overwhelming, as I just wasn’t expecting to get national coverage off of something that started as a FaceBook note. It still feels kind of surreal. I’m totally thrilled that people are finally starting to pay attention to these issues, though.
I am concerned about the media. I’ve been cautious about who I’ve agreed to talk to about this stuff. I don’t want my story or words to be twisted or over-edited. Tiny Nibbles is the first form of media I’ve answered questions for about this. Next week I’m talking to the ACLU, a magazine in the UK, and possibly a few news reporters. I’m nervous, but like I said, this stuff really needs to be talked about.
Thomas: Have you been able to find a supportive community since you left Cross Creek? You speak eloquently about the need to unlearn the interactive cues you learned while inside; have you felt like you’ve gotten support from the GLBTQQ community in the San Francisco area and elsewhere?
Xandir: I have found a wonderful group of people in the bay area and I could not ask for a better support network. Since leaving Cross Creek, I definitely feel like I’ve gotten a ton of support from the queer community, as well as people I’ve gotten to know from doing activism, social justice, and anti-violence work. People in various sex positive communities in the city have also been very supportive in helping me shed religious indoctrination and help me return to the idea that sex is not something that will kill me or cause eternal damnation. Heh. I’m also starting to discover that there are quite a few other people in the area who have had similar experiences to mine, so I’ve been working on creating an in-person support group for survivors of institutionalized abuse.
Thomas: Xandir, thanks so much for taking some time to answer our questions. And best of luck at the show tomorrow night.
Xandir will appear at Bawdy Storytelling Wednesday, June 8, 2011, at the Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission Street in San Francisco, $10 at the door, doors 7pm, show 8pm.
Image of Xandir used by exclusive permission.By Sarah Knapton
Death is a depressingly inevitable consequence of life, but now scientists believe they may have found some light at the end of the tunnel.
The largest ever medical study into near-death and out-of-body experiences has discovered that some awareness may continue even after the brain has shut down completely.
It is a controversial subject which has, until recently, been treated with widespread scepticism.
But scientists at the University of Southampton have spent four years examining more than 2,000 people who suffered cardiac arrests at 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria.
And they found that nearly 40 per cent of people who survived described some kind of ‘awareness’ during the time when they were clinically dead before their hearts were restarted.
Despite being unconscious and ‘dead’ for three minutes, the 57-year-old social worker from Southampton, recounted the actions of the nursing staff in detail and described the sound of the machines.
“We know the brain can’t function when the heart has stopped beating,” said Dr Sam Parnia, a former research fellow at Southampton University, now at the State University of New York, who led the study.
“But in this case, conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes into the period when the heart wasn’t beating, even though the brain typically shuts down within 20-30 seconds after the heart has stopped.
“The man described everything that had happened in the room, but importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. So we could time how long the experienced lasted for.
“He seemed very credible and everything that he said had happened to him had actually happened.”
Of 2060 cardiac arrest patients studied, 330 survived and of 140 surveyed, 39 per cent said they had experienced some kind of awareness while being resuscitated.
Although many could not recall specific details, some themes emerged. One in five said they had felt an unusual sense of peacefulness while nearly one third said time had slowed down or speeded up.
Some recalled seeing a bright light; a golden flash or the Sun shining. Others recounted feelings of fear or drowning or being dragged through deep water. 13 per cent said they had felt separated from their bodies and the same number said their sensed had been heightened.
Dr Parnia believes many more people may have experiences when they are close to death but drugs or sedatives used in the process of rescuitation may stop them remembering.
“Estimates have suggested that millions of people have had vivid experiences in relation to death but the scientific evidence has been ambiguous at best.
“Many people have assumed that these were hallucinations or illusions but they do seem to corresponded to actual events.
“And a higher proportion of people may have vivid death experiences, but do not recall them due to the effects of brain injury or sedative drugs on memory circuits.
“These experiences warrant further investigation. “
Dr David Wilde, a research psychologist and Nottingham Trent University, is currently compiling data on out-of-body experiences in an attempt to discover a pattern which links each episode.
He hopes the latest research will encourage new studies into the controversial topic.
“Most studies look retrospectively, 10 or 20 years ago, but the researchers went out looking for examples and used a really large sample size, so this gives the work a lot of validity.
“There is some very good evidence here that these experiences are actually happening after people have medically died.
“We just don’t know what is going on. We are still very much in the dark about what happens when you die and hopefully this study will help shine a scientific lens onto that.”
The study was published in the journal Resuscitation.
Dr Jerry Nolan, Editor-in-Chief at Resuscitation said: “Dr Parnia and his colleagues are to be congratulated on the completion of a fascinating study that will open the door to more extensive research into what happens when we die.”Please enable Javascript to watch this video
MURRAY, Utah -- It's been nearly two weeks since a 30-year-old Murray woman vanished from her apartment complex. Thursday, police released the 911 call Kayelyn Louder made the day she disappeared.
Louder tells the 911 dispatcher that she believes someone has broken into her home. We can hear the 911 dispatcher asking Louder if she knows who the person in her home is.
Louder responds, "No I don't. I just know that there's an intruder in my house."
Louder tells the dispatcher she didn't see the person or people in her home, but heard them.
"I heard someone say, 'Hey go in there,' so there's probably two of them."
At several points during the 911 call, Louder yells for the intruder to leave.
The 911 call also reveals Louder’s roommate was home at the time and questions Louder’s belief someone was in the home.
The roommate says, "The bolt's still locked, it's impossible."
Louder responds, "They must have a key or something."
Louder's roommate continues, "Why is the door still locked?"
Louder answers, "Well I can't explain that but I heard, like, two people talking."
Police have said they are worried about Louder's state of mind and are concerned she might be delusional.
Louder's family hadn't heard the 911 call until they listened for the first time at the FOX 13 News Studio Thursday afternoon. Louder's sister, Madi Rodriguez, said nothing sounds odd about her sister in the call.
"To me she just sounds scared, and if I were scared--I would call 911 too," she said.
Rodriguez is discounting what police are describing as delusional behavior.
"Whatever her state of mind is, to me personally, as her sister, it doesn't matter to me,” she said. “She's missing, and we just need her home no matter what. So to me, it seems irrelevant because she's been missing for almost two weeks now.”
Family members said the mystery surrounding Louder's disappearance is the hardest part for them to deal with.
"We want to think that she has ran away or any of that because then we know that she's OK and alive, but we're still hoping for the best," Rodriguez said.
Louder was last seen on surveillance video leaving her condo in a tank top, shorts, and no shoes. Police said she left behind her wallet, cell phone, and dog.If you believe that ice cream is a treat to be enjoyed year round, then this dairy-free pumpkin spice latte ice cream recipe is for you! It’s a “nice cream” that’s low in sugar, vegan, and paleo-friendly. It’s also high in nutrients for a special treat that you can enjoy any time of day.
Safeway shared this dairy-free pumpkin spice latte ice cream recipe and photo with us. It uses pumpkin from their O Organics product line, which is exclusive to Safeway stores. You can also go to shop.safeway.com or download the delivery app to buy groceries online.
Special Diet Notes: Pumpkin Spice Latte Ice Cream
By ingredients, this recipe is dairy-free / non-dairy, egg-free, gluten-free, grain-free, optionally nut-free, peanut-free, soy-free, vegan, plant-based, vegetarian, optionally top food allergy-friendly, and paleo-friendly.
5.0 from 1 reviews Dairy-Free Pumpkin Spice Latte Ice Cream Print Prep time 10 mins Total time 10 mins You can freeze the pumpkin at night, and enjoy this cool nice cream topped with granola for breakfast. It also makes a healthier dessert to enjoy throughout the holidays. Author: Safeway Serves: 2 servings Ingredients ½ cup pumpkin puree, frozen into cubes in ice cube trays
2 frozen very ripe bananas, cut or broken into 1-inch chunks
1 teaspoon espresso instant coffee granules
1 tablespoon cashew butter (can omit or sub sunflower seed butter for nut free)
1½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon maple syrup Instructions Place the pumpkin cubes in your food processor or high-speed blender* and let them soften for about 5 minutes. Add the bananas, coffee granules, cashew butter, pie spice, and maple syrup to the pumpkin. Pulse until the mixture begins to resemble an ice cream consistency, about 5 minutes. Store leftovers packed in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Notes *If you don't have a food processor or high power blender, use pumpkin puree that hasn't been frozen, and pulse in your regular blender. It will be much softer, but you can then freeze it for 1 to 2 hours, if desired. 3.5.3226
Key Ingredients: Pumpkin Spice Latte Ice Cream
More Virtuous Pumpkin TreatsAbout every night, Obstergo, which is TEMNAVA’s US timezone, goes out looking for PvP. This means Dasani, JK, xtrem, Fitz and a couple of the guys suit up in scanners and disperse throughout the holes and out into low/null looking for potential with the fleet on standby until we have targets, or we find an area and just go roaming. The night of the fight was no different. I ran out to grab dinner and the scouts were diggin their heels into wormhole space looking for potential. As I was returning to my apartment with some Subway, I checked my phone to see I had a text:
“Pvp” from JK Shadow (I have his RL name in there, but for the sake of SeCuRiTy)
I hop on comms to hear that our guys found a few people doing some sites or some shit, wasn’t paying attention really as I was more concerned with what to bring and how far down the chain I had to go to catch up. I hopped in my trusty Legion (used to be.. heh) and headed toward the fleet who were engaging a couple odds and ends already. I got there in time to snag in on a Rapier who warped right to the hole? No worries, it happens. *PoP*
Noticed these guys were Hard Knocks Inc., who I had seen on the forums and checked their boards, seemed like a solid group of guys. We chatted in local for a few minutes and they seemed chill. We scouted the nullsec K162 in their hole and held on it for about, I don’t know, felt like 20 minutes… I was eating Subway, didn’t care.
Comms were back and forth, JK had scanned down their static and about 4 holes deep (that’s what she said) and we decided that we were going to go on a WH roam instead of low/null roam. Majority won, and we warped to their static and jumped in, warped to the static’s static.
“Hey guys, where are you, I’m tackled by a Loki… More ships landing” said Trail Stevens on comms. He said he was on the null, so we told him to jump through, hold cloak and jump back once he broke cloak, so it would buy us time to get back to him, as we were a couple holes down at this point. We land as he was going down and began the escalation. They had some HAC’s, an Archon, a Bhaalgorn, Domi, and a couple T3’s on the hole. I land first and call Bhaalgorn primary and direct points spread incase they ran. We were going to ensure an escalation.
We initially kept the fleet on the hole incase of “blob”. The Archon was not triaging and we were confused, but overheat ensued and Bhaalgorn died. I called for Proteus secondary, not thinking about the Nuet Domi, Dexter landed in the Mega, took over calling and anchor as is the norm. I’m “retired” and backseat normally. He redirected to push the Domi out of the hole or kill it. Domi jumped and I whispered KILL DPS to Dex, so DPS primaries started going down. At some point during this, don’t remember, the Archon jumped out and back, criting the hole. Fighters were out and hitting people, so we called for fighters to be broadcasted and killed them. The object was to keep the Falcon on the NON TRIAGING Archon. It worked and they were losing ground.
It is important to note that we were not podding or calling pods on comms. This was a mistake that cost us the field at the end of this fight. Shortly, another Archon landed and triaged. JK called for the fleet to move off the hole, and Dexter set ALL Anchor on him. That was mistake number 2. The call to move off the hole and pull the opponents from their triage was smart, however it would have been lucrative to pull the Logi further in front of our fleet on their own LOGI Anchor. This would have made us more secure since we would have been capitalizing on our Logi’s range. Lessons learned.
Dexter then began using “alpha” tactics by calling a primary, then having the everyone lock a secondary, waiting for the Archon to begin reps on the primary then pulling DPS, timing the shot and firing on the secondary via countdown to attempt to drop a target before the Archon could rep it. With the amount of DPS ships available, this only worked on the lower tanked ships, such as HAC’s, BC’s, and below. The T3’s and larger still had tanks that could survive this tactic and they had also brought a Blackbird and an Arazu to the party after killing our Falcon. They were getting jams off on our Logi as more of their lost ships were reshipping to counter our fleet. Another Bhaalgorn. an Armageddon and more T3’s landed and they were getting points and webs all over.
After Dexter’s Mega was popped we called for anyone not pointed to move off field if they could and Logi to assist where they could. Most of them were pointed at this point and jammed out. I attempted to web down and burn, but since my Legion was more AHAC, AB, dual Web, out running the guys webbing me down was not likely. I spread webs to help the Logi pull away, but unfortunately I was unable to get reps at this point and the Legion was going down. I called for anyone not pointed to scramble safe spots that Fitz had made for us, kept firing on their Phobos to get him to bubble down for reps and afterwhich I ejected to save skillpoints and jet out, not thinking that they would withdraw aggression and save me the lossmail (thanks for that, gents).
http://obstergo.killmail.org/?a=kill_related&kll_id=14022944
Hard Knocks took the field, the loot, and my Legion, but they were a great group of guys about it, “good fights” all over local and honestly it was a hell of a lot of fun. Would fight or fleet with the Hard Knocks guys anytime. Thanks from all of us at Obstergo to you guys for bringing the fight and look forward to more in the future.
AdvertisementsFABLE MORAL OF THE STORY
The Ant and the Chrysalis.Appearances are deceptive
The Ant and the Dove.One good turn deserves another
The Ant and the Grasshopper.It is best to prepare for the days of necessity
The Ass and His Masters.He that finds discontentment in one place is not likely to find happiness in another
The Ass and his Purchaser.A man is known by the company he keeps
The Ass in the Lion's Skin.Fine clothes may disguise, but silly words will disclose a fool
The Ass the Fox and the Lion.* Never trust your enemy
The Bald Man and the Fly.-Revenge will hurt the avenger-
The Bat the Birds and the Beasts.He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends
The Bear and the Two Travelers.Misfortune tests the sincerity of friends
The Bee and Jupiter.Evil wishes, like chickens, come home to roost
The Blind Man and the Whelp.Evil tendencies are shown in early life
The Boy and the Filberts.Do not attempt too much at once
The Boys and the Frogs.-One man's pleasure may be another's pain-
The Boy and the Nettles.Whatever you do, do with all your might
The Cat and Venus.Nature exceeds nurture
The Crow and the Pitcher.Necessity is the mother of invention
The Crow and the Pitcher.Little by little does the trick
The Dancing Monkeys.-Not everything you see is what it appears to be-
The Dog and the Hare.No one can be a friend if you know not whether to trust or distrust him
The Dog in the Manger.Ah, people often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves
The Dogs and the Fox.It is easy to kick a man that is down
The Dog and the Wolf.Better starve free than be a fat slave
The Dove and the Ant.Little friends may prove great friends
The Eagle and the Arrow.We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction
The Eagle and the Fox.Do unto others as you would have them do unto you
The Eagle the Cat and the Wild Sow.Gossips are to be seen and not heard
The Farmer and the Stork.Birds of a feather flock together
The Father and His Two Daughters.You can't please everybody
The Four Oxen and the Lion.United we stand, divided we fall
The Fox Who Had Lost His Tail.Misery loves company
The Fox and the Goat.Look before you leap
The Fox and the Grapes.It is easy to despise what you cannot get
The Fox and the Hedgehog.A needy thief steals more than one who enjoys plenty
The Frogs and the Well.Look before you leap
The Frogs Asking for King.Let well enough alone
The Frogs Desiring a King.Better no rule than cruel rule
The Goose With the Golden Eggs.Greed oft o'er reaches itself
The Hare and the Tortoise.Plodding wins the race
The Hares and the Frogs.There is always someone worse off than yourself
The Hare With Many Friends.He that has many friends, has no friends
The Hart and the Hunter.We often despise what is most useful to us
The Hart in the Ox-Stall.Nothing escapes the master's eye
The Heifer and the Ox.He laughs best that laughs last
Hercules and the Waggoner.The gods help them that help themselves
The Horse and Groom.A man may smile yet be a villain
The Horse Hunter and Stag.If you allow men to use you for your own purposes, they will use you for theirs
The Hunter and the Woodman.The hero is brave in deeds as well as words
The Jay and the Peacock.It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds
The Kid and the Wolf.If you must revile your neighbor, Make certain first that he cannot reach you
The Kings Son and the Painted Lion.We had better bear our troubles bravely than try to escape them
The Lion and the Eagle.Try before you trust
The Lion and the Mouse.Little friends may prove great friends
The Lion in Love.Even the wildest can be tamed by love
The Lion the Bear and the Fox.It sometimes happens that one man has all the toil, and another all the profit
The Lion's Share.You may share the labours of the great, but you will not share the spoil
The Man Bitten by a Dog.Benefits bestowed upon the evil-disposed increase their means of injuring you
The Man and the Satyr.Some men can blow hot and blow cold with the same breath
The Man the Boy and the Donkey.Please all, and you will please none
Mercury and the Woodman.Honesty is the best policy
The Milkmaid and Her Pail.Do not count your chickens before they are hatched
The Miller His Son and Their Ass.Try to please all and you end by pleasing none
The Miser.The true value of money is not in its possession but in its use
The Monkey and the Dolphin.Those who pretend to be what they are not, sooner or later, find themselves in deep water
The Monkeys and Their Mother.The best intentions will not always ensure success
The Mule.Every truth has two sides
The Nurse and the Wolf.Enemies promises were made to be broken
The Old Woman and the Physician.He who plays a trick must be prepared to take a joke
The Old Woman and the Wine Jar.The memory of a good deed lives
The One Eyed Doe.Trouble comes from the direction we least expect it
The Oxen and the Axle Trees.Those who suffer most cry out the least
The Peacock and the Crane.Fine feathers don't make fine birds
The Rose and the Amaranth.Greatness carries its own penalties
The Seagull and the Kite.Every man should be content to mind his own business
The Serpent and the Eagle.One good turn deserves another
The Serpent and the File.It is useless attacking the insensible
The Shepherds Boy and the Wolf.There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth
The Shipwrecked Impostor.A liar deceives no one but himself
The Sick Stag.Evil companions bring more hurt than profit
The Swallow and the Crow.Fair weather friends are not worth much
The Thief and the Innkeeper.Every tale is not to be believed
The Three Tradesmen.Every man for himself
The Vixen and the Lioness.Quality is better than quantity
The Wolf and the Kid.It is easy to be brave from a safe distance
The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.Appearances are deceptiveQ&A: NCAA's Mark Emmert talks about college sports scandals, USC
The NCAA president discusses reforms and responds to questions about whether the Trojans were treated equitably.
We're also looking to increase grant-in-aid money to students to cover the full cost of attendance — clothing, miscellaneous costs, transportation. It's $2,000 to $3,000 more than the current grant-in-aid. Let me emphasize: No one wants to start paying our athletes. That would do away with amateurism as we know it. … We want to look at multiyear [scholarship] awards … and cover summer school expenses. The debate we're having now is for what sport, but I expect it will be for all sports.
The situation now is utterly unacceptable. We're moving toward changes in our academic expectations — increasing our Academic Progress Rate … so if [our standards aren't met] the team has no postseason tournaments. By that [new] standard, seven basketball teams would not have been let in the [men's] tournament last year. And it likely will be extended to football [for bowl games]. … It's a serious motivation.
Two Louisiana State players face felony charges in connection with a bar fight. A former University of Miami booster says he provided players with gifts for a decade. Jim Tressel resigned as Ohio State's coach during the off-season, and quarterback Terrelle Pryor was suspended before turning pro. Auburn is under investigation for its recruitment of Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Cam Newton, now in the NFL.
We want to get the focus on the right things in the rulebook — not allowing benefits, not engaging in academic fraud.
You've discussed the importance of college presidents and coaches monitoring their own programs. They're obviously struggling. How do you hold them accountable?
If a coach wants to violate a rule, that's hard to prevent, but we will definitely hold them accountable … you've seen that [with the dismissal of Tennessee basketball Coach Bruce Pearl]. The presidents have to face the music with their boards, community and faculty if things go wrong. I can assure you no president wants to find themselves in those positions. What we can do is demonstrate correct practices, define the level of engagement required, so even if a president only spends 5% of his time on college sports, they know what we expect.
What percentage of college football programs are clean?
That's inherently unanswerable. I know a number of programs and coaches, and I know the quality of those people involved — the vast majority have good integrity. Our athletes have never been better in the classroom. Our games have never been so popular. Yet, these extreme high-profile cases have created this benefit of the doubt.
Is addressing this deteriorating reputation your most important job?
Yes. The most important thing right now is for everyone in college sports to know they can no longer do a cost-benefit analysis of cheating.
Players are also under fire. An LSU quarterback [Jordan Jefferson] was allegedly involved in a bar fight. A high number of Miami players reportedly accepted gifts. Cam Newton is being probed. How do you put more teeth into disciplinary measures?
Day-to-day behavior is the domain of the coaches, the program, the university. We want to make sure that coaches hold students accountable. These things' becoming high-profile means the coaches have to know what the expectations are.
What do you say to USC fans after you allowed Newton to play in the BCS title game, and Pryor to play in the Sugar Bowl when USC was banned from a bowl game because of something that occurred six years ago?
Every case is unique. We look at facts as different and from different distances. It's natural to make comparisons, but I guarantee you usually don't know all the facts we consider.
In light of what has been revealed about Ohio State, Miami and other schools, did USC's punishment fit the crime when it basically involved one Trojan player and outsiders operating 100 miles away from Los Angeles?Date: 2018-01-25
Git: https://gitlab.com/mort96/blog/blob/published/content/00000-home/00010-obscure-c-features.md
I have been working on Snow, a unit testing library for C. I wanted to see how close I could come to making a DSL (domain specific language) with its own syntax and features, using only the C preprocessor and more obscure C features and GNU extensions. I will not go into detail about how Snow works unless it's directly relevant, so I recommend taking a quick look at the readme on the GitHub page.
Sending blocks as arguments to macros
Let's start with the trick that's probably both the most useful in everyday code, and the least technically complicated.
Originally, I defined macros like describe, subdesc, and it similar to this:
#define describe(name, block) \ void test_##name() { \ /* some code, omitted for brevity */ \ block \ /* more code */ \ }
The intended use would then be like this:
describe(something, { /* code */ });
The C preprocessor doesn't really understand the code; it only copies and pastes strings around. It splits the string between the opening ( and the closing ) by comma; that means, in this case, something would be sent in as the first argument, and { /* code */ } as the second argument (pretend /* code */ is actual code; the preprocessor actually strips out comments). The C preprocessor is smart enough to know that you might want to pass function calls to macros, and function calls contain commas, so parentheses will "guard
|
I'm not saying that a set of associated laws isn't a good thing. I'd love to add them. And if classy-prelude continues, I'm sure we will add them. But for the initial proof-of-concept experimental release, I don't think it was worth the investment of time.
One final idea here is to leverage some existing collections of typeclasses (Edward Kmett's reducers package in particular) instead of defining our own typeclasses. Again, for the proof-of-concept, that idea was premature, but going forward I'm hoping to look into it. There are obstacles we'd have to overcome (like ensuring good performance), but I don't think anything is insurmountable.
Very controversial: make those typeclasses work with conduit
I was surprised not to see as much of a discussion about this point as the previous one. In my mind, this was by far the most controversial choice in classy-prelude. It's fair to say that I put it in more out of curiosity if it would work than anything else.
Let's take filter as an example. A relatively simple typeclass to model it would look like:
class CanFilter container element | container -> element where filter :: (element -> bool) -> container -> container
This would work for lists, ByteString, Set, and so on. However, here's the (simplified) signature of filter from Data.Conduit.List :
filter :: (i -> Bool) -> Conduit i m i
This doesn't fit in with our CanFilter class above. CanFilter has a function that takes two arguments, whereas in conduit filter has just one argument.
So here's the trick. We recognize that the first argument is the same (a predicate), and just leverage currying. Recognizing that CanFilter's filter can be viewed as a function of one argument returning a function, we split it up into two typeclasses:
class CanFilter result element where filter :: (element -> bool) -> result class CanFilterFunc container element | container -> element where filterFunc :: (element -> bool) -> container -> container
And then we define a single instance of CanFilter that uses CanFilterFunc for all cases where we return a function:
instance (container ~ container', CanFilterFunc container element) => CanFilter (container -> container') element where filter = filterFunc
(If you're curious about the equality constraint, see this excellent Stack Overflow answer.)
We can then separately define an instance for conduit, which does not overlap at all, and allows us to reuse the name filter in significantly different use cases. Frankly, I think it's pretty cool that we have this kind of flexibility in the type class system. But from a practical standpoint, I'm not sure it's really a great trade-off:
Since the two filter concepts work fairly differently, it may be more confusing than anything else to lump them together.
Error messages get significantly more confusing.
I don't think that conduit usage in this sense is prevalent enough to warrant the costs.
In other words, if there's something I'd want to cut out first from classy-prelude, it's the gymnastics which it pulls to accomodate conduit instances. It was definitely a fun part of the experiment, and I'm glad to have tested it. If anyone has an opinion either way on this, let me know.
Moving forward
There are a number of minor bugs in the typeclass definitions in classy-prelude, requiring more explicit type signatures than should be necessary in some cases. Those kinds of things are easily fixed. If people find specific examples, please bring them to my attention.
Dan Burton started a project called ModularPrelude which takes a different approach to the namespace issue, replicating first class modules via the record system. I think it's definitely an interesting approach, and think it can coexist very well with classy-prelude. But it's not enough for my taste: I prefer the relative terseness of typeclass-based code.
However, putting that project together with my points in this post, I think it's important to note that there is a very large part of classy-prelude which has nothing to do with typeclasses. Dan called this BasicPrelude.hs, and I think it makes a lot of sense to provide that separately (though at least for now, I'll keep it in the same package for convenience).
The idea is simple: I think a lot of people agree with me that some major aspects of this prelude are no-brainers, and would like to use them. People are understably more wary of the experimental bits. (As I've said before, so am I: I won't allow classy-prelude to be used in yesod in its current state.) So let's create a stable basis, and encourage experimentation. As I mentioned at the beginning, since we have full compatibility with base, there's no real concern of fragmentation.
Once I remove the conduit aspects of the library, I think it will open it up for much better analysis of typeclass laws. It might be possible to completely drop a number of typeclasses and use the reducers versions instead. For others, more experimentation might be necessary.
And as usual: feedback is welcome, especially the constructive kind :).ngClass is a very powerful built-in Angular directive for dynamically changing CSS classes on HTML elements. It does this by allowing us to bind scope values as class names. We can then use the state of our application (what variables are currently assigned to) to assign classes to divs, h2s, you name it. Summed up, this directive can be used in variety of ways to change styles and hide/show content.
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ngClass has a wide variety of syntaxes that take many types of expressions. With these, you can bend ng-class to style just about anything in Angular. We’ll cover the definitions of each and explain the examples in action.
A quick note on separation of concerns
Developers who use Angular have different opinions on whether you should mix CSS classes into your JavaScript controllers. For some, this violates the principles of separation of concerns (that styling and functionality should be separate) but others are ok with it. Some of these examples will mix CSS and JS but it’s worth knowing that not everyone does this. With some of syntaxes of ngClass, it’s almost unavoidable.
Syntax #1 – String Syntax
Definition:
The string syntax is very simple to use. Simply put a string into the ng-class expression and that string will be used as the CSS class.
Example:
See the Pen Apply classes in angularJS using string syntax by Develop Intelligence (@DevelopIntelligenceBoulder) on CodePen.
This example is pretty straightforward, the scope variable of btnClass is initiated as ‘danger’. The ng-model of the input field is bound to the that same $scope.btnClass variable. When a different string is put into it, the expression evaluates and checks changes the background-color if that CSS class exists.
Syntax #2 – Array Syntax
Definition: The array syntax is very similar to the array syntax except it allows for adding more than one class. The array gets put right into the quotes in the ng-class expression. This is helpful if you need to apply multiple classes. You’ve probably seen a <div> with multiple classes like ‘dialog-settings template modal’. The array syntax can be useful for this.
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Example:
See the Pen AngularJS – ngClass Example by Develop Intelligence (@DevelopIntelligenceBoulder) on CodePen.
Here’s a very simple example of the array syntax. By adding classes into the input boxes, you can add classes to the array thereby changing that actual CSS class on the <p> element.
Syntax #3 – Map Syntax
Definition:
Ok, here’s where it gets a lot more interesting. The map syntax will change a CSS class according to how values get evaluated in an object. The CSS class changes according to whether the values evaluate to a value or often to truthy/falsey. So what the heck does this actually look like in action?
Examples:
Imagine you have this in your controller:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 $ scope. firstcssclass = false $ scope. secondcssclass = true $ scope. thirdcssclass = true
Then you have this in your template:
1 2 3 < div ng - class = "{large: firstcssclass, red: secondcssclass, clear: thirdcssclass}" > < / div >
This would evaluate to:
1 2 3 < div class = "red clear" > < / div >
So that’s a pretty basic example. Here’s a more interesting example from a codepen by Jason McGovern.
See the Pen AngularJS ng-class conditional by Develop Intelligence (@DevelopIntelligenceBoulder) on CodePen.
How does this particular ng-class example work? Let’s walk through these expressions.
1 2 3 ng - class = "{clearance: item.clearance, new: item.salesStatus === 'new'}"
So, if you notice in the CSS, both clearance and new are CSS styles. Item.clearance and item.salesStatus are properties on the item in the ng-repeat. In this case, they are properties in the objects in the array $scope.products in the controller.
Here’s how these will evaluate: the items will get a class of clearance if the property of clearance is true (aka truthy). The items will get a class of new if the property of salesStatus equals (===) true.
Syntax #4 – Ternary Syntax
The conditional ternary syntax exists in most major programming languages. In JavaScript, the syntax looks like this: condition? expr1 : expr2. Think of the ternary operator as a shortened way of say if (true) { do this } else {do this }. It quickly returns a value on whether something is true or false.
The ternary syntax in Angular (released in 1.1.5, eons ago!) does a similar thing. It is a syntax for assigning one class if an expression is truthy, and another class if the expression evaluates falsey.
1 2 3 ng - class = " valuethatisTrueorFalse? 'css_class_iftrue' : ‘ css_class _ iffalse’” >
(Mind the use of double and single quotes).
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A quick example of this is this nifty bit of code from StackOverflow user Ikrom:
1 2 3 < span > { { userType == 'admin'? 'Edit' : 'Show' } } < / span >
Here’s what this code is doing. If the usertype of admin is true, it evaluates to the class of Edit (likely exposing something an admin would need to see). If the admin property is set to false, the class becomes Show. The ternary operator is helpful for examples like this where CSS classes need to be toggled.
Here’s another toggling jsfiddle example from Alex Paluzzi:
As you can see, ng-class has a lot of power in both its syntaxes and the expressions you can use in them. It’s definitely one of the most powerful tools to have in your Angular toolkit.Last year, when the shooting at a black church in Charleston led state governments to debate removing Confederate flags and other symbols from state property, Fox News commentator Todd Starnes decried the “full-fledged cultural cleansing of the Southern states” and compared the effort to remove Confederate flags to the destruction wreaked by ISIS.
Now Starnes is up in arms again, this time over the University of Mississippi’s decision to stop playing the Confederate anthem “Dixie” at football games, warning in a column this weekend, “It would be foolish to think the progressive academic elites have concluded their quest to eradicate Southern culture and traditions.
Starnes fumed that “progressive liberals continue to bulldoze across the Southern states burning, torching and tearing down every vestige and cultural tradition of the Deep South much like General Sherman did during the Civil War.”
In an interview with St. Louis radio host Jamie Allman about the subject today, Starnes repeated the General Sherman point. “Look, the Islamic State’s doing that in Iraq right now,” he added. “Is that what we really want in our country?”Search Gallery Fan Art The Broken Road: the end... RobD2003 20 Advertisement Advertisement Ghoul School Tarot: World RobD2003 55 Ghoul School Tarot: Wheel of Fortune RobD2003 29 Ghoul School Tarot: Tower RobD2003 29 Ghoul School Tarot: Sun RobD2003 35 Ghoul School Tarot: Magician RobD2003 28 The Hermit RobD2003 29 Ghoul School Tarot: Hanged Man RobD2003 31 Ghoul School Tarot: Fool RobD2003 42 Ghoul School Tarot: Chariot RobD2003 38 Ghoul School Tarot: Temperance RobD2003 28 Ghoul School Tarot: Strength RobD2003 40 Ghoul School Tarot: Star RobD2003 26 Ghoul School Tarot: Moon RobD2003 34 Ghoul School Tarot: Lovers RobD2003 33 Ghoul School Tarot: Justice RobD2003 28 Ghoul School Tarot: Judgement RobD2003 39 Ghoul School Tarot: High Priestess RobD2003 38 Ghoul School Tarot: Hierophant RobD2003 36 Ghoul School Tarot: Empress RobD2003 29 Ghoul School Tarot: Emperor RobD2003 28 Ghoul School Tarot: Devil RobD2003 29 Ghoul School Tarot: Death RobD2003 26 Ghoul School Tarot: Card back B RobD2003 18The big "news" tomorrow on mainstream sites will be about B.J. Upton being lazy or combative or a bad teammate or whatever other euphemism writers want to use. Don't listen to any of it. Upton has his flaws, including struggles vs. elite right-handed pitchers with good fastballs (see below). Everything else is noise.
The secondary headline will focus on the Rays' atrocious hitting. Of course this audience is sharp enough to know that the line drives we've seen hit right at fielders will eventually find holes, and that warning track flyballs will eventually clear the fence.
Even with positive regression on the way, the Rays should still be looking for ways to upgrade both their roster, and their usage of the players they already have.
After the jump, 10 moves I'd like to see the Rays make.
1. Approve $7 million in additional discretionary spending. If the Rays win a playoff series (let alone more than one), they'll make it back and then some.
2. Sit Jason Bartlett vs. all RHP (reverse split this year, but just.266/.332/.364 vs. RH for his career).
3. Sit B.J. Upton vs. elite RHP with killer fastballs (.211/.285/.331 vs. RP in 2010,.259/.336/.403 for his career; play the matchups taking into account both handedness and repertoire).
4. Sit Carlos Pena vs. LHP (.190/.275/.404 vs. LH in 2010;.220/.311/.445 for his career).
5. Acquire at least one above-average LH bat, preferably an outfielder who can catch the ball too. David DeJesus would be perfect.
DeJesus is hitting.326/.394/.479 this year. That's good.
Some of that production can be attributed to a.364 BABIP. That's bad.
DeJesus is a solid fielder - more like a +5 defender than the +15.5 he put up last year, but still a net positive. All told, he's conservatively a 3- to 4-win player. That's good.
UZR may contain potassium benzoate. That's bad.
DeJesus will make just $4.7 million salary in 2010 -- about $2.5 million for the rest of the year if the Rays acquired him tomorrow, with a $6 million 2011 option. That's hella-good.
Offer Jason Bartlett straight up for him. If that doesn't work, offer a B+ prospect, a B- prospect and a C+ prospect.
(The names of the prospects aren't vital for this exercise - few teams can match the Rays' minor league pitching depth, such that potential trading partners can drive the bus to some extent when it comes to parsing Matt Moore, Nick Barnese et al.)
6. Call up Dan Johnson.
7. DFA Hank Blalock.
8. DFA Lance Cormier, go with a six-man bullpen.
9. DFA Gabe Kapler, offer him a manager's job in the minors with a disproportionately high salary and the prospect of rapid advancement (man, I hate writing that).
...and the big one...
10. Offer Wade Davis, a B+ prospect and a B- prospect for Cliff Lee.
As we well know, lineup order isn't all that important, as long as the right players see the most playing time. With that said, something like this could work:
Lineup vs. RH
C Jaso
LF Crawford
2B Zobrist
3B Longoria
RF DeJesus
1B Pena
DH Johnson
CF Joyce (Upton can play CF + bat 9th vs. weaker RH, rotate Johnson/Joyce/Pena for rest)
SS Brignac
Lineup vs. LH
CF Upton
LF Crawford
C Shoppach
3B Longoria
1B Zobrist
DH Aybar
RF DeJesus
2B Rodriguez
SS Bartlett (assuming the Royals prefer prospects)
SP Lee, Shields, Garza, Price, Niemann
RP Soriano, Benoit, Balfour, Choate, Wheeler, Sonnanstine
(Call up Jeremy Hellickson the second ANYONE goes down, be it a SP or RP. He's more than ready.)
A big, honking caveat here: The Rays employ a baseball operations staff, along with a research and development staff, that to a man know more about baseball than I ever could if I lived to be 10,000 years old. They see everything we see, scrutinize every series, every game, every at-bat, every pitch.
They also have to deal with real-life factors that writers don't face when shouting from rooftops. How would Carlos Pena, Jason Bartlett and B.J. Upton handle having their playing time reduced? Are there subtle contract clauses or future arbitration considerations that could be impacted by these moves? Will shuffling the lineup dramatically cause the Rays to sell fewer tickets and foam fingers? These are tremendously tough dilemmas that a doofus Canadian like me can't begin to understand, having never stood in their shoes.
But still...
This is the best chance the Rays will have to win a World Series for...at least two years, and maybe five, 10 or more. Payroll's getting slashed by $20-$25 million next year regardless.
The Rafael Soriano move was already a (terrific) go-for-it-now play. Time to up the ante.
Go all-in, gents. Flags fly forever.
Cross-posted at JonahKeri.com
UPDATE: From our good friend Jason Collette:
In the first 44 games of the season, the Rays hit a robust.297 with runners in scoring position.
To win a prize, head to Jason's Tweet to guess the Rays' batting average with RISP over the past 31 games. Hint: It's...not so special. To the point where I'm sure the Rays' brass is waiting for that RISP performance to regulate before making any big decisions.
I still believe to be a true championship-caliber team, they'll need upgrades, but this does explain a hell of a lot.You did not add any gift products to the cart. Check your available gifts!
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In addition to incubation supplies you will also find a wealth of information on incubating eggs of all sorts. Check out our egg incubation information for breed specific incubation instructions.When I go to the user page of a subreddit user, I cannot see any of the posts that they've made in quarantined subreddits.
When I use toolbox "user history" functionality, quarantined subreddits no longer appear in a user's history.
In other words, to the outside world these users now look all prim and proper. Their user pages have been scrubbed of all their antisocial history, leaving behind only their interactions on the non-despicable parts of reddit.
Leaving aside the reasons that this is socially problematic, practically as a moderator this is going to make my job way harder.
Up until now, I could know that if a user was saying something racist on one of my subreddits, if they were also posting in these other subreddits that it wasn't worth my time to do anything but a quick permaban and not reply to their messages and threats over modmail.
Now it looks like they're just any old user who might have said something bad, and that I should assume that their messages are in good faith and that it's worth my time to try to educate them. Either that, or I have to opt into the quarantined subreddits (which I do not want to do, and which I'll have to do individually and with no guide to which ones I might have missed—and then the history functionality of /r/toolbox or various bots still won't work, so I'll be combing through the users' histories by hand).
I'd like to plead that you guys take a look at this UX decision and please change it. I'm 100% in favor of the quarantining of this content and the bans of the worst of it, but as it exists you've also given problem users places where they can be racist to their hearts' content, while knowing that most other users will never even be able to see that they are. That's not just wrong, it's going to make our lives as mods so much more difficult.
Edit Goddamn titlegore. Too late to do anything about it now.Robert Lewandowski has made decision on future, according to agent
Robert Lewandowski: Borussia Dortmund striker knows his future
The Poland international has long been linked with a move away from the German champions, with Manchester United among the favourites to land him.
Now his representative, Cezary Kucharski, has claimed that the 24-year-old already knows where he is going, hinting that he will leave Dortmund this summer.
"Robert has made his decision. Only he decides when he will make his decision public, though," Kucharski told Polish TV.
"Those who have followed Robert's career will realise that he's never stayed at a club for longer than two seasons.
"He's already in his third season at Dortmund. Read between the lines and you'll know what this means."
Lewandowski's current deal has just over 12 months to run.A Citibank customer has claimed that the banking institution has closed his bank account on citibank because he bought bitcoin, As stated by illusionst on reddit that his bank manager from citibank called him and told him that his account has being flagged because of bitcoin activity on his account.
I got a call from my Bank manager saying that my account has been flagged as I have bought Bitcoin and they will be closing my accounts.
while this can mean that some banks are not happy with bitcoin as it tends to be the future of money that will/might put banks on the run, we have had series of cases in the past where users reported similar cases about banks over account closure because of buying bitcoins with their account.
Some of the cases are alarmed to the banks when the customer`s debit card is linked to an exchange like coinbase,e.t.c
Although in most cases most customer`s carry out their normal bitcoin transaction with their debit cards in exchanges without facing any repercussion from their various banks.
it continues to be a challenge to find banks that makes it very easy to buy and sell bitcoins, which apparently does not come as a shock,given that many major banks keep on questioning the need for the cryptocurrency, knowing that it will stand as an opposition to the banks and their activities in the future.
The best options can be to set up a separate account for your bitcoin transactions or to just find banks that are not strict with bitcoin transactions on accounts so as to always be on the safe side with your funds.
You can as well buy from P2P like remitano.com which offers secure escrow system trade,by that means you tell the person that you are buying from or who you are selling to, not to mention bitcoin in the narration or anywhere in the bank transferLegislation meant to protect new homebuyers from getting ripped off has hit another snag as Premier Brian Pallister's government now says the act won't come into effect for another two years or more.
"We want to continue to make sure we get this right," Manitoba Justice Minister Heather Stefanson (Tuxedo) said Tuesday during question period at the Manitoba Legislature.
In 2013, the NDP passed the New Home Warranty Act, which would make warranties mandatory for all new homes sold in Manitoba. An online registry would also be created that would give prospective homeowners a chance to look up builders and warranty coverage before a sale.
The legislation was supposed to be in play as of Jan. 1, 2017, and was supported by the Manitoba Home Builders' Association.
But the Progressive Conservatives announced last November they would delay implementing the act until January 2018. A provincial spokesperson said that delay was to allow for the "completion of hands-on testing and training of the online registry with primary stakeholders, which is a critical component of implementation."
On Tuesday, Stefanson confirmed the province will postpone making the act law until 2020.
Stefanson said her government wants to sit with the act to make sure it comes with adequate protections for new homeowners, as well as respects home builders.
"We do protect new homeowners in our province … but we also have respect for those in the industry," she said.
NDP finance critic James Allum (Fort Garry–Riverview) says the delay could hurt homebuyers.
He said there were 4,300 homes built in Manitoba in the first nine months of 2017. By the time the act is in place in 2020, roughly 12,000 homes will have been built, he said.
"We're on the side of making sure there are proper protections in place for them, and yet this government has delayed not only one year, but now it's going to be three years," Allum said.
Stefanson said if it was so important for the NDP, the previous administration would've passed the act when it was still in power.
"They didn't proclaim the act themselves. Clearly it was not a priority," she said. "We will take no lessons [from the NDP]."
Assuming the act does one day become law, it would be enforced by Manitoba's Consumer Protection Office.The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that lasted from the 13th century[1] to 1795,[2] when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria.
The state was founded by the Lithuanians, one of the polytheistic Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija.[3][4][5]
The Grand Duchy expanded to include large portions of the former Kievan Rus' and other Slavic lands, including what is now Belarus and parts of Ukraine, Poland and Russia. At its greatest extent, in the 15th century, it was the largest state in Europe.[6] It was a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state, with great diversity in languages, religion and cultural heritage.
Consolidation of the Lithuanian lands began in the late 12th century. Mindaugas, the first ruler of the Grand Duchy, was crowned as Catholic King of Lithuania in 1253. The pagan state was targeted in the religious crusade by the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. The multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state emerged only at the late reign of Gediminas[7] and continued to expand under his son Algirdas.[8] Algirdas's successor Jogaila signed the Union of Krewo in 1386, bringing two major changes in the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: conversion to Catholicism and establishment of a dynastic union between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.[9]
The reign of Vytautas the Great marked both the greatest territorial expansion of the Grand Duchy and the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410. It also marked the rise of the Lithuanian nobility. After Vytautas's death, Lithuania's relationship with the Kingdom of Poland greatly deteriorated.[10] Lithuanian noblemen, including the Radvila family (Radziwiłłs), attempted to break the personal union with Poland.[11] However, unsuccessful wars with the Grand Duchy of Moscow forced the union to remain intact.
Eventually, the Union of Lublin of 1569 created a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the federation, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania maintained its political distinctiveness and had separate government, laws, army and treasury.[12] The federation was terminated by the passing of the Constitution of 3 May 1791, when there was supposed to be now a single country, the Commonwealth of Poland, under one monarch and one parliament. Shortly afterward, the unitary character of the state was confirmed by adopting the Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations.
However, the newly-reformed Commonwealth was invaded by Russia in 1792 and partitioned between the neighbours, with a truncated state (principal cities being Kraków, Warsaw and Vilnius) remaining only nominally independent. After the Kościuszko Uprising, the territory was completely partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria in 1795.
Etymology [ edit ]
The Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania have the complete name of the state as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia (Ruthenian: Великое князство Литовское, Руское, Жомойтское и иных).[13] The title of "grand duchy" was consistently applied to Lithuania from the 14th century onward.[14]
In other languages, the grand duchy is referred to as:
Belarusian: Вялікае Княства Літоўскае
German: Großfürstentum Litauen
Estonian: Leedu Suurvürstiriik
Latin: Magnus Ducatus Lituaniae
Latvian: Lieitija or Lietuvas Lielkņaziste
or Lithuanian: Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė
Old literary Lithuanian: Didi Kunigystė Lietuvos
Polish: Wielkie Księstwo Litewskie
Russian: Великое княжество Литовское
Ruthenian: Великое князство Литовское
Ukrainian: Велике князiвство Литовське
History [ edit ]
Establishment of the state [ edit ]
The first written reference to Lithuania is found in the Quedlinburg Chronicle, which dates from 1009.[15] In the 12th century, Slavic chronicles refer to Lithuania as one of the areas attacked by the Rus'. Pagan Lithuanians initially paid tribute to Polotsk, but they soon grew in strength and organized their own small-scale raids. At some point between 1180 and 1183 the situation began to change, and the Lithuanians started to organize sustainable military raids on the Slavic provinces, raiding the Principality of Polotsk as well as Pskov, and even threatening Novgorod.[16] The sudden spark of military raids marked consolidation of the Lithuanian lands in Aukštaitija.[1]
The Livonian Order and Teutonic Knights, crusading military orders, were established in Riga in 1202 and in Prussia in 1226. The Christian orders posed a significant threat to pagan Baltic tribes and further galvanized the formation of the state. The peace treaty with Galicia–Volhynia of 1219 provides evidence of cooperation between Lithuanians and Samogitians. This treaty lists 21 Lithuanian dukes, including five senior Lithuanian dukes from Aukštaitija (Živinbudas, Daujotas, Vilikaila, Dausprungas and Mindaugas) and several dukes from Žemaitija. Although they had battled in the past, the Lithuanians and the Žemaičiai now faced a common enemy.[17] Likely Živinbudas had the most authority[16] and at least several dukes were from the same families.[18] The formal acknowledgment of common interests and the establishment of a hierarchy among the signatories of the treaty foreshadowed the emergence of the state.
Kingdom of Lithuania [ edit ]
Mindaugas, the duke[19] of southern Lithuania,[20] was among the five senior dukes mentioned in the treaty with Galicia–Volhynia. The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, reports that by the mid-1230s, Mindaugas had acquired supreme power in the whole of Lithuania.[21] In 1236, the Samogitians, led by Vykintas, defeated the Livonian Order in the Battle of Saule. The Order was forced to become a branch of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, making Samogitia, a strip of land that separated Livonia from Prussia, the main target of both orders. The battle provided a break in the wars with the Knights, and Lithuania exploited this situation, arranging attacks towards the Ruthenian provinces and annexing Navahrudak and Hrodna.[21] Belarusian historians consider that Mindаugas was invited to rule Navahrudak and that the union was peaceful.[22][23]
In 1248 a civil war broke out between Mindaugas and his nephews Tautvilas and Edivydas. The powerful coalition against Mindaugas included Vykintas, the Livonian Order, Daniel of Galicia and Vasilko of Volhynia. Taking advantage of internal conflicts, Mindaugas allied with the Livonian Order. He promised to convert to Christianity and to exchange some lands in western Lithuania in return for military assistance against his nephews and the royal crown. In 1251 Mindaugas was baptized and Pope Innocent IV issued a papal bull proclaiming the creation of the Kingdom of Lithuania. After the civil war ended, Mindaugas was crowned as King of Lithuania on 6 July 1253, starting a decade of relative peace. Mindaugas later renounced Christianity and converted back to paganism. Mindaugas tried to expand his influence in Polatsk, a major center of commerce in the Daugava River basin, and Pinsk.[21] The Teutonic Knights used this period to strengthen their position in parts of Samogitia and Livonia, but they lost the Battle of Skuodas in 1259 and the Battle of Durbe in 1260. This encouraged the conquered Semigallians and Old Prussians to rebel against the Knights.
Encouraged by Treniota, Mindaugas broke the peace with the Order, possibly reverted to pagan beliefs, and allied with Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod. He hoped to unite all Baltic tribes under the Lithuanian leadership. As military campaigns were not successful, the relationships between Mindaugas and Treniota deteriorated. Treniota, together with Daumantas of Pskov, assassinated Mindaugas and his two sons, Ruklys and Rupeikis, in 1263.[24] The state lapsed into years of internal fighting.
Rise of the Gediminids [ edit ]
From 1263 to 1269, Lithuania had three Grand Dukes – Treniota, Vaišvilkas, and Švarnas. The state did not disintegrate, however, and Traidenis came to power in 1269. He strengthened Lithuanian control in Black Ruthenia and fought with the Livonian Order, winning the Battle of Karuse in 1270 and the Battle of Aizkraukle in 1279. There is considerable uncertainty about the identities of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania between his death in 1282 and the assumption of power by Vytenis in 1295. During this time the Orders finalized their conquests. In 1274 the Great Prussian Rebellion ended, and the Teutonic Knights proceeded to conquer other Baltic tribes: the Nadruvians and Skalvians in 1274–1277, and the Yotvingians in 1283; the Livonian Order completed its conquest of Semigalia, the last Baltic ally of Lithuania, in 1291.[25] The Orders could now turn their full attention to Lithuania. The "buffer zone" composed of other Baltic tribes had disappeared, and Grand Duchy of Lithuania was left to battle the Orders on its own.
The Gediminids dynasty ruled the Grand Duchy for over a century, and Vytenis was the first ruler from the dynasty.[26] During his reign Lithuania engaged in constant warfare with the Order, the Kingdom of Poland, and Ruthenia. Vytenis was involved in succession disputes in Poland, supporting Boleslaus II of Masovia, who was married to a Lithuanian duchess, Gaudemunda. In Ruthenia, Vytenis managed to recapture lands lost after the assassination of Mindaugas and to capture the principalities of Pinsk and Turaŭ. In the struggle against the Order, Vytenis allied with citizens of Riga; securing positions in Riga strengthened trade routes and provided a base for further military campaigns. Around 1307, Polotsk, an important trading center, was annexed by military force.[27] Vytenis also began the construction of a defensive castle network along the Neman River. Gradually this network developed into the main defensive line against the Teutonic Order.
Territorial expansion [ edit ]
The expansion of the state reached its height under Grand Duke Gediminas, who created a strong central government and established an empire that later spread from the Black Sea
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Ride 20, 40 or 60 miles in the 36th annual event past tulip fields based out of La Conner. $35.
Tour de Lopez, April 29: An annual sellout 5, 12, 17 or 31 mile supported tour plus lunch on Lopez Island, perhaps the quaintest of Wasington’s San Juan Islands. Limited to 900. $25-$45 ($115 families).
Montana Hell Ride, April 29: Pedal 52 or 85 miles of mixed surfaces out of Missoula area; aid stations, support vehicles. $30-$40.
McClinchy Mile Bicycle Ride, April 30: Arlington, Washington, 35th annual ride with loops of 28, 33 or 44 miles, plus option to ride them all for 105 miles; with food stops, post-ride burger and beer. $45.
Lilac Century and Family Fun Ride, April 30: Ride 15, 22, 50, 66 or 100 miles starting at Spokane Falls Community College, with food stops and baked potato at the finish. Family ride 15 and 22 milers on Fish Lake rail trail this year. Sponsored by Aurora Northwest Rotary. Email: [email protected]. $40-$50 early. Register in advance for discount, but event accepts same-day entries. $40-$50
May
Ride Around Clark County, May 6: The 34th annual event includes routes of 100, 66, 53, 34 and 18 miles, fully supported, food, hosted by the Vancouver (WA) Bicycle Club. $25-$35.
Seattle Bike-n-Brews, May 7: Urban ride exploring Seattle breweries, with routes of 33 or 43 miles, sponsored by Cascade Bicycle Club. Limited to 500 riders. $20-$50.
National Bike to School Day, May 10. Get details locally at participating schools.
Kidical Mass, May 13: Safe Spokane bike ride for kids on 3-mile, vehicle-free course in Chief Garry Neighborhood beginning at Chief Garry Park, 1 p.m. Free.
Inland Empire Century, May 13: Ride 25, 50, 75 or 100 miles from Columbia Park in the Tri-Cities through orchards, vineyards and farm fields in the lower Yakima-Columbia river valleys, sponsored by Kiwanis and Group Health. $10-$50.
Skagit Spring Classic, May 13: Skagit Bicycle Club’s 27th annual event, routes range from 25 to 100 miles between Burlington and Bellingham. Rest stops, sags, showers, pasta feed included. $10-$45.
Lewis County Historic Bike Ride, May 13: The 35th annual event has rides of 20, 48, 68 or 100 miles based out of Stan Headwall Park, Chehalis, Wash., hosted by Chehalis-Centralia Optimist Club. $35-$45.
STOKR, May 13-14: Ride 82 or 135 miles in two days in the Scenic Tour of the Kootenai River based out of Libby, Mont. Limit of 450 riders filled by lottery. Applications available in February. 2017 registration is closed.
Bike to Work Week, May 15-19: Hundreds of cyclists participate in Spokane’s promotion of bicycle commuting. Week kicks off with a free bike commuter breakfast at Riverfront Park plus other activities.
Ride of Silence, May 17: A slow, respectful 6-mile ride in Spokane is among hundreds around the world for 14th annual event commemorating cyclists killed in traffic. Loosely organized; meet 5:45 p.m. at Riverfront Park, location to be announced because of construction.
Rock & Ride through George, Wash., May 20: The 11th annual event features courses of 18, 35 or 70 miles based out of George Community Hall; food afterward. $15-$35.
Woodrat 25er mountain bike ride, May 20: Choose 25-mile endurance or 12-mile route of intermediate to advanced riding on mix of double track and single track riding near Priest Lake, Idaho. $29-$45.
Gran Fondo Leavenworth, May 21: A difficult ride of 87 miles on mixed surface roads out of Leavenworth, Wash. One of five events in Gran Fondo series. $70.
24-Hours Round the Clock mountain bike race, May 27-28: Go solo or with a team in this endurance and social classic, with camping, music, prizes at Riverside State Park Seven Mile Area. $275 solo to $625 for five-person team, junior discounts.
Century Ride of the Centuries, May 27-29: Three days of fully supported riding and meals with new routes of 25, 40, 60, 100 miles each day through Eastern Oregon farmlands near Pendleton and Blue Mountains. Limited to 275 riders. $195 (discounts for youths).
Emerald City Bike Ride, May 28 : (Sold out) Billed as Seattle’s largest bike ride (10,000 cyclists), follows 10- or 24-mile routes closed to traffic. $27-$40.
Bite the Bullet Tour, May 28: A 70-mile tour with 4,000 feet elevatioin gain including Winchester Grade out of Lewiston. Loosely organized by Twin River Cyclists (Lewiston-Moscow area).
7 Hills of Kirkland, May 29: A 40-mile “seven hills” route, a 62-mile metric century or a 100 miler from urban to rural roads on a low-traffic holiday. Limited to 1,800 riders. $30-$80 with early registration discounts.
June
National Bike Travel Weekend, June 2-4: Adventure Cycling based in Missoula has assembled online resources, including contacts with ambassadors, to encourage cyclists to try an overnight bicycle tour in their own region, whether the destination is a campground, motel or Warm Showers host.
Apple Century, June 3: Routes are 25, 50 or 100 miles in the 30th annual event starting from Walla Walla Point Park in Wenatchee. Organized by Wenatchee Sunrise Rotary; 700-800 riders. $55-$75.
3 Rivers Race, June 3: Ride 35, 55, 70 or 100-mile routes (also running options) based in La Grande, Oregon., through Grande Ronde Valley; 16th annual event benefits fight against domestic violence. Includes barbecue and poker run for prizes. $50 minimum pledge ($100 family).
Pedal Around a Glacier, eh!, June 3-4: The 22nd annual PAGE starts in Nelson, British Columbia, for a two-day, 140-mile ride along Kokanee and Slocan lakes and twice across the spine of the Selkirk Mountains to loop around Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park. Overnight in New Denver along Slocan Lake. $99.
TOSRV-West, June 3-4: The 47th annual Tour of the Swan River Valley follows the original two-day, 226-mile loop from Missoula to Bigfork, returning along Flathead Lake to Missoula, with great food stops. Bus shuttle option for return. Limited to 200 riders. $115 plus Missoulians on Bicycles membership.
Woodinville Wine Ride, June 4: Ride 30-mile route, including Sammamish River Trail to Woodhouse Win Estates with wine and food tasting; by Cascade Bicycle Club. Age 18 and over only. $50.
Gears for Beers, June 4: Mountain bike poker ride on 16 miles of intermediate-to-had riding or a family friendly ride out of historic Virginia City, Montana; includes BBQ and beer. Benefits rural fire department. $40.
Flying Wheels Summer Century, June 10: Based from Redmond, ride through Western Washington’s Snoqualmie Valley on route options ranging from 23 to 100 miles; by Cascade Bicycle Club. $50-$60.
Lions Bike For Sight, June 10: Ride nearly 100 miles between Missoula and Hamilton, Montana, fully supported with BBQ. Also 10-mile family ride. Fundraiser for Lions Clubs charities. $15-$55.
Lemhi Valley Century, June 10: Ride 100 miles or 100-kilometers along Idaho 28 out of Salmon, Idaho. $30-$60.
I Made the Grade, June 10: Based out of Chief Timothy Park near Clarkston, the 35th annual 18-mile ride climbs 2,000 feet up the Lewiston Grade via the Old Spiral Highway. Organized by Clarkston High School Band. $25-$35.
Flying Wheels, June 10: Ride routes from King County’s Marymoor Park ranging from 23 to 100 miles through the Snoqualmie Valley. $20-$60.
Gran Fondo Ellensburg, June 11: Ride 90 miles on mixed surface roads out of Ellensburg, Wash. Fourth of five events in series. $70.
CHaFE 150 Gran Fondo, June 17: Ride 30or 80 miles, or the full 150-mile loop through Cabinet Mountains, timed Gran Fondo, five food stops, from Sandpoint, through Troy and Bonners Ferry and back. Benefits autism programs in local school district, sponsored by Sandpoint Rotary. Limited to 500 riders. Showers available. Team options. $55-$85 (plus $50 pledge requirement).
Silver Valley Ride to Defeat ALS, June 17: Fundraiser ride on the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes out of Enaville, Idaho, on routes of 27 or 42 miles. Entry $50-$75 plus $100 in donations.
Cascade 66, June 17: Pedal 33, 66 or 100 miles along the Missouri River between Cascade and Wolf Creek, Montana, sponsored by Cascade Lions Club. $66.
Tour de Blast, June 17: Limited to 2,500 riders on national monument roads in Mount St. Helens volcanic blast zone. Routes cover 33, 54 or 82 miles with longest tackling 6,240 in elevation gain; post-ride pasta feed. Sponsored by Longview Rotary. $55-$95.
Spokane Summer Parkways, June 21 on South Hill at Comstock-Manito Neighborhood, 6 p.m.-9 p.m. Event designed for families to walk or ride streets free of motor vehicles, with games and contests. Free.
Ride the Wall, June 21: Celebrate summer equinox in 19th annual 13-mile evening ride along Coeur d’Alene River; start and finish at Mission Inn in Cataldo, followed by barbecue. Benefits Silver Valley Fuller Center for Housing. $30.
Lewis-Clark Summer Games, June 21: Senior competitive series with 13 sports/events include 5K and 10K time trials for men, women age 40 and older; fundraiser for WA-ID Volunteer Center. $35 plus individual event fees.
Lake Chelan Century Challenge, June 24: Join 500 riders on one-to-three loops ranging from 30-40 miles each past Lake Chelan vineyards. Sponsored by wineries and Chelan Rotary. Do the entire century ride and bag 9,600 vertical feet of elevation. $60-$70.
Cycle de Vine, June 24: Coinciding with the Lake Chelan Century Challenge, this leisruely 30-mile ride along the shores of Lake Chelan includes a boat shuttle across the lake to form a loop; riders get coupon books from local Chelan wineries; by Chelan Rotary. $60
RATPOD, Ride Around the Pioneers in One Day, June 24: Ride 126 miles through Pioneer Mountains out of Dillon, Mont. 16th annual event offers optional Strava segments. Online registration opens in March until the cap of 650 riders is reached; waiting list. Benefits Camp Mak-A-Dream. $125 plus $100 minimum donation.
Mount Adams Country Bicycle Tour, June 24: Ride 12, 51, 54 or 105 mile routes in the 15th annual event based out of Trout Lake, Washington; fully supported, meals. $10-$55.
Mazama Ride, June 24-25: (SOLD OUT) runs 75 miles each day on North Cascades Highway from Marblemount to Mazama for the overnight and back; 11,600 feet of climbing; by Redmond Cycling Club. $145-$195.
Relay for Life, various dates for walk/run or cycling events around the region to benefit American Cancer Society.
July
Northwest Tandem Rally, July 1-4: Popular roving holiday weekend event for two-seaters, this year based out of Seattle.
Gran Fondo Kootenai, July 1-2: Ride 76 miles from Libby to Eureka, Mont., and return on a 98 mile route with plenty of elevation gain the next day. Limited to 100; fully supported including dinner, breakfast. Benefits Kiwanis-Lions programs. $200 (more after June 15).
Okanogan Trestles Tour, July 2: Ride 20K, 40K or 80K routes at Myra Canyon on the Kettle Valley Railway from Kelowna to Penticton, B.C. $24-$140.
Seattle Night Ride, July 7: Ride a 15-mile route begining in Ballard and including Burke-Gilman Trail. Costumes, tricked-out bikes optional, but headlight, rear light and rear reflector required. $20-40.
Wheels to Meals, July 8: 12th annual ride, a fundraiser to support hungry families in Pierce County. Choose from 10-, 20-, 32-, 56-, and 75-mile routes that start and end at WSU’s Puyallup Campus and take you through the scenic Puyallup Valley and surrounding areas.
Huckleberry Ride, July 9: Loosely organized by Twin River Cyclists (Lewiston-Moscow area), the ride starts in Deary City Park at 9 a.m. and runs 54 miles to Elk River and back.
Missouri River Scenic Century, July 15: Ride 62, 80 or 100 miles along Missouri River from Cascade to Wolf creek and back; poker ride prizes; by Helena Bicycle Club. $70.
Tour of the Bitterroot, July 16: Dirt road mountain biking on 20 -mile route, 48-mile Skalkaho Mountain Tour out of Hamilton, Mont., ends with barbecue and beer. Also Kids Dirt Road Derby. Benefits Bitter Root Land Trust. $50.
Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic, July 15-16: STP goes 200 miles, fully supported. Largest of region’s multi-day cycling events with 10,000 riders, sponsored by Group Health. (Sells out in February or March, but refund openings are filled in June.) $80-$155.
Glacier Ride, July 18-23: Ride six days, 273 miles in Glacier National Park (Montana) and Waterton Lakes National Park (Canada) with multiple daily mileage options. Benefits Glacier National Park Conservancy. $100 registration, $3,000 minimum fundraising.
RedSpoke, July 19-23: Fully supported 30th annual five-day, 300-mile tour from Redmond to Spokane, limited to 150 riders, sponsored by Redmond Rotary. $100 plus $775 minimum in pledges.
Blue Goose Family Fun Bike Ride, July 22: Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge family-friendly 10.5-mile ride on packed, graded dirt roads, interpretive signs. Start 8:30 a.m.-9 a.m. at Refuge Headquarters, 1310 Bear Creek Road southeast of Colville. Finish by 11 a.m. at headquarters for snacks, prizes. Free. Info: (509) 684-8384.
RAMROD, July 27: Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day, ultra-marathon cycling event, 10,000 feet of climbing in 168 miles, by Redmond Cycling Club. Limited to 800 drawn from lottery that closes March 30. $110 if selected.
4 Summit Challenge, July 29: Ride 30, 50, 60 or 90-mile routes and up to four cool mountain summits from Cascade, Idaho, to Landmark and back. Field limited to 400. Supports local charities. $85-$100.
Ride Around Washington, July 29-Aug. 5: SOLD OUT. Cascade Bicycle Club’s fully supported camping tour route varies; the19th annual RAW includes the North Cascades Highway; 437 miles in six consecutive days of riding. Limited to 250 riders. $1,035.
Spokane Valley Cycle Celebration, July 30: Ride 10, 25 or 50-mile routes based from Mirabeau Meadows Park in Spokane Valley; family friendly with food stops sponsored by ValleyFest organizers. $10-$20.
August
Climate Ride Pacific Northwest, Aug. 3-7: Tour 5 days, 240 miles starting and ending in Seattle and visiting San Juan Islands, Olympic National Park and Canada’s Vancouver Island with multiple daily mileage options. Benefits nonprofit group for environmental education. $100 registration, $3,000 minimum fundraising.
-Required participant fundraising supports 100 + bike advocacy, environmental and sustainability focused nonprofits.
-The ride starts and ends in Seattle and will visit Washington State’s San Juan Islands, Canada’s Vancouver Island, and Olympic National Park.
Eight Lakes Leg Aches, Aug. 5: Ride 30-, 45-, and 75-mile routes, starting from Spokane’s Sunset Hill and out around lakes in Spokane County with about 800 riders to benefit Sexual Assault and Family Trauma Response Center. $50-$60. Info: (509) 343-5020.
Blazing Saddles Bike Ride, Aug. 5: Offers new supported routes for 2017 of 43, 68 and 100-miles out of Colville, Washington. In conjunction with the annual weekend Colville Rendezvous Community Celebration; sponsored by Rotary Club. $65.
RATSWEST, Aug. 5-6: Sponsored by Helena (Mont.) Bicycle Club, Ride Around the Western Pioneer Mountains goes 120 miles in two days, gaining 3,000 feet over two passes the first day, 1,000 feet with no passes the second; starts near Wise River, overnighting at Jackson Hot Springs Lodge. Limited to 40 riders. $86, plus club membership, $20.
Princess Pedalfest, Aug. 5: Women’s bike ride out of Hayden Idaho on routes of 12.5, 25, 45 and 60 miles; fully supported, plus treats, lunch and lots of nice touches. $55-$75.
Ride Idaho, Aug. 5-12: The 13th annual seven-day (with rest day), fully supported, bicycle camping tour that moves to different region of the state. 2017 route runs 399 miles in the Ketchum-Sun Valley area. Organized by non-profit group of cyclists. Limit: 350 riders. $975.
Obliteride, Aug. 11-13: Seattle-area fundraiser for Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center includes 10, 25, 50, 85 or 100 miles in one plus a two-day option and a family ride. Registration starts at $100 plus $500-$1,000 minimum pledges.
Suncadia Multi-Sport Festival, Aug. 11-13: Includes 25-mile ride, kids events and runs, with BrewFest. $10-$155.
Le Tour de Koocanusa, Aug. 12: From Libby, Montana, ride 44 or 83 miles along Lake Koocanusa in 6th annual event by David Thompson Search and Rescue. Coincides with annual Riverfront Blues Festival. $60.
RSVP, Aug. 18-19: Cascade Bicycle Club ride from Seattle to Vancouver and Party, 175-mile route in two days, overnight in Bellingham before riding into Canada. Return by chartered bus. $80-$160.
Gigantic Bicycle Festival, Aug. 18-20: Includes 77 and 100 mile rides, cyclocross, workshops, films, and other activities based out of Centennial Fields Park, Snoqualmie, Washington. $60.
Tour de Lentil, Aug. 19: Scenic ride has 50- and 100-mile courses with pit stops through rolling Palouse hills based out of Pullman, fundraiser for WSU Cycling Club. Email: [email protected]. About $45-$75.
Cycle Greater Yellowstone, Aug. 19-25: Fully supported tour through Montana communities in Yellowstone region sponsored by Greater Yellowstone Coalition. $1,395 ($995 juniors).
York 38 Special, Aug. 26: Mountain bike 38 miles (or compete in 76-mile cyclocross event) on gravel, asphalt and single track with aid stations out of York, Montana. Sponsored by local firefighters. $35-$45.
Mary Bridge Children’s Courage, Aug. 26-27: Choose from five different rides based out of Eatonville, Washington including one-day 5 mile family ride, and 30 and 50 milers, plus two-day 150 and 175 milers. Benefits Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital & Health Network. Fees $35-$75 plus Fundraising minimums $50-$750.
High Pass Challenge, Aug. 28: Cascade Bicycle Club thigh-burner gives up to 600 riders 10 hours to pedal 114 miles and conquer 7,500 feet of climbing around Mount St. Helens; optional route 61 miles with 2,000 feet of climbing. $45-$80.
September
Great Northwest Fall Tour, Sept. 3: Ride 15, 30, 50 or 85-mile routes beginning at Newport City Park. Benefits Newport/Priest River Rotary Club. $35-$50 ($75 per family).
Kootenay Rockies Gran Fondo, Sept. 9: Ride 58K, 102K or 152K between Cranbrook and Kimberley, B.C., food and entertainment. $119-$159 (Canadian).
Cycle Oregon, Sept. 9-16: Billed as “the best bike ride in America,” ultra-supported tour moves to a different route each year supported by local communities. In its 30th year, 430-490 miles. Spin-off weekend event set for July 7-9. Registration opens in February; fills quickly. $999.
SpokeFest, Sept. 10: Spokane event attracts 1,600 participants, families as well as serious riders; 10th annual event based from Kendall Yards has three tour options: a 9-mile loop, the classic river loop of 21 miles in Riverside State Park, and a Spokesman 50-miler extending Classic Loop into the Four Mounds area. $8-$17.
NIC Brian Williams Poker Ride, NOT YET SCHEDULED: Annual bike ride to collect cards for prize-winning poker hands; in memory of an NIC student; starts 12:30 p.m. at O’Shays Irish Pub and Eatery, 313 Coeur d’Alene Lake Dr. in Coeur d’Alene. Ride Live music, barbecue, silent auction, door prizes and a T-shirt. Sign up: (208) 676-7169. $25.
WaCanId Ride, Sept. 11-16: Rare international bicycle tour on the Selkirk Loop; 7th annual ride includes on new route up to 370 miles (or shorter segments) and 22,000 of elevation gain. Start in Sandpoint, Idaho, or at Nelson, British Columbia. Limited to about 50 riders from each start. Sponsored by Rotary clubs. Info: (208) 267-0822. Passport required. $495, includes jersey.
Kootenai River Ride, Sept. 16: Ride 16, 60 or 100 kilometers near Kootenai River out of Boundary County Fairgrounds in Bonners Ferry, Idaho; 15th annual event supported by Rotarians, followed by baked potato feed. $25, family $50.
Salmon Arm Bike for Your Life Century Ride, Sept. 16: Ride 10, 35, 75 or 100 kilometers near Salmon Arm, British Columbia, in this 17th annual event limited to 600 riders. BBQ lunch. $5-$30 ($50 family).
Kidical Massive, Sept. 16: Safe Spokane bike ride for kids on 3-mile, vehicle-free course starting and ending at Kendall Yards with activities; part of a global event that puts kids on bikes all over the world. 1 p.m. Free.
Ride the ROC, DISCONTINUED: Ride 22, 50, 72 or 100 miles through sage-steppe via Omak,Wash., Conconully and Riverside. Sponsored by Omak Kiwanis. $45-$55.
Bike MS 150, Sept. 16-17: ride 20, 50, 75 or 100 miles in one day or two, on Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes to benefit local Multiple Sclerosis. Overnight at Silver Mountain Resort. $45, plus donation.
RIM Ride, Sept. 16-17: Rotary In Motion Family Fun Ride based from Liberty Lake, Wash., starts with 5-mile family ride on Saturday, then 15, 25, 50 or 100 miles rides on Sunday finishing with lunch and beer garden. $5-$60.
Kootenay Suffer Fest, Sept. 17: Based out of Kaslo, New Denver and Nakusp, British Columbia, gentle to extreme events include mountain bike, cyclocross, duathlon, trail runs and kids races. Costs vary.
Friday Harbor Bike-N-Brew, Sept 23: Limited to 200 riders. Offers a choice of three bike routes (25-, 36-, or 50-mile courses with support) exploring the picturesque back roads of San Juan Island. After the ride, relax and share your stories with fellow riders at brew tasting at Brickworks in Friday Harbor. Bike event, $60; Brew event, $25.
Gran Fondo Winthrop, Sept. 23: Ride 90 miles on mixed surface roads out of Winthrop, Wash. Last of five events in series. $70.
Kettle Mettle, Sept. 23: Gravel Road Cycling Fondo on British Columbia’s Kettle Valley Railway, ride 50K, 100K or 120K in Penticton to Kelowna area, supported, categories for solo and team and bike style, wine festival and After Party in this 4th annual event. $85-$150 (Canadian), with team prices.
Coeur d’Fondo, Sept. 23: The 6th annual Gran Fondo style timed event begins and ends in Coeur d’Alene with competitive and non-competitive options. Choice of five distances: 15, 37, 47, 84 or 108 miles. Riders end with entry to Oktoberfest. Course features Lake Coeur d’Alene and Idaho’s Highway 97 Scenic Byway through Harrison and St. Maries. Shorter ride participants board a partyboat back to Coeur d’Alene from Harrison (Riders on 47-mile ride board boat to start at Harrison). Sponsored by Idaho Centennial Trail Foundation. $25 for family ride, $85 for others.
Kitsap Color Classic, Sept. 24: Ride 25, 37 or 57 miles in 24th annual event through fall colors and small communities on Kitsap Peninsula, organized by Cascade Bicycle Club. Food stops and pancake breakfast. $40-$45.
Rotary Rivers & Ridges Ride, Sept. 30 : Includes family rides of 7, 14 or 25 miles as well as challenging 50 or 100 milers from Clarkston, Washington., area, with a Riverfest event. $20-$50.
October
Chewelah Valley Lions Fall Half-Century Bike Tour, Oct. 1: Includes 25 or 50 miles from Chewelah to Springdale and back via Stevens County loop around Waitts Lake, plus 10-mile ride for kids. Sign ups allowed up to the 10 a.m. start in Chewelah City Park. Sponsored by Lions Club. Info: Becky Washington, [email protected].
Tour de Rock Mountain Bike Ride & Rough Ride, Oct. 7: At 49 Degrees North Mountain Resort. Choose from at least three rides, including a bunny hill tour at the resort or a challenging climb starting in Chewelah and gaining 4,000 feet of elevation on a variety of surfaces. Party and prizes. Benefits 49 Degrees North Winter Sports Foundation. Info: (509) 937-4922 or [email protected].
Manastash Metric Century, Oct. 7: The 21st annual ride includes 50K or 100K options along the Yakima River from Ellensburg to Cle Elum and back. $40.
Western Montana Hill Climb, Oct. 1 (always the first Sunday in October): Time-trial-style 4-mile climb gains 840 feet up Pattee Canyon in Missoula; nine categories including new riders plus eight bicycle categories for the 40th annual event hosted b Missoulians on Bicycles. Prize for every rider. $3.
Add an event
If you don’t see your regional cycling event listed, send information by email to Outdoors editor Rich Landers.Hi, this was saved from a MS Word document my friend Jimmy sent me. I have no idea who the original author is. If you're interested, please check out my website. Thanks, and enjoy.
To me, Tool's Lateralus is the most amazing piece of music ever composed. I think Tool deliberately wanted to give their fans something truly amazing, but wanted them to find it on their own. "Recognize this as a holy gift..." At first, I thought that the song Lateralus was about tripping acid - discovering true color by seperating the body from the mind. At first listen, I imagined the bending envelope as an intense visual. After becoming more familiar with the track, however, I had reformed my interpretation to something broader: think deeper. Lateralus, perhaps because it is the album's "title track", serves as the central clue for a puzzle that a friend of mine had read about somewhere on the internet. "All I know is that there is a different order for the songs - something about two spirals. Oh yeah, and thirteen is in the middle." After scavenging through endless google search results, I gave up on finding more about this 'alternate order'. Intent to figure the album out, and very curious about the spirals - I put on the proverbial 'thinking cap'. I understood how the spirals could have a lot of significance, in that the album's title track offers the inspiring, "swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human..........And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been. We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been." In my internet scavenging, I had read one review, written by a drummer, who mentioned that Danny Carey's drum beat formed a fibonacci sequence during the song Lateralus. A drummer myself, I decided to get out the graph paper and follow Danny. I can't play like he can, but at least I can hear everything he's doing, and thus was able to construct the drum tabulature. Sure enough, Danny repeats a Fibonacci sequence through the number 13: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13. After 13, he starts again with 1. Bringing in my Algebra 2 knowledge of the Fibonacci sequence, when the equation for the Fibonacci sequence (which I don't actually know) is graphed, it forms a sprial whose vertex depends on the number at which the sequence begins. Coincidence? I began to think not. I had already known of Danny's obsession with sacred geometry and am familiar with Bob Frissell's book, Nothing in This Book Is True, But It's Exactly How Things Are, so the significance of what I had stumbled upon had actually begun to settle in. This is where I just had to play with Lateralus. I had doodled a few spirals in the corners of my graph paper, and in doing so made the first important connection to Lateralus. I knew that if the tracks were in fact intended to be heard in a different order, "Parabol" and "Parabola" would have to go together. In drawing my spirals, I had begun with a vertex and'spiraled' outwards. After writing the numbers 1 through 13 linearly, I could immediately see that Parabol and Parabola would have to be the middle of my spiral (in that 13 / 2 = 6.5). I drew a simple arrow between 6 and 7 and then pondered the next pair. At first, I actually drew a spiral connecting pairs of numbers whose sum equaled 13 (the number of songs on the album). This, however, left the last track in the same position and without anything to connect to. At this time, I had used my copy of Lateralus and Cool Edit Pro to take out the silences between tracks and put the songs in the following order: 6,7,5,8,4,9,3,10,2,11,1,12,13. The transition from Parabola into Schism blew my mind, as the plucks, probably dismissed by listeners as a drawn out rant of an ending, perfectly transition into the beginning of Schism. When you count out beats as the strings are plucked, Schism resumes with the same time signature and tempo - mirroring the progression of notes. The transition from Schism into Ticks & Leeches is equally intriguing. Schism ends with strong double-kick bass and tom smacks, and Ticks & Leeches begins with what many would call a 'tribal' drum beat. The beat at the very start of Ticks & Leeches is slightly different every subsequent time it is repeated - the measures are two beats longer. Yup - you guessed it - those two beats are ACTUALLY the last two beats of Schism. I can honestly say that I never understood the album's fourth track, Mantra until reordering the album's songs. What I had originally heard as whale calls now had begun to resemble the worst imaginable dry heaves - or a stylized choking. Fitting, seeing as how the last line in Ticks & Leeches is "I hope you choke." After this transition, none of those following it really seemed to make much sense. I certainly didn't like that Disposition and Reflection had been seperated - as they sound quite good when played sequentially on the album. This was the only real roadblock in my disciphering of the Holy Gift. Then I had remembered what my friend had told me - 13 was in the middle. At the time, probably just wanting to believe that there was more to this cd, I had equated this to the positioning of the song "Intermission" on the previous release, Ænema. For the song to be in the'middle' of the album it would have to be the seventh track in sequence, here having six tracks on either side of it. So I inserted Faaip de Oiad after Lateralus, and almost peed my pants when I discovered that (ever-so-faintly) the fading tone of the last note of Lateralus could be heard in beginning of Faaip de Oiad, and how the distortion of the guitars at the tail end of Lateralus resembled, and later transitioned seamlessly into, the static at the beginning of Faaip de Oiad. The lyrics of Lateralus justify this break in the spiral, almost instructing: "spiral out, keep going, spiral out, keep going." I went back to Lateralus to find the next clue. In Danny Carey's amazingly competent Fibonacci sequence, he had stopped at 13 and gone back to 1. This is what I chose to do to finish the sequence. A second spiral was now constucted, and the order for the Holy Gift now became 6,7,5,8,4,9,13,1,12,2,11,3,10. Already many of you are probably fascinated at what I have revealed to you, but I can not even begin to tell you what this new order has opened up for me. The beauty of Lateralus is very, very fragile and has to be viewed with a very open mind. It can also be different when looked at from different points of view. Aside from the fact that the new order of the songs places them in an order where they flow together nicely - often ending and resuming on the same notes or within the same progression, and some times - in the case of Lateralus into Faaip de Oiad and The Grudge into Triad - even overlapping (though admittadly sound much better when actually electronically overlapped, this is kind of cheating. Consider this a hint, however, if you plan on doing this yourself), the two spirals help to tell a story that every Tool fan should hear. In the interest of not boring the only casually intrigued, I will try to keep this very brief. I would also recommend familiarizing yourselves with Frissell's book (yeah - the one I mentioned earlier). I consider Parabol and Parabola to be quite expository. Maynard wants us to know that no matter what happens, we must all know that this is not our only existance. Our very minds and the contents of our subconscious are intended to be immortal, and if we accept this into our lives (be it because of personal or religious reasons), it will be so. As such, pain is an illusion. At first, I called it "The Lateralus Prophecy" (for reasons you will soon understand), but I have since decided to call the'reordered' version of Lateralus "The Holy Gift". As Maynard says, "Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing," I take the word "this" to mean much more than just his simple cautioning. Since Parabola is the second track of the Holy Gift, it can be considered at the beginning (esp. considering the context of it's duality with Parabol), and as such, I interpret Maynard's words as more than just clever lyrics in a song. They are a plead for his listeners to listen to everything he has to say and truly celebrate the chance of immortality offered throughout. I would be lying if I said that each song has a specific translation.
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your crotch at the office? How long would you last in that job?
Pastry chef Kate Burnham says these disturbing scenarios happened to her, and in 2014 she filed a human rights complaint against three senior chefs at Weslodge, a Toronto restaurant. Burnham alleged that she was verbally harassed and routinely had her breasts and crotch touched at work, among other indignities.
Sexism, bullying and rage continue to plague many high-adrenaline, male-dominated kitchens. After Burnham went public this June, many rallied around her to decry rampant misogyny in the restaurant industry. Restaurant owner Jen Agg went further: the proprietor of Toronto's Black Hoof and Rhum Corner organized "Kitchen Bitches," a conference with the tagline "Smashing the Patriarchy One Plate at a Time."
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The goal, according to its website, is "to change the antiquated, ridiculous notion, still held on to by far too many, that women don't belong in kitchens or leadership roles in restaurants." It's happening Thursday in Toronto.
Panelists hope to challenge a sexist kitchen culture by talking about it and building new norms. Among the speakers are Torontonians Suzanne Barr, owner of Saturday Dinette, and Sophia Banks, a transgender activist and cook at The Beaver. The Globe spoke with another participant, Toronto-born Amanda Cohen, the chef and owner of Dirt Candy, an award-winning vegetarian restaurant in New York.
What was your reaction when the Weslodge allegations emerged?
I was surprised and not surprised at the same time. This is still an ongoing part of the kitchen culture. You want to believe that it's not going to happen but it does.
How did bullying and sexist attitudes get so ingrained at professional kitchens?
It comes from the French idea of hierarchy in a kitchen. There is also a frat mentality: "I went through it, so now I'm going to haze you. If you want to be successful you're going to have to go through hoops."
Jen Agg has talked about a "bro" culture dominating Toronto's restaurant scene lately. How is young, male machismo playing into gender dynamics in kitchens today?
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What we have is a bunch of young kids without a lot of instruction. If their higher-ups aren't watching over them, bullying and sexual abuse can get out of hand. And if their bosses came up in kitchens where bullying was okay, we're going to have a whole other generation of cooks [who] act like this.
Some of the kids who work for me are so young; they come straight out of high school. We have a lot of conversations among our management staff because everything we do, they copy. They are learning how to be adults in our kitchen.
Noma chef Rene Redzepi, whose restaurant has two Michelin stars, recently wrote a screed against misogyny in kitchens. He pleaded with cooks to crawl out of the "Dark Ages" and asked an important question: "Can we be better? Perhaps, the real question is this: Do we want to be better?" Do you see a reticence among some to leave the Dark Ages?
There will be those who will want to hold on to the old ways. But there are too many of us who want a change and won't tolerate it.
Why the reluctance among some chefs to give up bullying their staff? What does that behaviour offer a business?
Nothing. In the end you don't get anything out of it. Your cooks don't become better cooks, they just become people who might want to go on and yell at others.
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Having worked in a couple of really yell-y kitchens and now running my own kitchen for 12 years, I find I get a lot more out of my employees if they like me. If they're not terrified of me and respect me, they're more likely to stay on longer. I don't want to lose my cooks: I spent a lot of time training them and investing in them.
[Burnham] was afraid to go to work. Why as a boss would you want that? How do you live with yourself if that's the environment you create?
Something stressed at the Kitchen Bitches conference is that the "goal isn't to turn kitchens and restaurants into dry, PC, 'no fun' zones."
No, not at all. It's about making everyone enjoy their work environment. That doesn't mean there can't be some sexual humour – it's how you present it. If you run a good kitchen there's a lot of humour and you have lots of fun. One really valid point that Rene made was that you just have to try harder to be funny – sexual humour can be lazy.
What will ultimately change the sexism in this industry?
It's only in the past couple of years that people have realized this is an industry that does need to be regulated. We're starting to think about better policies, such as people not working as long hours. We still don't have maternity leave. We don't have any rules in kitchens – there's no standard for how you have to be. It's not an overnight change. We change it day by day.
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How do you maintain respect among employees in your kitchen?
You don't always want to be the hallway monitor, but if you have to say something, you have to. That's the only way I know how to deal with it. We talk about it.
Redzepi recommended that culinary schools offer "a manual on basic human interaction." Would that help?
Cooking schools have a greater responsibility to their students now because there are so many passing through their doors. They're so young and they're going into an adult environment right away.
My landlord is a chef and a total vulgarian, and even he was disgusted by the Weslodge allegations. I'm hoping more guys in the industry feel the same way.
Most of the people I know run rather gentle kitchens. We don't support hazing or bullying. None of us really believe in yelling. Having come up in the ranks of some pretty bad kitchens, we all feel like this is our chance to make it right.
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This interview has been condensed and edited.Most see a disability as an impairment of normal function; however, some see a disability as a source of creativity and innovation. Being blind means that one does not exist in the perceptual world of sight; on the contrary, that individual may have a greater presence in the perceptual world of touch, taste, smell, and hearing. Therefore, a conclusion may be drawn that a perceptual world is different for each individual, but that perceptual world contributes to the experience of the individual regardless of its constituents. In a few case studies of paradoxical neurological disorders Oliver Sacks illustrates the perceptual words of those who differ from the norm. Oliver Sacks was a British born neurologist that spent the majority of his professional life in the United States. In addition to being a well-known physician, Sacks was also a naturalist and author who wrote many best-selling books; including, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and An Anthropologist on Mars.
A common motif that is explored throughout An Anthropologist on Mars is sight. The multiple sections of An Anthropologist on Mars detail longitudinal case studies, with a majority of them pertains to discrepancies in visual perception; however, all of them pertain to individuals that use their afflictions as a source of creativity. Sight happens to be a very relatable topic of interest to Sacks, since he was documented as having been diagnosed prosopagnosia, or the impairment of facial recognition. As a physician, Oliver Sacks fosters a relationship with the individuals of his case studies that transcends the traditional doctor and patient relationship. In the section The Last Hippie, Sacks visits his patient Greg in an in an assisted living facility for several years and even indulges Greg and his love of rock music by arranging to take him to a Grateful Dead concert.
In An Anthropologist on Mars, Sacks outlines each of his case studies with a different section of the novel that are all mutually exclusive from one another. These sections illustrate: a color-blind painter, a blind man who believes he is living in the sixties, a surgeon with Tourette’s syndrome, a man who lost his sight in early childhood to regain it in his mid-fifties, an artist who creates his artwork solely from memory, a young artist savant, and an professor with autism with extraordinary empathy for animals. Sacks goes to great lengths to get to know his patients on a personal level and learn as much as they can about how they go through life, oftentimes shadowing them at both work and home to get a sense of both their private and personal lives. In the case of the surgeon with Tourette’s syndrome, Oliver Sacks lived his Bennett, the subject of his study, and scrubbed in on several of his scheduled surgeries. The reason Sacks is able to share so much insight on the perceptual worlds of the subjects of his case studies is that he fosters close personal relationships with them.
I believe that through several unique case studies, Oliver Sacks is making a statement about perceptual disabilities illustrating the concept that those afflicted by perceptual disorders are not characterized by their disorders, rather that the disorder is characterized by the individual. In the section an Anthropologist on Mars, a professor at Colorado State University who is autistic, is interviewed by Sacks and it is clear that she is aware of her strengths and weaknesses. “Temple’s attitudes seem similar to this: she is very aware (if only intellectually, inferentially) of what she is missing in life, but equally (and directly) aware of her strengths, too- her concentration, her intensity of thought…” (Sacks 277). Despite Temple’s difficulty pertaining to social perception, she is able to live a rich and productive life; ironically, empathizing with other animals. This autistic professor has a doctorate in animal science, but lacks the ability to distinguish tears of joy from tears of sadness; however, she is not defined by her ability to judge social cues but rather by her valued contributions to the scientific community.
The scientific community, specifically the medical community, can also benefit from another subject of Sack’s case studies. Tourette’s is a compromising disorders that affects the ability for individuals to pursue certain professions due to nervous ticks; in opposition to traditional thought, surgeon is not one of those professions. “His whole identity at such times is that of a surgeon at work, and his entire psychic and neural organization becomes aligned with this, becomes active, focuses, at ease, un-Tourettic” (Sacks 98). Sacks depicts the personal life of Bennet as characterized by extreme ticking; on the contrary, in his profession Bennet is able to perform surgery with the utmost care and precision. Despite Bennet’s nervous ticking, he is able to meet the expectations of his profession where under traditional standards he would be discriminated against.
Discrimination is a concept usually given a negative connotation; however, in regards to the visible light spectrum discrimination is essential. In the event of an accidental car crash, Johnathan lost the ability to discriminate color. “Although Mr. I does not deny his loss, and at some level still mourns it, he has come to feel that his vision has become ‘highly refined,’ ‘privileged,’ that he sees a world of pure form, uncluttered of color” (Sacks 38). An artist in his mid-fifties that made formerly made a living off of his colored painting was forced to reinvent his style so late in life due to a tragic accident. Despite losing the fundamental aspect of color, Johnathan was able to prosper in a new black and white phase of his life, evidence that deficiencies in perception is not what defines us.
The contributions to our perceptual world is different for each individual, but that perceptual world contributes to the experience of the individual regardless of its constituents. Oliver Sacks does a phenomenal job of illustrating the boundaries of the perceptual worlds of the subjects of his case studies. Sacks provides in depth psychological and biological analysis regarding several unique case studies of which demonstrate that those afflicted by perceptual disorders are not characterized by their disorders, rather that the disorder is characterized by the individual.Unions brand foreign mine worker deal 'lunacy'
Updated
Sorry, this video has expired Video: Unions slam foreign mine worker deal (7pm TV News NSW)
The union movement has accused the Federal Government of caving in to billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart over an agreement to allow more than 1,700 foreign workers into Western Australia for a mining project.
The agreement, the first of its kind, will allow Ms Rinehart's $9.5 billion Roy Hill project in the Pilbara to sponsor overseas workers on 457 visas.
Ms Rinehart, Australia's richest woman, has long called for easier access to foreign temporary workers to help fill shortages.
The Roy Hill project is expected to dig out 55 million tonnes of iron ore per year for 20 years by the end of 2014.
It will hire 6,700 Australian workers during its three-year construction phase, but says it will need another 1,700 workers from overseas on 457 visas, where the positions cannot be filled locally.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen says the project will have massive economic benefits.
"The Government is committed to ensuring jobs arising from the project are filled locally," he said.
"To this end the Government will establish a jobs board and expects that foreign workers are only recruited after genuine efforts to employ Australians.
"The jobs' board will also be useful in assessing the case for future potential EMAs. Indeed, the agreement has specific clauses that will require both Roy Hill and its contractors to continue to prioritise the recruitment of Australians throughout the life of the project."
He says the company did not get all it wanted, and that another 10 to 30 projects are negotiating with the Government for similar enterprise migration agreements.
But it has drawn an angry response from union leaders, who have accused the Government of "sheer lunacy".
Frankly, I just can't get my head around what political genius thought this was a good idea. Who thought this is a great thing to do today? It is just sheer lunacy. Sheer lunacy. Paul Howes
Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes says it is bad news for Australian workers.
"Frankly, I just can't get my head around what political genius thought this was a good idea," he said.
"Who thought this is a great thing to do today? It is just sheer lunacy. Sheer lunacy."
CFMEU national secretary Dave Noonan has also weighed in, saying the Australian Government is selling out its workers.
"The Minister's press release described this as a historic announcement," he said.
"It is indeed a historic announcement when a Labor minister puts the interests of billionaire mining companies ahead of the interests of working Australians and the Australian community at large."
And the ACTU's Dave Oliver says it is "reprehensible" that Australian workers are being overlooked.
He says the skills shortage has been overstated.
"So we're being told on one hand that there are not enough workers to fill the needs and yet every day union officials are out there dealing with job losses," he said.
"We don't believe that there's a significant skills shortage as been stated. We think it's been overstated and that's why a jobs' board is one step to try and resolve that point."
But the Australia Industry Group has welcomed the agreement, saying the deal will deliver broad benefits for the economy.
While the group supports the decision, chief executive Innes Willox says there also needs to be a focus on training Australian workers to meet the country's long-term needs.
"We need to get the balance right between bringing in skilled migrants now to meet our immediate short-term needs on particular projects or particular skills, but also training up our workforce for the future," he said.
Federal Government frontbencher Gary Gray has defended the decision.
He says the Government wants to make sure major projects are built on time and on budget.
The Government says more large-scale agreements are under negotiation.
Topics: business-economics-and-finance, immigration, mining-industry, wa, karratha-6714
First postedFergie's Wedding Day Preparations Revealed
Lucky New Years Eve party-goers were in for a treat if they happened to be in Las Vegas and ringing in the 2009 at the Venetian. Singerwas on hand to entertain the crowd. Doesn't seem like Fergie is taking much time to herself these days, especially with her wedding date nearing.
On January 10th she and gorgeous actor Josh Duhamel will finally tie the knot and she has been working her tail off to make sure that she will look great in her gown. Admitting it has been hard since she just had to pack on the pounds for her upcoming role in the movie Nine.
In her quest to try to maintain and stay healthy, her routine consists of hiking and doing sit-ups. Fergie admits that she doesn't miss a day of working out.
Guests at the Venetian got to see Fergie and Josh show a little affection as the clock struck midnight. They were seen smooching on the clubs catwalk and later in the VIP area cuddled up, drinking some champagne before heading out at 1:00 a.m.
Good luck to the couple.There’s a new best-seller on Amazon called “Reasons to Vote for Democrats: A Comprehensive Guide” that’s being touted as a guaranteed path for the party to become “unstoppable.”
It’s 266 pages of blank paper.
No. 4 among Amazon’s best-sellers on Thursday, it also was No. 1 among political books.
Written by Michael J. Knowles, managing editor for the Daily Wire, it’s described as “the most exhaustively researched and coherently argued Democrat Party apologia to date.”
“I’ve been observing the Democratic Party for at least 10 years now and when I observed their record and reasons to vote for them – on reasons of economics or foreign policy or homeland security or civil rights and so on – I realized it was probably best to just leave all the pages blank.”
Dave Rubin Joins Infowars LIVE To Talk About The Cult Of The Left
Read moreQueensland senator calls for tougher penalties and an independent ombudsman to help consumers resolve quality issues
In possibly the most bizarre election stunt so far, Senator Glenn Lazarus has used an army tank, two sledgehammers and some pavers to destroy a car.
In a scene fit for a demolition derby, the independent Queensland senator tanked the five-seater Dodge Journey to draw attention to his proposal to introduce “lemon laws” to protect Australians from dud imports.
Glenn Lazarus takes his message into mining heartlands – the boom is bust Read more
The senator and former rugby league star known as the “Brick with Eyes”, shattered the windscreen with the sledgehammer, which turned out to be a lemon itself and broke on the first hit.
A second sledgehammer and some pavers were found and other members of the crowd joined in the demolition as people in lemon costumes looked on.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Glen Lazarus drives a tank over a car to highlight the problem of poor quality vehicle imports.
“I’m going to cause some damage, I guarantee you,” Lazarus said.
The final blow was dealt when an army tank rolled over the top of the car.
“Yewwwwwwwww, goodbye car,” Lazarus whooped.
Lazarus is proposing tougher penalties and the establishment of an independent ombudsman to help Australians who buy new cars that turn out to be poor quality.
“According to [consumer group] Choice, 75% of new car buyers experience some major issue with their cars in the first five years and of that 15% don’t get their issues resolved, which I think is poor form from the manufacturers.”Calculate the value of $70 by year
Amount $ From To 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 $71.34 Adjusted for inflation, $70.00 in 2018 is equal to $71.34 in 2019. Annual inflation over this period was 1.91%.
Value of a dollar. Calculates inflation to see what a U.S. dollar was worth in the past and today. View historical and today's current inflation rates, using the CPI provided by the United States government. Inflation data is updated regularly, so results may differ from other websites. How much has the cost of living increased? What was inflation for a specific period?DENHAM SPRINGS, La. -- Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards’ chief financial adviser says catastrophic flooding has made it more likely the state will need a short-term bank loan to keep paying for government operations.
Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne told a panel of state officials Thursday the need for the loan was “more probable than not.”
La. flooding leaves homes ruined, thousands in shelters
The Edwards administration was worried about cash flow problems even before the storms, because his predecessor and lawmakers heavily drained state treasury reserves to patch together prior year budgets.
More than 40,000 homes were affected by the flooding and more than 30,000 people have been rescued, the governor said Thursday. At least 13 people have died.
With Louisiana’s flood response costs mounting - and the timeline for receiving federal disaster aid not certain - that heightens cash flow concerns. Dardenne said the state has documented about $13 million in disaster spending so far, and he expects that figure is low.
FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate visited Louisiana on Wednesday, followed by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Thursday.
After touring flood-ravaged southern Louisiana, Sec. Johnson pledged that the federal government “will be here as long as it takes to help this community recover.”
Despite calls for him to visit, President Obama is unlikely to break from a New England vacation to survey Louisiana flood damage. The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge on Wednesday called on Obama to visit “the most anguished state in the union.” The White House says Obama is being updated regularly and has approved a federal disaster declaration for the affected areas.
Desperate search and rescue continues in Louisiana
Thursday brought partial relief to south Louisiana, as the number of people staying in shelters after the massive flooding has continued to drop.
The state estimated about 4,000 people remained in shelters Thursday, as more people found temporary housing with family and friends or returned to stay in their homes as they repaired them.
At one point during the height of the flooding shelters across several parishes housed an estimated 11,000 displaced by the storms.
More than 2,000 animals remain evacuated Thursday to a special animal shelter housing livestock and pets in Ascension Parish.
As the water continues to drain in most flooded areas, more than 85,000 people have registered for federal disaster aid with FEMA. The maximum amount given by FEMA is $32,000.
Across Louisiana, 17,000 residents have submitted insurance claims. However, 80 percent of Louisiana residents do not have flood insurance.Posted on by bonbeer
Below is a Pictorial Inventory of my “Beer Cellar”. On March 01, 2010 I had 446 bottles in my “Beer Cellar” or slightly more than 300 different beers, if you count different vintages. (i.e. I have the 2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009 vintages of Abyss which I counted as 4 different beers).
When you see my “Beer Cellar” below, you will notice that there is no real order to how they are arranged, except by location. I will be using these photos to work on my “paper” inventory on an excel worksheet, this way I’ll now know what I have and where that beer is located.
In South Florida having a dedicated garage beer refrigerator is as close to having a cellar as one could get.
Now all I have to do is decide which beer to drink next.
Dedicated Beer Stocked Refrigerator (197 beers)
Coke Machine (50 beers)
Yoo-Hoo Machine (33 beers)
Cabinet (54 beers)
Closet (112 beers)
Love Great Beer? Join Us on a Bon Beer Voyage Beercation! www.BonBeer.com
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Filed under: Inventory | Tagged: Inventory |Governor Charlie Baker signed into law Monday a bill that will mandate many Massachusetts women receive free access to contraceptives — a direct response to President Trump’s efforts to roll back coverage.
The bill, which the state House and Senate passed overwhelmingly, will require health insurance in Massachusetts to cover most contraceptive drugs, devices, and products without a copay — that is, at no direct cost to the women getting them.
“This is a great day in the Commonwealth of Mass.,” Baker said after signing the bill into law, surrounded by top Democratic leaders in the state including Attorney General Maura T. Healey, Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg, and House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo.
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The mandate will cover a 12-month supply of prescription contraception after a 3-month trial, emergency contraception, and voluntary female sterilization procedures. It will not cover condoms.
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The legal language includes an exemption for insurance policies purchased by a church or church-controlled organization.
The legislation’s passage followed an executive order by President Trump that tweaks the Obamacare rules. It allows more employers to opt out of providing coverage for birth control to women by claiming religious or moral objections.
Under Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act, many women no longer pay for contraceptives. The Massachusetts law, which will go into effect in six months, goes further than the national law in some respects. For example, it mandates coverage of over-the-counter emergency contraception at pharmacies without a copayment. The federal mandate only required copay-free emergency contraception with a prescription.
“This is about the fact that every woman should have access to affordable and reliable basic health preventative services, including birth control. And this bill takes an important step toward insuring that,” Healey said at the signing ceremony at the State House.
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The bill has garnered praise from groups such as the advocacy arm of the state’s Planned Parenthood organization. But it has drawn opprobrium from a Catholic group, the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.
“This coercive and gratuitous measure is about ideology, not health care,” the league’s executive director, C. J. Doyle, said in an email.
It means that those have moral objections to contraceptives and sterilization procedures “will be compelled, in violation of their consciences, to subsidize, at an expanded level, procedures and practices which they find abhorrent,” Doyle said.
The law is supported by insurance providers in the state. The Massachusetts Association of Health Plans has called it “a sensible bill.”
An analysis of the legislation released by the state’s Center for Health Information and Analysis found the law would likely increase premiums by a very small amount, about four-one-hundredths of one percent over the next five years.
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Almost all Massachusetts residents are covered by health insurance.
But the new law will not apply to all insurance coverage in the state. It covers traditional health plans offered by employers who pay a premium to an insurance carrier, and the state Group Insurance Commission, an agency that administers health benefits to public employees and their families. It also covers MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program for the poor and disabled.
But the new law will not apply to self-insured employers, usually larger companies, that assume the financial risk of providing health care benefits to their employees. Many in Massachusetts are insured that way, limiting the scope of the law.
Still, said Dr. Jennifer Childs-Roshak, who leads the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, she anticipates self-insured employers to follow the same policies, which she said are broadly supported by Massachusetts residents.
Not covering contraceptives, “I would expect, in the state of Massachusetts, it would be not a great business move to choose to do that,” Childs-Roshak told the Globe.
Baker — a Republican who supports abortion rights, gay marriage, and signed a law to allow people to use the restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity — is expected to run for re-election next year.
Material from the he Associated Press was used in this report. Joshua Miller can be reached at [email protected] Department of Justice this week said that Texas's new voter ID law is not discriminatory, like the harsher 2011 version of the law that federal courts declared unconstitutional five times — and asked federal judges to spare the new law the same fate.
"As amended by (Senate Bill 5), Texas’s voter ID law both guarantees to Texas voters the opportunity to cast an in-person ballot and protects the integrity of Texas’s elections," Justice Department lawyers argued in a court filing.
SB 5, which Governor Greg Abbott signed into law in June, is less stringent than the version passed six years ago, SB 14, which required each voter to present a government-issued photo ID. Lawmakers rewrote that voter ID law after several courts, the most senior being the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, declared the original version to be discriminatory against minority and elderly voters, who are less likely to have photo IDs.What Biden and Hillary Told the Father of Former SEAL Killed in Consulate Attack
RUSH: Not enough intel. The Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, says we didn’t have enough intel. We didn’t have enough intel to go in and help these people out. Let’s see. We had two drones overhead. We had a video feed from the security cameras around the compound. We had a live radio connection, and we had e-mails, and we had all the details in the White House Situation Room within two hours, including a claim of responsibility from the group, Ansar al-Sharia. In fact, we have been told, ladies and gentlemen, the White House State Department, probably up to 400 people were able to watch this attack that took seven hours in real time. Now, what the hell else more would you need before doing something about it?
Let’s talk about the families for a second here. The families of the four. It’s not about politics to them. None of this is about politics to them. It’s about honor, it’s about integrity, and the obvious lack of that in high leadership positions in our government. Now, this family, the Woods family, father of Tyrone Woods, was on a couple of radio shows yesterday, Charles Woods. They weren’t going to come forward. They weren’t going to make a public statement. But when they saw the e-mails that were leaked, when they learned what was known — see, they accepted what was originally told to them by Hillary and Obama, that they’re gonna get the guy who did the video, they’re gonna move heaven and earth to find out who did this. “Don’t worry, we’re gonna find that guy who produced that horrible video.”
When they found out, when the family found out what was known, they decided to accept requests to do interviews in the media, because what the families have rightly concluded — not me, folks, and not you, and not anybody else in the media, what the families of these four have concluded, and you would, too, if you were in their shoes — is that the White House knew, the CIA knew, the Defense Department knew, the State Department knew, and they didn’t do anything. Remember, two of these four died toward the tail end of what was a seven-hour ordeal. Two of these people were ordered to stay away and went anyway and died. And so their families now know that that probably could have been prevented.
When you are a family member of a volunteer in the United States military or the intelligence agencies, do not doubt me when I tell you that they trust that the president of the United States means it and recognizes it, the basic responsibility is to keep Americans safe who are in harm’s way. So they’ve got questions that are erupting all over the place. And thus they’ve made the decision to come out and reveal the lies they were told. Over their son’s coffin they were lied to at that ceremony that we all saw at Andrews Air Force Base. This man, Tyrone Woods, was not in the compound, folks. He was at the CIA annex.
That’s the breaking news from Fox today. He was at the CIA annex. They were told three times, they were denied permission to go offer assistance three times. They were told to stand down three times. The safe house is a mile away from the consulate. They heard the distress call and they went there to help, unlike anybody in the Obama administration, unlike anybody in the Obama campaign, unlike anybody at the regime, they went to help. Everybody else sat around and watched Tyrone Woods get murdered. They didn’t do anything to help, and then they made up bogus reasons. Hillary Clinton lied straight to the father’s face about what caused the death of his son. Joe Biden made crude jokes about their dead son. Did you hear about that?
I’m gonna say exactly what Biden said here, and if some of you are gonna be offended by the discussion of the male anatomy, I’d like for you to listen to something else for just a couple minutes. I’d like you to just tune out, ’cause I don’t want to have to deal with people complaining that they were shocked ’cause we’re not trying to shock you here. Biden went up to this man’s father, and said, “Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?” Biden thought he was complimenting the man and his son. He walked up to him, Biden sauntered up, not whispering, not speaking respectful, Joe Biden, “Hey, Chuck, stand up, let ’em see you, hey.” “Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?” It’s Tyrone Woods’ father. He thought he was being complimentary. The one who disobeyed orders, stand down three times, and went anyway. Two sound bites from the father, Charles Woods, on the radio yesterday in Portland, Oregon. Here is sound bite number one.
WOODS: When he came over to our little area, you know, I could tell he kind of just mumbled, you know, “I’m sorry.” His face was looking at me, but his eyes were looking over my shoulder like he could not look me in the eye. It was like shaking hands with a dead fish, you know. It just didn’t feel right.
RUSH: He’s talking about Obama. But keep in mind, folks, these people were not gonna go public with any of this. They were not gonna go public, the dignified way to do this. But they saw the e-mails. They found out they were being lied to and they found out that assistance could have been offered, could have been on the way and it wasn’t. “The father of one of the former Navy SEALs killed in the terrorist attack said Obama wouldnÂ’t look him in the eye,” you just heard that, and that “Vice President Joe Biden was disrespectful during the ceremony when his sonÂ’s body returned to America. … Woods said Biden came over to his family and asked in a ‘loud and boisterous’ voice, ‘Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?’ ‘Are these the words of someone who is sorry?’ said Woods.”
Here’s the second sound bite. After he mentions that shaking hands with Obama was like shaking hands with a dead fish, Charles Woods continued.
WOODS: Now it’s coming out that apparently the White House Situation Room was watching our people die. This was happening. This is what Hillary did. She came over and, you know, she did the same thing, you know, separately came over and talked with me. I gave her a hug, shook her hand, and she did not appear to be one bit sincere at all. You know, she mentioned that thing about, “We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.”
RUSH: That was supposed to please ’em
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the States at the moment, so the deal’s not there to be done. Like I say, now it’s looking too late, and we’ve said all along that rushing to do things at the last minute isn’t how we work and doesn’t help anybody.”
Asked whether there was a chance of entering later in the season, a ‘toe-in-the-water’ approach, possibly running two-time Macau F3 GP winner Antonio Felix da Costa, who is eager to race in IndyCar, Carlin said he was wary of that idea for two reasons, one of which was coming into the sport in the final year of the manufacturer aerokits.
“For the right deal – and Kevin offered an extremely good deal on his equipment – and the right driver, I considered it worth doing that one-year aerokit deal,” he said. “But as time moves on now, it’s probably best to just arrive with the new [universal] aerokit for 2018 at the same time as everyone else.
“The other thing is, I said all along that when we come in we want to stay in. We don’t just want to come in for a couple of races and then disappear again. We want to set it up properly, start, and then be in for the long-term.”WASHINGTON — Republicans have long criticized then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi for saying of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
Yet that’s not a far cry from the argument coming from Senate Republican leaders Thursday, who are pushing their rank and file to vote to begin debating a health care bill next week even though no one knows what’s in that bill.
“It’s a luxury we don’t have,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the No. 2 in Senate leadership, when asked about his members who want to know what plan they’re voting on before Tuesday.
Cornyn explained that Republicans should vote to begin to debate the mystery health care bill, which can be amended by anyone on the Senate floor. If senators decide they don’t like the final product, they can simply vote against its final passage.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnnell speak to reporters after meeting with the president to discuss health care on July 19. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) More
Currently, options include a clean repeal of Obamacare on a two-year delay or a reworked repeal-and-replace plan. Both bills without major changes would result in tens of millions fewer Americans having health insurance than under current law, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Republican leaders skipped the open committee process and crafted their bills entirely behind closed doors, with no Democratic input.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., another member of the leadership team, said the plan was to vote to proceed on the House’s health care bill, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., then offering an amendment to change it to a repeal-only measure or a repeal-and-replace plan.
Related slideshow: Protesters across the country oppose GOP’s health care plan >>>
“Who knows?” he told a gaggle of reporters about which would happen, according to CBS News. Earlier, he told reporters he believed they would be voting on a repeal-only amendment.
Cornyn’s rank and file sound less than enthused by that strategy, and some GOP senators said they believe they will know the details of the plan before being asked to vote to debate it.
Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., who’s opposed earlier versions of the repeal-and-replace bill for its negative effect on his state’s Medicaid population, said he expected to hear the details about exactly what he’s voting on sometime over the weekend.
“I can’t make any decisions at this point until I know what the text of the bill is going to be,” Heller said Thursday of his vote.
Protesters walk out of the office of Sen. Dean Heller on July 17. The protesters were asking the senator to vote no on the Better Care Reconciliation Act. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images) More
And Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, another skeptic of the replace plan, said Wednesday that she can’t decide on the motion to proceed until she knows what they are debating.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., similarly said he believed they would know the plan before the motion to proceed, but he wasn’t sure when. “It won’t be the morning-of kind of thing,” he said. “It will be sometime in advance.”
McConnell declared the repeal-and-replace bill dead for now earlier this week, and told his conference that he expected them all to vote Tuesday on a measure to repeal Obamacare altogether on a two-year delay, during which time an alternative would hypothetically be put in place.
The prospect of being forced to take a vote on a politically risky repeal-only measure appeared to revive talks of a repeal-and-replace bill, with Republican senators huddling late Wednesday night again trying to hash out a deal. During that meeting, senators found out that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had been diagnosed with brain cancer and would likely be away from the Capitol for some weeks.ARROW Episode 1x06 "Legacies" Poll & Discussion, Promo For 1x07 "Muse of Fire"
What did you think of the sixth episode of Arrow? Sound off with your vote within and discuss what you liked or didn't like about the episode? Discuss spoilers here!
So, what did you guys think of the sixth episode of Arrow? Did you like the more humaized, realistic story surrounding the Royal Flush Gang or were you hoping for gliding playing cards?
THE ROYAL FLUSH GANG INVADES STARLING CITY — A gang of bank robbers, dubbed The Royal Flush Gang, hits a local bank and seriously wounds an off-duty police officer during a heist. Diggle (David Ramsey) tells Oliver (Stephen Amell) he needs to deviate from his father’s list and start helping the citizens of Starling City. Meanwhile, Tommy (Colin Donnell) asks Thea (Willa Holland) for relationship advice, but things get awkward when she realizes he was asking about Laurel (Katie Cassidy). Moira (Susanna Thompson) confronts Oliver about all of his recent disappearances in the middle of family functions. Posted on GreenArrowTV.com. John Behring directed the episode written by Moira Kirland & Marc Guggenheim.
THE HUNTRESS RIDES INTO STARLING CITY AND HEATS THINGS UP WITH OLIVER - Oliver (Stephen Amell) encounters a mysterious woman, Helena Bertinelli (guest star Jessica DeGouw), daughter of mob boss Frank Bertinelli (guest star Jeffrey Nordling), who he can finally be himself with, but he soon comes to realize she’s hiding dangerous secrets of her own. Helena is on her own personal mission of vengeance and Oliver is caught in the middle. Meanwhile, Tommy (Colin Donnell) is blindsided by an unfortunate turn of events and turns to Laurel (Katie Cassidy) for support. David Ramsey, Willa Holland, Susanna Thompson and Paul Blackthorne also star. Posted at GreenArrowTV. David Grossman directed the episode with story by Andrew Kriesberg and teleplay by Geoff Johns & Marc Guggenheim (107)
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Running Time: 60 min
Release Date: October 10, 2012
MPAA Rating: Tv-14
Starring: Katie Cassidy, Stephen Amell and Willa Holland
Directed by: David Nutter
Written by: Greg Berlanti (story/writer), Marc Guggenheim (story/writer), Andrew Kreisberg (writer), George Papp (character) and Mort Weisinger (character)
So, what did you guys think of the sixth episode of Arrow? Did you like the more humaized, realistic story surrounding the Royal Flush Gang or were you hoping for gliding playing cards?60 minOctober 10, 2012Tv-14Katie Cassidy, Stephen Amell and Willa HollandDavid NutterGreg Berlanti (story/writer), Marc Guggenheim (story/writer), Andrew Kreisberg (writer), George Papp (character) and Mort Weisinger (character)
DISCLAIMER: ComicBookMovie.com is protected under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and... : ComicBookMovie.com is protected under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and... [MORE]
DISCLAIMER: ComicBookMovie.com is protected from liability under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and "Safe Harbor" provisions. This post was submitted by a volunteer contributor who has agreed to our [LESS] : ComicBookMovie.com is protected from liability under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and "Safe Harbor" provisions. This post was submitted by a volunteer contributor who has agreed to our Code of Conduct. CBM will disable users who knowingly commit plagiarism, piracy, trademark or copyright infringement. Please contact us for expeditious removal of copyrighted/trademarked content. Learn more about our copyright and trademark policies HEREA SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched two satellites into orbit this morning, but the company failed to land the vehicle on a floating drone ship at sea afterward. Prior to the launch, the company said this landing would be difficult, since the rocket was going to a very high orbit known as geostationary transfer orbit, or GTO. Sending satellites to GTO uses up a lot of fuel during the initial ascent, leaving less fuel to pull off the vehicle's return.
The vehicle's landing caused a bit of drama
This Falcon 9 landing caused a bit of drama, since SpaceX wasn't sure at first if the vehicle actually made it down in one piece. Once the rocket landed, it shook the drone ship pretty violently, causing the ship's onboard camera to freeze. The last shots of the vehicle before the camera cut out showed the Falcon 9 standing upright on the ship, but there were also some flames around the bottom.
Afterward, a SpaceX employee announced on the company's webcast that the vehicle was indeed lost. "We can say that Falcon 9 was lost in this attempt," said Kate Tice, a process improvement engineer for SpaceX. Later CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the Falcon 9 suffered an RUD, or a rapid unscheduled disassembly. That's "Musk speak" for an explosion.
Ascent phase & satellites look good, but booster rocket had a RUD on droneship — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 15, 2016
Later, Musk said that the problem had to do with low thrust in the one of the rocket's three main engines, and that all the engines need to be operating at full capacity to handle this type of landing. He noted that the company is already working on upgrades to the Falcon 9 so that it can handle this type of "thrust shortfall" in the future.
The video of the landing will be released later, according to Musk, once the company gets access to the drone ship's camera. Musk said it could be the hardest landing they've had yet, but the drone ship is still okay. However, the failure does put an end to SpaceX’s recent landing streak. The company has pulled off successful landings after its past three launches, all of which touched down on the drone ship. So far the company has landed four Falcon 9s in total — three at sea and one on solid ground.
SpaceX will have many more chances to land its rockets again soon
SpaceX will have many more chances to land its rockets again soon. The company will launch a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station for NASA on July 16th. After that launch, SpaceX will try to land the Falcon 9 on solid ground at Cape Canaveral, Florida — something it hasn’t attempted since its first rocket landing in December. And after that, SpaceX has another satellite launch slated for August.
Meanwhile, the company still has an impressive stockpile of landed rockets in its possession. SpaceX is keeping its four recovered rockets in a hangar at Launch Complex 39A, a launch site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida that the company leases from NASA. That hangar can only store five Falcon 9 rockets at a time, though. So whenever SpaceX does land its next rocket in Florida, the building will be at full capacity.
SpaceX's plan for MarsInterim Liberal Leader Bob Rae says the party can't leave "jerks" on Canada's right-wing to take up all the space on the airwaves after the Conservatives released a new attack ad against him last week.
Rae says the Liberals are considering how to fight back and have raised more than $225,000 in response to a Conservative attack ad, which was posted to Youtube on March 19, that trashed his record from when he was the NDP premier of Ontario between 1990 and 1995.
"You can't just abandon the airwaves to the jerks on the right-hand side of the spectrum," Rae said, sparking confusion among the reporters around him.
"Did you say jerks?" one asked.
"I said jerks, yeah," Rae said. "What did you think I said?"
Rae also railed against the government spending public money on ads to promote itself.
"It costs them a million dollars to just put together an ad. A million bucks for a 30-second spot in which all they do is just pat themselves on the back. How much of this do we need? It’s ridiculous," he said.
Rae has previously spoken out against young workers in the prime minister's office, referring to them as "the 25-year-old jihadis in the prime minister's office."
Conservative Party spokesman Fred DeLorey responded in an email to CBC News that the party stands by its ad and that it was in response to Rae's own call for a conversation on his record.Patti Smith: Talking about songwriting is complicated because there’s so many kinds of songs. When I wrote “Frederick,” I tried to write a song that everybody loved and everybody danced to. It was consciously written to be a dance song. When I wrote “Radio Baghdad,” that was the last thing on my mine. For me, that has always been such a conflict because I love natural songs. I love that song “Get In The Groove.” [Sings] “Hey, get in the groove.” I mean, what’s that about? It’s such a great little song to dance to. It doesn’t mean to say much of anything.
Paul Zollo: Which is a great thing about songs, that they hit us on different levels at once—our hearts and minds and bodies.
PS: Yeah. And I think that is the thing why songwriting, to me, has been such a mystery, and still something that I haven’t completely cracked. How a poet—going back to Jim Morrison—could write such complex lyrics and complex poems and then say, “Hello, I love you, let me jump in your game.”
PZ: Yes. Which you have done as well. A song like “Because the Night,” which you wrote with Springsteen—has beautiful poetry and then a very catchy, simple chorus. How did that come together—did you write the words first?
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PS: “Because the Night” was written by Bruce Springsteen. I was given a tape of the song. The chorus was his. And the music, it was completely produced. It was just that the verses were mumbled. Like [sings] “Na na na na na na…” So I listened to it. It already had the chorus. And I sat up with it all night writing a song for my boyfriend, Fred. Who was supposed to call me from Detroit. He was supposed to call me at 7, and I was waiting. 8… 9… And I’m the kind of girl who waits for the call. You know, I don’t say, “Well, the heck with it, I’m gonna leave.” I would sit there for hours waiting for my phone call. And I was so agitated and so antsy that I just took the tape out that I was given to explore the song—Jimmy Iovine gave it to me, and Bruce had given it to him—and I listened to it over and over to try to distract me from waiting for Fred. And that’s why the lyric says, “Have I doubt when I’m alone/love is a ring, a telephone.”
PZ: How is writing poems different from writing songs?
PS: Poetry is a solitary process. One does not write poetry for the masses. Poetry is a self-involved, lofty pursuit. Songs are for the people. When I’m writing a song, I imagine performing it. I imagine giving it. It’s a different aspect of communication. It’s for the people.
We always write a certain amount of poetry for the masses. When Allen Ginsberg wrote “Howl,” he didn’t write it for himself. He wrote it to speak out. To make a move, to wake people up. I think rock & roll, as our cultural voice, took that energy and made it even more accessible.
When I’m sitting down to write a poem, I’m not thinking of anyone. I’m not thinking about how it will be received. I’m not thinking it will make people happy or it will inspire them. I’m in a whole other world. A world of complete solitude. But when I’m writing a song, I imagine performing it. I imagine giving it. It’s a different aspect of communication. It’s for the people.
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I write songs when I’m by myself, like walking along the beach, and a song comes in my head. Or I wake up from a dream, like “Blakean Year.” I often write songs out of dreams, and take them to my musicians to help me. Sometimes I write melodies that are too complex and I can’t find them on the guitar, because I only know about eight chords. So I take them to Lenny [Kaye] or Tony [Shanahan, her bassist] and they transcribe them into a song.
“Free Money” came to me walking down St. Mark’s at three in the morning. It was pre-dawn, but it was so light in New York City, and it came to me and I sang it to Lenny. He structured it and found the proper chords, and we made a song. It was one of our earliest songs.
Other songs, they just come in my head and I sing them out loud, and the band finds the place, and they adjust it. For myself, the simpler format the better. “Gandhi” is nine minutes on one chord. It’s an improvisation. “Radio Baghdad” was completely improvised. I didn’t know the lyrics, but I knew I wanted to speak out against the invasion of Iraq. Being a mother, I freely entered into the mother consciousness of the mothers of Baghdad who were trying to comfort their children as they were being bombed. So these lyrics that come to me are self-perpetuated.
PZ: It’s miraculous that you can spontaneously come up with such amazing work–
PS: It’s easier for me than to sit and write verse-chorus. Writing lyrics, sometimes, is torturous. Because I make them too complicated, and sometimes burden a song with complicated language. But it’s just how I work. So, for me, it’s freedom just to go and focus myself and see where my horse takes me.
PZ: Are there times you didn’t get there?
PS: I have never been unsuccessful.
PZ: How do you explain that?
PS: It’s a channeling. Burroughs always called it a shamanistic gift. Sometimes I feel I am channeling someone else. Part of it is experience from performing, and understanding that as a performer one has a mission, like Coltrane, to take your solo out to talk to God, or whoever you talk to, but you must return. So it has structure.
That’s one way that I write. Others take quite a bit of labor. Often the simplest song is the hardest to write. “Frederick” was very hard to write. Because in its simplicity, I also wanted it to be perfect.
PZ: Yes. And when people hear them, they think they came out perfectly. But to get to that place is a lot of work?
PS: Yes, a lot of work. But I find, in the past decade, I don’t struggle with lyrics as much as I did in the 1970s. I think that’s partially because, you know, I came out of nowhere. I wasn’t a songwriter. A lot of Horses was based on poems that I had written. For instance, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine” came from a poem I wrote when I was 20. I had written it like perhaps in ’69 and we recorded it in ’75. “Redondo Beach” I wrote in 1971 as a poem. But I struggled.
I always thought when we did Horses I would do a record—and I was really honored to do the record—but then I’d go back to work, working in a book store, writing poems or doing my drawings. It didn’t occur to me that I’d be doing more records. Because I felt like I had said what I had to say. Horses was such an organic process. So I was learning as I went along.
But now I understand the songwriting process and it’s not so difficult. I mean, it is difficult but it’s not as difficult as it was. I remember writing the lyrics to the songs on Radio Ethiopia. At that time I had performed so much I felt a loss of language and just got very involved with playing electric guitar and making sonicscapes. I was much more happier playing feedback than I was in spewing language. But the language came back.
PZ: I had always assumed—wrongly, I see—that your poetry and songwriting was intertwined. That you’d write a poem that would spark a song, and maybe vice versa–
PS: Well, that can happen. Anything can happen. I have started poems that seemed best-served as a song. But that’s just one of those things that happened totally organically. It would be false to say everything is black and white, it’s either one or the other. It’s just that my process is different. My mindset is different. And I’ve destroyed many poems [laughs]. Just lost the thread on a poem and then went back to them and found that it could be the germ of something else. But the initial process is a different process.
PZ: Why is songwriting sometimes torturous?
PS: Because I had so much responsibility to others. If I was writing lyrics to someone’s music, I had responsibility to that musician. I had to project beyond myself and beyond my world out into the greater world. Allen Ginsberg told me, “If you have trouble writing, just write what you mean.” [Laughs] And that’s a good lesson when you’re trying to write a song.
From More Songwriters on Songwriting by Paul Zollo. Available from Da Capo Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc. Copyright © 2016.Well are you?
I love that scenario where you simply ask, “What do you do if zombies attack…. NOW!?”
It’s not like they are going to call you and warn you ahead of time so there’s a good chance your going to be caught with your pants down. It’s only a matter of time before this happens.
I debate the order of my zombie plans priorities constantly, but first step no question should always be secure a weapon.
Fortunately I’ve got more hammers than I know what to do with so I’m confident. I do have a pretty fearsome looking rock hammer I’ll use for some skull cracking. I’d use a gun as I have several, but to be honest I’d probably shoot myself in the foot.
What is your zombie plan?Four Indians fans went full 'Major League' to cheer on the Tribe in Anaheim
There was some excellent Major League talent in the stands to take in the Indians' 6-2 win over the Angels on Friday night. What, no, the Trout net didn't finally snatch up Mike Trout. Why would you think that? I'm sorry, we meant "Major League" talent:
OK, fine, that's not actually Pedro Cerrano, Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn, Roger Dorn and Lou Brown, the ragtag band of fictional Indians who led a worst-to-first turnaround and sacrificed some chickens in the classic 1989 movie. It's actually the Zupancic family from Parma, Ohio, and they have achieved Peak Fan status.
Each summer, the gang travels to each park the Indians play at, always in their "Major League" unis: That's dad Bill as manager Lou Brown, twins Liam and Logan as Vaughn and Dorn, respectively, and Jared as Cerrano. And before you get up in arms, don't worry, they left no character unrepresented -- Bill's wife, his daughter and her daughter's boyfriend cover Willie Mays Hays, Jake Taylor and even Jack Parkman from "Major League II."
Which is all well and good, but it leaves us with just one question: Who will be bold enough to go for the Wild Thing haircut?/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES. FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THIS RESTRICTION MAY CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF UNITED STATES SECURITIES LAW./
SMITHS FALLS, ON, Dec. 2, 2016 /CNW/ - Canopy Growth Corporation (TSX: CGC) ("Canopy Growth" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the formation of the cannabis research incubator, Canopy Health Innovations Inc. ("CHI").
The planning and implementation of the business strategy for CHI began in the summer of 2016, and CHI was formally incorporated as a private company in August 2016. CHI will focus on developing and researching clinically ready whole plant cannabis drug formulations and dose delivery systems, with the ultimate goal of validating diversified treatment options for Canadians and for patients and consumers in other jurisdictions where treatment with cannabis is federally lawful. CHI plans to undertake a combination of exploratory studies and early stage clinical testing to identify, develop and validate products aimed at disrupting the market for a variety of existing pharmaceutical product categories, and then commercializing those products through licensing or other arrangements.
The operations of CHI will be initially funded by a range of North American investors that share a common vision. To that end, CHI has arranged with Dundee Securities Ltd. a private placement of common shares of CHI at a price per share of $1.50, to raise total gross proceeds of $7 million. The closing date of this offering is scheduled to be on or about December 8, 2016 and is subject to certain conditions.
"There is a unique opportunity to develop an unmatched intellectual property portfolio in the medical cannabis industry," said Bruce Linton, Chairman and CEO of Canopy Growth. "We believe that Canada is emerging as a potential global leader in cannabis research, and that the Canadian policy framework will enable CHI to access research products approved for human use. CHI's goal will be to drive the medical transformation of whole plant cannabis options from dried flowers to forms and dose forms more consistent with traditional medical practice."
Canopy Health Innovations will operate as an independent and private collaborator of Canopy Growth and its subsidiaries. CHI will be owned by Canopy Growth and qualified private investors. CHI's business model is to engage simultaneously in a number areas of research, with a strict focus on the creation and enhancement of its own intellectual property. In doing so, it plans to work from genetics and other products sourced from the Company. Canopy Growth and its subsidiaries will then retain an exclusive, first priority right to license and commercialize intellectual property developed and owned by CHI.
This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of any offer to purchase any securities in the United States. The securities referenced herein may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an exemption from registration.
About Canopy Growth Corporation
Canopy Growth is publicly traded on the TSX and a leading diversified producer of medical cannabis through its wholly owned subsidiaries Tweed, Bedrocan Canada, and Tweed Farms. The Company operates a collection of diverse brands and curated strain variety, supported by over half a million square feet of indoor and greenhouse production capacity.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "estimates", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Canopy Growth Corporation, Tweed Inc., Tweed Farms Inc. or Bedrocan Canada Inc. to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements included in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and Canopy Growth does not undertake an obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise unless required by applicable securities legislation.
Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the Toronto Stock Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
SOURCE Canopy Growth CorporationA woman from Philadelphia has sparked fury across social media after she posted a video online in which she urinated on the American flag.
The video, which was originally uploaded to Facebook but later deleted, shows Philadelphia woman Emily Lance urinating on the American flag.
According to the Daily Mail, a caption accompanying the video read: “F*** your nationalism. F*** your country. F*** your stupid f****** flag.”
Warning: Disturbing Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTHJf13H204
People across social media quickly reacted with fury to the video, with one individual even placing a $3000 bounty on her head on Craigslist.
https://twitter.com/mmoates/status/882443765591543809
Please RT. Poll time! Who is the biggest ass of the day? Girl who pisses on our beautiful flag (Emily Lance), or @CNN? You decide.#MAGA — Pete Cameron (@ByeByeObama1) July 6, 2017
If you want to pee on the American flag like Emily Lance, just get the hell out of the country. We won't miss you pic.twitter.com/VLS1nhhWng — Chet Cannon (@Chet_Cannon) July 6, 2017
In a Facebook post, Lance defended her actions on grounds of freedom of expression:
“Freedom (of speech/expression) means that I’m entitled to do and say as I please, EVEN if you don’t like it, so long as I am not physically hurting someone – and no, your precious feelings don’t count, that’s your own problem,” Lance wrote on Facebook. “What don’t you people understand? You’re celebrating freedom while damning me for doing the same. You can’t have it both ways. FREEDOM OR NONE. Practice what you preach or shut the f*** up.”
Then, in another post, Lance said that people had been “wishing illness, harm, and suffering” upon her “over a piece of fabric.” She also claimed that people had been harassing her father at his workplace, despite his disapproval of her actions.
“It’s so sad that people don’t realize how brainwashed they are. I’m gross for peeing on a symbol? LOOK AT YOURSELVES. Your people epitomize all that is foul,” she continued.
Lance is a self-described left-wing anarchist and has previously posted photos suggesting that the 9/11 attacks were an “inside job.” According to her Facebook likes, she is a supporter of former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at [email protected] Trolle/flickr LONDON - European citizens consume the most alcohol globally, increasing their chances of developing cancer, according to a new report by United European Gastronenterology (UEG).
The report finds that people in the EU are drinking an average of two alcoholic drinks per day, increasing their chances of developing colorectal cancer and other digestive cancers by 21%.
Alcohol consumption in Europe is the highest in the world, with over 20% of Europeans over 15 drinking heavily at least once a week.
But, says the UEG, the vast majority of Europeans are unaware of the link between alcohol and cancer. In response to the findings, it is calling for better education and more responsible pricing.
"One of the main challenges in addressing high drinking levels is how deeply embedded alcohol consumption is within the European society, both socially and culturally," said Professor Markus Peck, a digestive health expert.
"Political action like minimum pricing and reducing access to alcohol needs to be taken now to prevent many future casualties. Research then has to follow to help generate data and allow us to fine-tune future political activity," he said.
Although the UEG classes between one and four drinks per day as'moderate' drinking, it is keen to stress the link between this level of consumption and a heightened risk of pancreatic, liver and gastric cancers.
In 2014 the World Health Organisation found that nearly one in every 20 deaths globally were caused by alcohol consumption, and predicted a rise in cancers from 14 million to almost 22 million cases between 2012 and 2030. Europe, the UEG found, has the highest proportion of alcohol related illnesses and deaths.
Lithuania has the highest drinking average, at 3.2 drinks per day, while no EU country has 'light' consumption, or fewer than one per day. The Lithuanian government recently clamped down on drinking regulations, banning alcohol advertising, raising the drinking age to 20 from 18 and prohibiting alcohol sales between 8pm and 10am.
In January 2016 the UK government altered its alcohol guidelines, recommending that both men and women drink no more than 14 units of alcohol per week, down from previous recommendations of no more than 21 units for men.Congressional Republicans have opened a new front in the deficit wars. In addition to demanding trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for raising the nation’s debt limit, they are now vowing not to act without first holding votes in each chamber on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
The ploy is more posturing on an issue that has already seen too much grandstanding. But it is posturing with a dangerous purpose: to further distort the terms of the budget fight, and in the process, to entrench the Republicans’ no-new- taxes -ever stance.
It won’t be enough for Democrats to merely defeat the amendment when it comes up for a vote. If there is to be any sensible deal to raise the debt limit, they also need to rebut the amendment’s false and dangerous premises — not an easy task given the idea’s populist appeal.
What could be more prudent than balancing the books every year? In fact, forcibly balancing the federal budget each year would be like telling families they cannot take out a mortgage or a car loan, or do any other borrowing, no matter how sensible the purchase or how creditworthy they may be.
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Worse, the balanced budget amendment that Republicans put on the table is far more extreme than just requiring the government to spend no more than it takes in each year in taxes.The end of the Mike Riley Era occurred Saturday so the inevitable unrealistic expectations for the next program head began percolating to the top almost immediately. I’ll be honest...I’d love to see Scott Frost direct a turnaround in Lincoln the way he took an 0-12 team to 11-0 in two years.
How likely is it that Frost, or anyone else, will take Nebraska to 12-0 (which would obviously guarantee a division championship) before the next Presidential election?
Not very likely, it turns out.
I looked at all 1244 FBS seasons since 2010 and calculated the change in total wins in two seasons.
Of those 1244 seasons, 496, or 40%, had a change between +/- 2 wins. 2.5% had a change of more than +/- 8 wins.
To get to 12-0, which Wisconsin reached yesterday, and Iowa reached in 2015, FWIW, Nebraska needs to increase 8 wins.
These are the teams that have had a change in total wins of 8 or more in 2 seasons:
Since 2010, 10 teams have improved 8 or more wins in 2 seasons. Of those 10, only 2, Auburn and Colorado, were from Power 5 conferences. The biggest change is, of course, UCF this year.
Gene Chizik took Auburn from 5 wins in 2008 to 14 and a National Championship in 2010. I think that may have had more to do with Cam Newton than Chizik. Auburn was 3-9 two years later.
San Jose State and Colorado have an interesting connection. The were both coached by Mike Macintyre. He seems to have a knack for quick turnarounds, but it’s hard to know if he can sustain them. Even with the turnarounds, his best win percentage was his last year at SJSU at.833 or 12 wins in the WAC.
Idaho is coached by Paul Petrino. While 9 wins at Idaho is astounding, his track record as a HC, all at Idaho, indicates that he won’t keep Idaho at the 9-win level for long.
Marshall, coached by Doc Holliday, has more overall success than others on this list, but after an outstanding season in 2014 his team was 3-9 in 2016.
The moral of the story is that turnarounds happen...but they depend on a complicated confluence of talent, coaching, and good luck. A quick turnaround can be frustratingly short-lived as well.
My recommendations for Husker fans are these:
Be realistic about how much improvement in a year is feasible. 8-win improvements are possible, but they are extremely rare and probably not long lasting.
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methodology statement.
Thanks to LiveGAP Charts. I found it a rather high learning curve, and some things seemed quirky, but I got the job done — a few other online charting apps wouldn’t let me have more than 6 lines — and it had the formatting capabilities to make it look nice, and allowed me to save as HTML as well as an image. (Did I say I like data?) So I recommend them if you have the need and the time.
One final note: my wife asked me in mid-November what would become of a Trump presidency. I said I would make only one prediction — that his approval rating would drop to the 30s by the end of February.
Oh, and thanks to Donald Trump for (uncontrollably) showing his true colors, and to the US citizens who are just realizing it.LUCAS ALECCO ROY JOINS DRAGON F4 FOR THE F4UAE CHAMPIONSHIP
Rising German talent Lucas Alecco Roy will line up in the #8 Dragon F4 Tatuus formula car for the 2017/18 F4UAE Championship powered by Abarth which commences next month.
Twenty-year-old Roy joins the Middle East championship following a debut season with leading British team Carlin in the British F4 Championship, where the rookie driver has displayed competitive racing with maturity, and constant development across the season that will be further enhanced by the experience gained in the upcoming six-round championship in the UAE.
Coming into the 2017 season, Roy had never raced a kart, let alone a race car, so jumping directly into a British F4 season was not for the faint hearted. Fortunately, Roy is well experienced in what it takes to win in high level competitive sport, having participated for several years in the International Dressage arena, with many a first place to his name.
Dragon F4 Team Principal, Brad Fincham, welcomes Roy to the team and looks forward to helping the young driver progress with his racing craft.
“The programme that we have put together for Lucas over this winter will continue to strengthen the race craft skills he is already demonstrating, and his general development," said Fincham. "The F4UAE Championship offers an unrivalled amount of track time, which will really give Lucas the opportunity to get ahead of his fellow competitors going into 2018 in Europe."
Dragon Racing Chairman Leon Price added: “We welcome Lucas to our dynamic and motivated team here at Dragon F4. The team now is in its second season are building upon the foundations of 2016/17, and we’re pleased to be attracting talented drivers such as Lucas to our team. We look forward to getting the season underway with our new drivers at Yas Marina in October for testing and December when racing commences.”
Monaco-based Roy, said he was excited at the opportunity to strengthen his racing skills in the UAE.
"I am looking forward to joining the F4UAE championship and Dragon F4, developing upon what I have learnt in my first season of racing cars in the UK. With the series now moving to the same Hankook tyre that we race in the UK championship, this really gives teams and drivers the opportunity to improve throughout the winter, and I am excited to get out on the amazing tracks in the UAE,” said Roy.
During the inaugural season of F4UAE, Dragon F4 fielded one car for Australian ace Oscar Piastri, who straight from karting joined the Dragon F4 team. He now sits second outright in the British F4 championship following a successful debut season. Dragon F4 will run two cars for this season's 2017/18 F4UAE Championship with a potential to add a third car already in progress.
The F4UAE Championship kicks off at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi for the pre-season official test on October 26-27 before the first round of the Championship which will support the Gulf 12Hrs on December 13-16.
[Issued by Dragon F4]A Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said the "stunt" pulled by Devin Nunes on Wednesday not only "betrayed" the panel, but could be grounds for the Republican to forfeit his role as chairman of the committee.
Rep. Eric Swalwell told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" panel that it was irresponsible for Nunes to bypass the committee — Republicans included — altogether yet take whatever evidence he had directly to the White House.
Nunes "never, under any circumstances should have taken this information to the president," Swalwell said. "The president's campaign is under federal criminal investigation for its ties to Russia during the interference campaign. They are witnesses, essentially. To take it to them conflicts the chairman out of the duties he has."
Swalwell sidestepped the question of whether he would try to get Nunes off the committee.
"Show us the evidence that was used in this stunt yesterday," Swalwell said. "Second, what assurances can (Nunes) make that we can go forward with a credible independent investigation. He owes the American people — and most important the people on the committee — an apology."
Nunes held an impromptu press conference to announce that Trump and his campaign's communications may have been monitored as part of "incidental collection."
Now, Swalwell is calling for an independent investigation.
"I want to know why (Nunes) betrayed the independence of our work," Swalwell said. "Most of our work is done in secret. We have been able to do a lot together. This is a pretty sad departure from a long tradition of doing the people's work around national security and doing it without loyalty to the administration. Doing it with independence."Oswald Boelcke ( German: [ˈbœlkə]; 19 May 1891 – 28 October 1916) was a German flying ace of the First World War credited with 40 victories; he was one of the most influential patrol leaders and tacticians of the early years of air combat. Boelcke is honored as the father of the German fighter air force, as well as considered the "Father of Air Fighting Tactics".
Boelcke fulfilled his childhood dream of a military career by joining the Imperial German Army in July 1912. He followed his interest in aviation, learning to fly as World War I began. After duty as an observer during 1914, he became one of the original fighter pilots during 1915. He and Max Immelmann were the first German fighter pilots awarded the Pour le Merite. When Immelmann was killed in combat in June 1916, the German high command grounded Boelcke after his 19th victory. During his month's forced grounding, he was tasked to help transform the Fliegertruppe (Flying Troops) into the Luftstreitkräfte (Air Force). His innovative turn of mind codified his combat experiences into the first ever manual of fighter tactics distributed to an air force, the Dicta Boelcke. The Dicta promulgated axioms for individual pilot success, as well as a requirement for teamwork directed by a formation's leader. Present day tactics manuals stem from the Dicta.
After a month's holiday leave spent on a military inspection tour of Turkish facilities, Boelcke was picked to lead one of Germany's first fighter squadrons, Jagdstaffel 2 (Fighter Squadron 2). By war's end, this squadron Boelcke so strictly trained had had 25 aces in its ranks, and four of its members became generals during World War II. During the short time before his death, Oswald Boelcke became the world's leading fighter pilot, scoring 21 more victories while commanding Jagdstaffel 2. He was killed in a crash following a midair collision on 28 October 1916.
Early years [ edit ]
Oswald Boelcke was born on 19 May 1891, in Giebichenstein (since 1900 a City district of Halle (Saale)), Prussian Province of Saxony as the son of a schoolmaster. The Boelcke family had returned to the German Empire from Argentina six months before Oswald's birth. His family name was originally spelt Bölcke, but Oswald and his elder brother Wilhelm dispensed with the umlaut and adopted the Latin spelling in place of the German. The pronunciation is the same for both spellings.
Oswald Boelcke caught whooping cough at age three, which resulted in lifelong asthma. In his fourth year, his father moved the family to Dessau near the Junkers factory in pursuit of professional advancement. There, as Oswald grew, he turned to athletics.
Boelcke's family was a conservative one; they realized that a military career could move its adherent up the social ladder. Under this influence, while in the third or fourth form, the young Oswald Boelcke had the audacity to write a personal letter to the Kaiser requesting an appointment to military school. His wish was granted when he was 13, but once his parents were apprised of the opportunity by the belated reply letter, they objected and he did not attend Cadet School. Instead he attended Herzog Friedrichs-Gymnasium (Duke Frederick's Gymnasium).
His interest in a military career seemed undiminished. At age 17, for an elocution class, he chose three subjects—General Gerhard von Scharnhorst's military reforms, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's life before his aeronautical experiments, and the first airship flights. Despite his principal's reservations about his scholarship, Oswald Boelcke was awarded his Abitur honors degree on 11 February 1911.
Interests and personal characteristics [ edit ]
Boelcke never did become very large; in later life, he was described as being about 5 feet 7 inches (1.7 meters) tall. However, he was broad-shouldered and well proportioned, with great agility and "inexhaustible strength".
He got along well in school with both his fellow students and the teachers; his frank and friendly demeanor, blond hair, and intense blue eyes made him memorable. One source says Oswald Boelcke was studious as well as athletic, excelling at mathematics and physics.
He played soccer and tennis, skated and danced. As a gymnast, he was considered the best in his school. He was an oarsman, and a prizewinning swimmer and diver. When he was 17, he became a rather daring Alpinist. His charisma made him a popular leader on the playing fields.
While he was in school, Boelcke's favorite author was the nationalist writer Heinrich von Treitschke. Boelcke also read publications from the German General Staff.
When grown and in command during military service, Boelcke remarked, "You can win the men's confidence if you associate with them naturally and do not try to play the high and mighty superior."
When Boelcke rescued a drowning teenage French boy and French bystanders applauded his heroism, Boelcke was embarrassed by his soggy public appearance in his dress uniform.
Also in later years, Manfred von Richthofen commented about his mentor: "Boelcke had not a personal enemy. He was equally polite to everybody, making no differences."
When Boelcke was asked for the secret of his success as a combat pilot, he said, "I only open fire when I can see the goggle strap on my opponent's crash helmet."
Entry into military service [ edit ]
After leaving school Boelcke joined a telegraph battalion in Koblenz as a Fahnenjunker (cadet officer) on 15 March 1911. As he learned his general military duties, he saw more airplanes than he had seen at home. He went on holiday leave on 23 December 1911.
In January 1912, he began attending Kriegsschule (Military Academy) in Metz, at that time a German town. As the advent of spring lengthened the days, he took advantage of his early class dismissal to spend the rest of his daylight hours watching airplanes at a nearby airfield. In June, he stood his final exams. His written tests were graded as only "fair"; his oral exams were "good" or "very good"; his leadership skills were considered "excellent".
In July 1912, he graduated and was commissioned as a "swordknot ensign". Since Boelcke had gained his Abitur, his commission was pre-dated 23 August 1910, making him senior to the other new ensigns in his battalion. Promotion to lieutenant soon followed. He settled into a daily routine of training recruit telegraphers. His off-duty hours were spent in "a lovely, gay, active life".
During 1913, he took advantage of a temporary posting to Metz to be taken on some flights with the 3rd Air Battalion. In October 1913, he was transferred to Darmstadt. On a visit to Frankfurt, he witnessed an aerobatic performance by pioneer French aviator Adolphe Pégoud. In February 1914, he competed in the officer's pentathlon, taking third place and qualifying for the 1916 Olympics.
World War I [ edit ]
1914 [ edit ]
Without informing his family, Boelcke applied for a transfer to the Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches (Flying Troops of the German Empire). On 29 May 1914, he was accepted for pilot's training. On 2 June, he began instruction at the Halberstädter Fliegerschule (Halberstadt Flying School) in a six-week course. He passed his final pilot's exam on 15 August 1914. His first assignment was training 50 neophyte pilots on an Aviatik B.I.
World War I having begun on 4 August, Boelcke was anxious to see action. On 31 August, he connived his way into joining his older brother Wilhelm at Feldflieger Abteilung 13 (Field Flyer Detachment 13, or FFA 13). On 1 September, the aircrew of Boelcke and Boelcke flew the first of many missions together. On 8 September, during reconnaissance of a French aerodrome, Wilhelm avoided a challenge by French aircraft because he feared they had machine guns aboard.[a] The brothers soon compiled a record of flying longer missions at more frequent intervals than the other aircrews. That caused some resentment within the unit. The two Boelckes continued to fly even as the flying weather worsened and the opposing armies' activities began to stagnate into trench warfare.
By year's end, Oswald, who had been last to join the section, had flown 42 sorties over enemy-held ground. Wilhelm had flown 61. The next most active airman had 27.
1915 [ edit ]
The catalyst for action [ edit ]
There was little ground combat and little need for air support during early 1915. Oswald spent a spell in hospital with asthma. Both brothers went on home leave.
Meanwhile, the Boelckes' new commanding officer wished to reassign the brothers into separate air crews. In late March, matters came to a head when the brothers refused to fly separately and jumped the chain of command to complain. However, in April, they were parted. As Wilhelm returned to Germany, Oswald was posted to Feldflieger Abteilung 62 (Field Flyer Detachment 62, or FFA 62) in Douai, France on 25 April. He was quickly passed on to Kampfeinsitzerkommando Douai (Combat Single-Seater Command Douai, or KEK Douai), arriving 19 May. He was the most experienced pilot in the unit. His new assignment brought him friendship with Max Immelmann.
Roland Garros of France's Service Aéronautique (Aeronautical Service) rigged deflector wedges on his propeller in a crude pioneering try at firing a machine gun dead ahead. When he, Eugène Gilbert, and Pégoud scored their first aerial victories, they caught the public eye. French newspapers hailed Pégoud as "l'as", or ace.[b] Public imagination seized upon the novelty of aerial combat. The resulting furor would influence aircraft design and pilot motivation for the remainder of World War I. To an audience overwhelmed by a war of enormous scope and geographic complexity, simple stories of lone heroes had great appeal. As the war progressed, German propagandists took advantage of that appeal. They supplied press releases to newspapers and magazines, and even encouraged printing of postcards and filming of popular aviators.
A propaganda postcard portrait of Oswald Boelcke.
Advent of the flying gun [ edit ]
The Fokker E.I Eindecker (monoplane) was a hasty response to these first air to air victories achieved by French fliers. The nose of the Eindeckers were each fitted with a forward-firing air-cooled Parabellum machine gun slaved to Fokker's pioneering Stangensteuerung design gun synchronizer that prevented bullets from accidentally hitting the Fokker's propeller. Now when a pilot pointed his Fokker at an enemy aircraft, that aircraft became a potential target. The Eindecker's machine gun could spew hundreds of bullets from its belted ammunition without reloading; those few British Lewis guns in use had to be reloaded after 47 shots.
Fokkers were issued singly or in pairs to operational FFA units. Their use was restricted; they were to be flown when pilots were not flying reconnaissance missions in their two-seaters. The German General Staff had settled on an aerial strategy of defensive "barrier" patrols over their own lines. The newly armed planes were considered so revolutionary that they could not be risked over enemy lines for fear of capture. This restriction to defensive patrols was soon eroded by the aggressive insubordination of Boelcke and other Fokker fliers.
On 30 May 1915, Otto Parschau received the original Eindecker from Fokker. He demonstrated it to his fellow pilots, and trained the most promising of them to fly it. The wing warping controls made the monoplane difficult to fly. Among the students were Boelcke, Immelmann, and Kurt Wintgens. Anthony Fokker was also available as a flying coach.
The beginning of fighter warfare [ edit ]
On both 15 and 16 June 1915, Boelcke and his observer used an LVG C.I two-seater armed solely with a rear gun to fight a series of inconclusive combats against French and British aircraft. On the 17th, on the French side of the lines, Gilbert shot down his fifth German airplane.[c] On 21 June, also operating from the Allied side of the lines, British pilot Lanoe Hawker scored his first victory in near anonymity.
In July 1915, Boelcke, Immelmann, Parschau, and Wintgens began to fly the Eindecker aircraft in combat. As the German single-seat pilots began waging war in the third dimension, they had no tactical knowledge for reference. Their early combat sorties relied on the naked aggression of headlong solo attacks upon unwitting enemies.
On 1 July, Wintgens scored the initial victory with the Fokker, but it fell behind French lines and went unverified—until after the war. On 4 July, Wintgens again filed a victory claim—again only confirmed postwar. That same day, Boelcke and his observer brought down an enemy two-seater in a prolonged shootout between reconnaissance machines. It was Boelcke's first victory, and the only one he scored in a two-seater, as he switched mounts to the Eindecker. By the end of July, Wintgens had two more victories, both verified. On 1 August, Immelmann shot down his first enemy plane. By this time, the Eindecker pilots were being mentioned in official dispatches, and lionized in magazine and newspaper. In letters home, Boelcke was already counseling his father about modesty in dealing with journalists.
Boelcke and Immelmann often flew together. On 9 August, Immelmann pounced on a French machine. As he followed it, another Frenchman followed Immelmann. In a classic wingman's move, Boelcke shot down and killed the last Frenchman while Immelmann battled his victim. On 31 August, Pégoud was shot down and killed after six victories. By then, Hawker had tallied six of his eventual seven victories, pretty much unnoticed. In the glare of German publicity, Wintgens had claimed five victims, Boelcke two, and Immelmann one.
The ace race [ edit ]
September 1915 saw improved models of the Eindecker posted to the front; engine power was increased, and a second gun mounted on the nose. September also saw Boelcke and Immelmann score two victories apiece. On 22 September, Boelcke was moved to Metz, joining the secretive Brieftauben-Abteilung-Metz (Carrier Pigeons Department Metz)[d] to counter a French offensive.
On 1 November, the day after his sixth victory, Boelcke won the Royal House Order of Hohenzollern. Immelmann duplicated the feat six days later. By now, the deadly effect of the new aircraft on aerial warfare was beginning to be referred to by the British and French public as the Fokker Scourge.
Boelcke moved back to FA 62 on 12 December. When he arrived, he was awarded a Prussian Lifesaving Medal for an act of heroism in late August. While watching French locals fishing from a high pier jutting into a canal, Boelcke saw a teen boy topple in and sink. Boelcke had immediately plunged in and saved the child from drowning.
By the end of 1915, Immelmann had seven victories, Boelcke had six, Wintgens had five (including two unconfirmed), and Hans-Joachim Buddecke had four (one unconfirmed). There were 86 Fokker and 21 Pfalz Eindeckers in service. Officially, the nine successful pilots of the Fokker Scourge had shot down 28 enemy airplanes.
1916 [ edit ]
The ace race continues [ edit ]
On 5 January 1916, the winter weather finally improved enough for flying. Boelcke shot down a British Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2. Landing near the downed craft, he found that the German-speaking pilot knew of him. Boelcke had the two British airmen taken to hospital. He later visited the observer, bearing reading materials. By now, Boelcke was so well known that this incident was front-page news.
Pour le Mérite was the Thewas the Prussian equivalent of the American Medal of Honor or the British Victoria Cross.
On 12 January, Buddecke submitted his ninth combat claim; however, four had not been verified.[e] Both Boelcke and Immelmann shot down their eighth victims that same day. These two were both immediately presented the German Empire's most prestigious decoration, the Pour le Merite. This award sparked articles in the American and British press, as well as the German news. Boelcke was now both nationally and internationally famous. He could not walk German streets or attend the opera without being lionized. Nor was it a case of only the ordinary populace being fascinated with their public hero; the young lieutenant now found that generals and nobility sought his company.
On 21 January, Boelcke was again covertly posted to Brieftauben-Abteilung-Metz in anticipation of an upcoming offensive against the French. Bad weather limited his flying, and he complained he had little to do except reluctantly reply to fan mail. In late February, Boelcke was hospitalized with an intestinal ailment.
After about a week, he absconded from care to return to duty. Upon his return, he complained he was stationed too far from the front at Jametz for effective interceptions, and was given permission to use the forward airfield at Sivry only 12 kilometers behind the lines. On 11 March, he was given command of the newly formed Fliegerabteilung Sivry (Flying Detachment Sivry). This unit of six fighter pilots was the precursor of German fighter squadrons. Boelcke connected a front line observation post to the Sivry airfield, and thus established the first tactical air direction center. The new fighter unit was stationed near Stenay, which was the headquarters of Crown Prince Wilhelm. A friendship developed between the Crown Prince and the flier.
On 3 March 1916, Boelcke was tasked with evaluating a new Eindecker prototype. His objective report pointed out such shortcomings as inaccurately mounted guns and the limitations of its rotary engine. He also submitted a memorandum that criticized German use of airpower as "wretched".
Boelcke became the first aviator to score 10 victories on 12 March; the following day, even as he scored another, Immelmann scored one of the first double victories of the war to tie it up at 11 all. The dead heat lasted for a week; on 19 March, Boelcke used his usual tactics of pointblank fire for victory number 12.
A Fokker E.III draws a crowd of curious soldiers.
By this time, the increasingly-obsolescent Fokker E.III was being replaced by newer Halberstadt single-gun biplane fighters, and twin-gun armed Albatros biplane aircraft, both types fitted with synchronized guns. The French counter to the Fokker Scourge was the new fast Nieuport 11s. The British counter was the new Airco DH.2 pusher aircraft that could shoot without use of synchronizing gear. Meanwhile, Boelcke focused on developing his own tactical methods: massing fighters in formation and using accurate gunnery in combat.
The ace race continued, although Buddecke lost ground and was no longer a contender due to problems verifying some of his victories in Turkey. Now it became more of an "ace chase", with Immelmann playing catchup to Boelcke as their respective scores rose into the teens. When Boelcke shot down two enemy planes on 21 May 1916, the emperor disregarded army regulations prohibiting promotion to Hauptmann until age 30. Oswald Boelcke was promoted to the rank ten days past his 25th birthday, making him the youngest captain in the German military.
The ace race ends [ edit ]
Immelmann was killed on 18 June 1916 after his 17th victory. Boelcke, who then had 18 victories, was left the preeminent ace of the war. Upon Boelcke's return from Immelmann's funeral, Kaiser Wilhelm II ordered Boelcke grounded for a month to avoid losing him in combat soon after Immelmann. He had become such an important hero to the German public, as well as such an authority on aerial warfare, that he could not be risked. Boelcke downed his 19th victim before reporting to headquarters on 27 June.
There the disgruntled flier was detailed to share his expertise with the head of German military aviation, Hermann von der Lieth-Thomsen, who was planning the reorganization of the German air service from the Fliegertruppe into the Luftstreitkräfte (Air Forces). The Prussian military believed in Auftragstaktik (mission tactics)—the belief that the officer in combat knows best which tactics will succeed. In conformance with this belief, Boelcke codified his successful mission tactics into the Dicta Boelcke. Its eight maxims seem self-evident, but Boelcke was the first to recognize them. His first six rules pointed out ways to gain an advantage in combat. The seventh counseled keeping a line of retreat, and the eighth mandated squadron teamwork. The dicta were published in a pamphlet that was widely distributed as the original training manual on fighter tactics.
During this interlude, the British launched their Somme offensive on 1 July. Their air assets amounted to 185 aircraft; the French were supplying 201 more. The opposing German force amounted to 129 aircraft, including 19 fighters. The British alone had 76 fighters in their force. Allied bombers began a campaign to destroy the German planes on their aerodromes.
Journey to the east [ edit ]
On 10 July, Boelcke left on a tour of the Balkans. He transited Austria-Hungary to visit Turkey. From his diary notes, the journey seemed a combination of military facility inspections, a celebrity tour, and a holiday. He held attendance at social obligations to a minimum, but had to oblige such important hosts as Enver Pasha and Otto Liman von Sanders. Making his rounds of the Turkish flying units supported by the German Military Mission, Boelcke again met his friend Buddecke. After a three-day beach vacation at Smyrna, Boelcke reached the quiescent Gallipoli battlefield on 30 July. When he returned to Constantinople, he learned that in his absence, the French and British airmen had taken air superiority from the Germans on the Western Front.
On his hastened return trip, Boelcke visited Bulgaria and the Russian Front. Boelcke was visiting Wilhelm in Kovel when he received a telegram from Lieth-Thomsen: "Return to west front as quickly as possible to organize and lead Jagdstaffel 2 on the Somme front."
Creation of Jasta Boelcke [ edit ]
When the message from headquarters reached the Boelcke brothers, it was followed by an extraordinary authorization. Six KEKs were expanded into Jagdstaffeln (fighter squadrons), by orders issued on 10 August. The seventh planned squadron would be raised from scratch. This squadron, Jagdstaffel 2 (Fighter Squadron 2, or Jasta 2), was designated as Oswald Boelcke's to command. He was given a free hand to recruit fighter pilots for his new unit.
Upon Wilhelm's recommendation, Oswald recruited a pair of pilots at Kovel, both of whom he had previously met. One was a young cavalry officer, Manfred von Richthofen. The other was 37-year-old Erwin Böhme, a civil engineer returned from six years in Africa to reenlist in the military. After choosing three other pilots, Oswald Boelcke returned to France to organize his squadron.
Boelcke started with only four empty buildings vacated by FFA 32 in the Vélu Woods. His new squadron was authorized 14 aircraft, the pilots to fly them, and ground crew to support them. As of 27 August, the fledgling jasta had three officers and 64 other ranks on strength, but no aircraft. By 8 September, there were eight pilots on board, including Richthofen and Böhme. Three days later, Böhme was pushing for permission to use his castoff Halberstadt; there were four aircraft in the squadron by then.
Boelcke's Fokker D.III fighter on display. He scored eight victories with this plane between 2 and 19 September 1916.
While his squadron struggled into existence, Boelcke flew solo combat sorties, to be eagerly greeted upon his return by his pilots. On 2 September, flying a Fokker D.III, Boelcke shot down Captain R. E. Wilson for victory number 20. The next day, Boelcke hosted Wilson in the squadron mess before returning the British flier to captivity.
As new personnel continued to check in, facilities were built, and the squadron's pilots trained. They began with firing and troubleshooting machine guns on the ground. They also received extensive lectures from Boelcke on aircraft recognition and the strengths and flaws of opposing aircraft. They familiarized themselves with their Halberstadts before taking to the air.
Boelcke drilled them in his tactics as they flew. They learned to pair as leader and wingman, spaced 60 meters abreast to allow room for a U-turn without collision. They flew formation, massing their power for attacks. However, while attacking they split into pairs, although Dictum 8 advised single assaults on the foe by flight leaders.[f] Meanwhile, he withheld the squadron from combat, and continued flying his solo sorties. Single victims fell to him on 8 and 9 September, and he scored double victories on the 14th and 15th.
Into battle [ edit ]
New fighters arrived on 16 September. There was a prototype Albatros D.II for Boelcke, and five Albatros D.Is to be shared by his pilots. The new aircraft outclassed any previous German aircraft, as well as those of their enemies. With more powerful engines, the new arrivals were faster, climbed more quickly to a higher ceiling, and carried two nose machine guns instead of one. With these new airplanes, Jasta 2 flew its first squadron missions on 17 September. Boelcke shot down his 27th victim, while his men shot down four more.
Despite this initial success, squadron training continued. Boelcke now discussed flights beforehand and listened to his pilots' input. He then issued orders for the mission. Post flight, he debriefed his men.
On 22 September, rainy weather had aggravated Boelcke's asthma to the point he could not fly. He refused to go to hospital, but devolved command on Oberleutnant Gunther Viehweger. That night, Jasta 2 transferred from Bertincourt to Lagnicourt because British artillery was beginning to shell the jasta. The next day, in a letter home, Boelcke noted he was still trying to impress his pilots that they should fight as a team instead of individually. Nevertheless, when the squadron flew six sorties that day without him, it shot down three enemy aircraft. Boelcke returned to flight status and command on the 27th.
The squadron's September monthly activity report, written by Boelcke, reported 186 sorties flown, 69 of which resulted in combat. Ten victories were credited to him, and 15 more were shared among his men. The jasta suffered four casualties.
By 1 October, the squadron had ten pilots; besides Boelcke, five of them had shot down enemy aircraft. Boelcke scored his 30th victory, but the jasta lost a pilot to antiaircraft fire. The next day began a stretch of rainy weather that prevented flying until the 7th. On 8 October, General Erich Ludendorff reorganized the makeshift Fliegertruppe into the Luftstreitkräfte and appointed Lieutenant General Ernst von Hoeppner to the new post of Chief of Field Aviation. Hoeppner immediately had the Dicta Boelcke distributed within the new air force.
On 10 October, a clear day saw the resumption of flying. Jasta 2 flew 31 sorties, fought during 18 of them, and claimed five victories, including Boelcke's 33rd. More air battles came on the 16th; among the four victories for the jasta were two more by Boelcke. His hot streak ran throughout the month; he scored 11 victories in October, with his 40th coming on 26 October. By this time, it was becoming obvious that the Royal Flying Corps had lost its mastery of the air. Jasta 2 had 50 victories to its credit—26 in October alone—with only six casualties. The German air service had suffered only 39 casualties between mid-September and mid-October, and had shot down 211 enemy aircraft.
Boelcke's final mission [ edit ]
On the evening of 27 October, a depressed and wornout Boelcke left the jasta mess early to return to his room. He complained of the racket in the mess to his batman, then sat staring into the fire. Böhme showed up and joined him, also stating the mess was too noisy. They shared a long talk, ending only when the orderly suggested bedtime.
Though the following day was misty with a cloud layer, the squadron flew four missions during the morning, as well as another later in the day. On the sixth mission of the day, Boelcke and five of his pilots attacked a pair of British airplanes from No. 24 Squadron RFC. Boelcke and Böhme chased the Airco DH.2 of Captain Arthur Gerald Knight, while Richthofen pursued the other DH.2, flown by Captain Alfred Edwin McKay. McKay evaded Richthofen by crossing behind Knight, cutting off Boelcke and Böhme. Both of them jerked their planes upward to avoid colliding with McKay. Both were hidden from the other by their aircraft's wings. Neither was aware of the other's position. Just as Böhme spotted the other plane bobbing up below him, Boelcke's upper left wing brushed the undercarriage of Böhme's Albatros. The slight impact split the fabric on the wing of Boelcke's Albatros. As the fabric tore away, the wing lost lift, and the stricken plane spiraled down to glide into an impact near a German artillery battery near Bapaume. Although the crash seemed survivable, Boelcke was not wearing his crash helmet, nor was his safety belt fastened. He died of a fractured skull.
A horrified and distraught Böhme returned to base. He overturned his airplane while landing, and blanked the accident from his mind in his distress. He lamented, "Destiny is generally cruelly stupid in her choices..." However, the official inquiry stated he was not at fault.
In memoriam [ edit ]
Pilots from Jasta 2 rushed forward to the artillery position where Boelcke had crashed, hoping he was still alive. The gunners handed over his body to them.
Despite Boelcke being Protestant, his memorial service was held in the Catholic Cambrai Cathedral on 31 October. Among the many wreaths, there was one from Captain Wilson and three of his fellow prisoners; its ribbon was addressed to "The opponent we admired and esteemed so highly". Another wreath of British origin had been air dropped at the authorization of the Royal Flying Corps; it read "To the memory of Captain Boelcke, our brave and chivalrous opponent."
Boelcke's tomb in the memorial cemetery of Dessau
Crown Prince Rupert was the most socially prominent guest at the rites. Two generals spoke at the service. As the funeral procession left the cathedral, Richthofen preceded the coffin, displaying Boelcke's decorations on a black velvet cushion. The sun broke through the gloom as the coffin was placed on a gun caisson. Idling aircraft criss-crossed overhead in tribute. The journey to a waiting train passed through an honor guard to the sound of fired rifle salutes, followed by a hymn. The train crept away to a mourning nation, through Magdeburg and Halberstadt on its path to Dessau.
When the train arrived in Dessau the next day, Boelcke was taken to his home church, Saint
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sources. Settings are based on the unit's FM volume level, which remains unchanged. Each source can be independently adjusted from -4 dB to +4 dB. Auto Level: This function automatically corrects the audio level difference between the music files and/or the sources.
Rear Speaker Setup: The rear speaker outputs can be set to provide full range output with full fading capability, or they can be set to provide non-fading subwoofer (low-pass) output. When the rear speaker outputs are set to subwoofer mode, the rear preamp outputs also switch from full range to subwoofer outputs. When set for subwoofer operation, you can connect the rear speaker leads directly to two small 4-ohm passive subwoofers or a dual voice coil sub with 4-ohm voice coils. If you prefer to use a single 2-ohm subwoofer, you can connect the woofer to one set of speaker leads, leaving the other set of rear leads disconnected. The maximum output provided when a 2-ohm load is connected to one set of leads is 70 watts.
MIXTRAX: Drawing from Pioneer's rich DJ heritage and passion for music, MIXTRAX delivers a unique DJ infused listening experience to listeners in the car. MIXTRAX is an innovative Pioneer technology that creates a non-stop mix of your music library complete with a range of DJ-inspired effects. MIXTRAX takes your typical music listening experience and creates a non-stop mix of your music with 3 random DJ effects and transitions, by removing the breaks and pauses normally introduced between tracks and replacing them with various beats. MIXTRAX is compatible with USB-connected iPod/iPhone, USB MSC device, and select Android devices. There is also a Short Playback option which limits the amount of time each track plays; select from 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, or 3 minutes.
Note: The MIXTRAX function does not work in App mode or with the Pandora App for iPod/iPhone, and is not supported by USB MTP devices. The Advanced Sound Retriever function is disabled when MIXTRAX is activated.
Display Features
Color Customization: Color Customization lets the user match their receiver illumination to their vehicle's interior lighting. Over 210,000 colors are available to match the illumination of almost any car. The button illumination and display illumination colors can be customized separately for an endless number of color combinations. You can select from 12 preset colors, customize an illumination color (by adjusting Red/Blue/Green brightness levels), or scan through a variety of colors.
Brightness Control: You can manually adjust the brightness (1-10) of the head unit's display to suit your viewing needs. You can also sync the receiver's illumination to the head units' clock or your vehicle's headlights. To dim the receiver's display automatically when the vehicle's headlights are turned on, you'll need to hardwire the orange/white wire of the head unit's harness to your vehicle's parking light circuit.
MIXTRAX Illumination: MIXTRAX features a club-style illumination that enhances the mood with a dynamic dance club-like lighting effect. As MIXTRAX begins, lights start pulsing to the beat of the music, adding an extra level of entertainment. You can choose different patterns of lighting variations from sound pressure level or low-pass synchronization modes. The lighting effects work like a spectrum analyzer, reaching peak colors based on the intensity of the music.
Clock Display: When the Clock Display has been turned on, pressing and holding the "SRC" button turns off audio output, but the clock display and button illumination remains on (you can press the "DISP" button to turn off). When the Clock Display has been turned off, pressing and holding the "SRC" button turns the unit off completely. Even if you have turned the radio completely off you can view the clock display by pressing the "DISP" button. The clock will then remain On until you turn it back Off. When the unit is On, you can select between the clock display or the audio track/tuner display.
2-DIN Chassis: The Pioneer FH-X731BTT has a 2-DIN chassis (also known as "Double -DIN"), and will fit in many vehicles with a large dash opening. The unit can be ISO-mounted using factory brackets. There is also an optional double-DIN sleeve (130ADTV133, sold separately) available for this unit that will allow you to Euro-mount or custom mount the Pioneer head unit in your vehicle.
Remote Control
Advanced Remote Control App (for Apple iOS & Android): Download the Pioneer ARC (Advanced Remote Control) App onto your Apple iOS (8.0+) or Android (4.1+) device to turn your smartphone or tablet device into a remote control for the Pioneer head unit. Your Apple iOS device can be connected via USB or Bluetooth, while your Android device can only be connected via USB. The following control features are available via the Pioneer Advanced Remote Control App.
Source Selection: From the app on your Apple iOS or Android device, you can select between the head unit's sources for playback. Choose AM/FM tuner, disc, Aux, or the music library on your device.
From the app on your Apple iOS or Android device, you can select between the head unit's sources for playback. Choose AM/FM tuner, disc, Aux, or the music library on your device. Playback Functions: The app offers basic playback functions like Play/Pause, Previous/Next Track, and Random/Repeat for your mobile device's music library. You are also able to browse your Apple iOS or Android device's music library by Artist, Album, Song, Genre, or Playlist. For AM/FM tuner, you are able to seek stations, switch AM/FM bands, and select presets from the Pioneer ARC app.
The app offers basic playback functions like Play/Pause, Previous/Next Track, and Random/Repeat for your mobile device's music library. You are also able to browse your Apple iOS or Android device's music library by Artist, Album, Song, Genre, or Playlist. For AM/FM tuner, you are able to seek stations, switch AM/FM bands, and select presets from the Pioneer ARC app. Song/Artist Info + Album Art: The Pioneer Advanced Remote Control App provides song/artist information with album art for the music stored on your Apple iOS or Android device. You also get station identification for AM/FM radio; if an AM/FM station supports RDS, you will even get song/artist info.
The Pioneer Advanced Remote Control App provides song/artist information with album art for the music stored on your Apple iOS or Android device. You also get station identification for AM/FM radio; if an AM/FM station supports RDS, you will even get song/artist info. Favorites: The app lets you quickly display radio stations saved as favorites, plus favorite songs in your Apple iOS or Android device's music library. From the Favorite screen, you also get access to contacts saved as "favorites" on your smartphone.
The app lets you quickly display radio stations saved as favorites, plus favorite songs in your Apple iOS or Android device's music library. From the Favorite screen, you also get access to contacts saved as "favorites" on your smartphone. Select Apps: From the Pioneer ARC app, you can also pick from select music apps (like Pandora, iHeart, Spotify, TuneIn) that are installed on your Apple iOS or Android device. Once you select a specific music app, that particular music app opens on your mobile device for playback control.
Note: If you switch to other applications and functions, such as using other iOS device or Android applications or placing calls from your smartphone, you must restart the Pioneer ARC app on your iOS device or Android device.
Wireless Remote Control: The FH-X731BT comes with an IR wireless remote control. The remote allows you to control the volume, switch between sources, pause playback, skip music tracks, change display info, and answer/end Bluetooth phone call. You can also mute the volume (function that cannot be performed from the front panel).
Steering Wheel Remote Compatibility: The head unit features an OEM steering wheel remote control input on the rear of the unit that lets you keep your vehicle's factory radio steering wheel remote controls when used with an optional steering wheel audio control adapter (sold separately).The 2015 NFL Draft is in the books. The three-day event gives us a unique peek behind the NFL curtain; teams can and do say all sorts of ridiculous things, but the way the draft unfolds is the ultimate in what economists refer to as a revealed preference. Regular readers may recall that after last year’s draft, I analyzed the positions each draft pick was spent on and what that meant about the NFL’s value of each position.
As you probably know, I’ve created a draft value chart based on the expected marginal Approximate Value produced by each draftee in his first five seasons to the team that drafted him. By assigning each draft pick a number of expected points, we can then calculate how much draft capital was spent on each position. I went through the 2015 draft (using the position designations from Pro-Football-Reference) and calculated how much value was used on each position; the results are displayed in the table below.
Wide receiver, cornerback, and outside linebacker were the three positions that teams were most interested in acquiring in the 2015 draft. In fact, for the second straight year, 15% of all draft capital was used on wide receivers! I don’t recall this year’s class having quite the hype of last year’s — and I doubt it can match that level of production — but the data suggest that NFL teams are extremely excited about this year’s crop of receivers.
The chart above is interesting, but comparing wide receivers to quarterbacks is not an apples-to-apples comparison. On every play, there are 22 players on the field, but there’s usually just one quarterback compared to anywhere from two to five receivers. So I took the above numbers and then adjusted them for each position on a per-snap basis. I used crude estimates here, but I’m assuming that, on average over the course of each season, there is 1 QB, 1.2 RBs, 2.5 WRs, 1.3 TEs, 2 OTs, 2 OGs, 1 C, 2 DEs, 1.5 DTs, 1.8 OLBs, 1.2 ILBs, 2.4 CBs, 1 SS, and 1.1 FSs on the field per play. Taking the draft capital value from the above chart and dividing those numbers by the numbers in the preceding sentence, and we get the following chart, and a very surprising new leader:
Yes, running back — a position that has been significantly devalued in the draft — was the most valuable position on a per snap basis in the 2015 draft. That’s just… crazy. We saw Georgia’s Todd Gurley drafted 10th overall and Wisconsin’s Melvin Gordon go five picks later (and San Diego spent the equivalent of the 6th overall pick to obtain Gordon’s rights, although trades are not considered in today’s analysis). Two more running backs went in the second round, four more in the third and fourth rounds, and a whopping five in the fifth. By the end of the draft, 19 teams had selected running backs, an interesting result in a league that seems to devalue the position. Then again, if you’re going to acquire a running back, getting a young one through the draft may be the preferred method, even if the opportunity cost is significant.
This was a really poor safety class. Let’s group free safeties and strong safeties together, to smooth out the chart. Teams spent just 68.9 points of draft capital on safeties, despite there being about 2.1 on the field on any given defensive play. That equates to an average of just 32.8, the least amount of draft capital spent on any position. That’s even lower than center, a position that is often disregarded in the draft. One might argue that teams prioritize the safety position now more than ever before, so these results are a sign of how unimpressive this class truly was. Oh, and the highest drafted safety, Damarious Randall, may wind up being a cornerback in Green Bay. That would make the numbers here even uglier.
Tight end was another position that lacked top-end talent and couldn’t make up for it in quantity. Maxx Williams was the first tight end taken with the 55th pick, and only five were drafted in the first four rounds.Arkansas laws are somewhat unique in that private clubs can serve alcohol in dry counties, which are numerous. All alcoholic beverages are sold in retail stores rather than state-owned package stores. In most areas alcohol is not sold on Sundays, but restaurants can be the exception. Alcohol is not sold on Christmas Day. You should familiarize yourself with the laws of the county in which you reside or visit as they can vary a great deal.Arkansas has a tier system for alcohol licensing that determines when the bar or restaurant can serve alcohol. A Class A license allows alcohol service from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. A Class B license permits alcohol service from 10 a.m. until 5 a.m. A Restaurant License serves alcohol until 1 a.m.You must be 21 to drink alcohol or work as a bartender, 19 to serve in a restaurant with an alcohol license, and 18 years of age to handle alcohol in a grocery store. Parental consent is a stipulation of the law for those working with alcohol under the age of 21.Containers of alcohol that have previously been opened are permissible in a vehicle, but it is not legal for the driver or passengers to drink.The maximum legal blood-alcohol content (BAC) is.08 percent. Drivers with a higher BAC are considered ‘per se intoxicated’ and can be convicted of DUI (driving under the influence) on this evidence. Drivers under 21 with a.02 percent BAC or higher will be convicted of DUI. Drivers with a BAC of.18 percent or more over the maximum legal BAC limit of.08 percent and drivers refusing chemical testing for intoxication will experience enhanced penalties.‘Implied consent laws’ are agreed to by the new driver, which include showing proof of insurance and a driver’s license if requested, and complying with a request for BAC chemical testing. A driver’s license can be immediately suspended for up to one year for refusing to comply.The first DUI imposes license suspension by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for 120 days; for the second offense, two years; for the third offense, thirty months.For a fourth DUI conviction in Arkansas, a driver’s vehicle may be confiscated, an ignition interlock device may be attached to the driver’s car, and/or alcohol education and assessment may be required.DUI is considered a felony after the fourth conviction.Is the burka making Muslim women fat? All women know the frustration of waking up post-pizza party feeling a bit plump and hesitant to put on that cute tiny skirt – at which point hiding behind vast quantities of fabric may seem enticing. But is it healthy?
While some women are able to hide the bloat of a large meal behind a burka, the garment and the traditions surrounding it can also discourage exercise both psychologically and practically.
The “Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures: Family, body, sexuality and health” authored by Suad Joseph and Afsaneh Najmabad and published in 2006 notes that obesity, especially among women, has become an “epidemic” in many Arab countries. “High obesity prevalence among women may be partially due to cultural prohibitions against physical activity,” Joseph and Najmabad write.
Studies indicate that up to 70 percent of women in the Gulf states are obese. According to The Economist magazine’s world rankings, the countries with the highest obesity rates among women are Muslim countries: 1. Qatar 2. Saudi Arabia 3. Lebanon. (The United States ranked 8th on this list.)
The picture is not much brighter in America, where Muslim women still face high rates of obesity and its accompanying health problems.
“To the Muslim community as a whole, exercise is not a priority,” Mubarakah Ibrahim, fitness expert at BALANCE fitness Studio For Women in New Haven, Connecticut, told The Daily Caller. She estimates that only about 10 percent of Muslim women exercise. Though she urges women to get out and move, she more than understands the struggles. “Many, especially Muslim women, think it will be difficult to exercise in their burka or hijab. In some ways it is prohibitive. I exercise in the hijab but I cannot always do normal activity. For instance, if I workout outdoors I need to be very aware of the weather. If it is too hot or humid, it is not reasonable to exercise outside.”
In America, the modesty required of Muslim women is restrictive when it comes to the prospect of working out at a gym or fitness club. The majority of workout facilities in the United States are co-ed, rendering exercise without a hijab or burka difficult for observant Muslim women.
Maria Omar, director of media relations for the Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA), will not go the gym regardless of her outfit. “I do not wear a burka, but even I feel uncomfortable exercising among men,” she said. “It is just immodest.”
While some gyms, such as Curves, cater to an all female clientele, the chance of a male staffer entering the facility is too high a risk for some Muslim women to handle. Moreover, many find the gym music, usually rap, pop and rock, offensive. Ibrahim said most women who do exercise do so alone in their homes for just these reasons. She went on to say that even in all female gyms she will not take off her hijab because “if anyone were to describe me to a man it would be as though he had actually seen me.”
The privacy and discomfort issues which may arise from traditional garb are only half the struggle, according to Ibrahim. “There is no bikini season for Muslim women and little incentive to look like the models in the magazines. A normal woman may see her figure in a store window and think ‘oh dear I need to lose some weight!’ With Muslim women the whole idea is to hide the figure.” Ibrahim continued, “it is an internal struggle because nobody will see your efforts in the gym. Even though they may not be conscious of their waist they need to be conscious of their health…It’s not about being fat, its about being healthy.”
Based on his own personal observations working at a healthcare facility, Awaif Chughtai, director of marketing and community relations at the University Muslim Medical Association (UMMA), chalked up the tendency to avoid exercise to generational differences. He explained that many in the American Muslim community are first generation immigrants whose lives in their former countries were labor intensive. Once they move to America and adopt more sedentary lifestyles, Chughtai suggested, they tend to gain weight as they continue to eat traditional fatty foods from their home country. Chughtai continued by noting that second generation Muslims were more likely to value exercise.
“I know with my own mother, she is not comfortable going to the gym,” he said. “But I do see younger, active Muslim women come into our clinic.”
Dr. Muhammad Munir Chaudry, president of Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA), pointed to marriage as a reason many Muslim women may eschew exercise. “Women lead more sedentary lives than men,” Chaudry told The Daily Caller. “While men go out and work, traditional women stay at home.” He continued, “After marriage women will often let themselves go. They have babies and never lose the weight and only their husbands see them.”
Nonetheless, there have been advancements in the world of Muslim workout attire. For instance the burquini allows Muslim women to swim without displaying any skin. Others have come up with the sports hijab. As the western health craze expands, innovations such as these will likely increase and become more common. In the meantime, it is important for us all to keep fitness and health in mind, regardless of our attire.
Clarification: After publication Omar and Chaudry notified TheDC that they were not speaking on behalf of IFANCA but rather from their own personal experiences.
E-mail Caroline May and follow her on TwitterGreetings contestants!
What a crazy week! Thank you for bearing with us as we’ve beefed up our server infrastructure to handle the demand from our new Xbox audience. The level of interest in the game exceeded even our hopeful expectations. It was touch-and-go there for a while, but we think our servers are ready to handle all of the murderous mayhem you can dish out moving forward, so hop on in and feel free to bring a friend!
As the Xbox audience continues to grow, we are likely to experience a few more hiccups, but we have been hard at work for the last week to implement measures that will keep the gears turning (picture Frank furiously pedaling a bicycle with wires poking out in all directions).
We’ve enjoyed watching a new crop of players jump into the arena and experience the adrenaline rush that is Battle Royale and we can’t wait to see more of your kills, thrills and victories over the coming weeks and months.
While it’s fun to reminisce about the exciting times we’ve already had together, we’re always looking towards the future. We have a few cards up our sleeves, and we don’t mind tipping our hand every so often.
So let’s get to showing some cards.
Bug Fixes
This one may seem boring, but it’s important. Whether you’re slaying PC or kicking some rear-end on Xbox, you’ve likely come across a bug or two. One of the great benefits of Early Access and Game Preview is the ability to source feedback on a scale that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to, pulling in reports of bugs both minor and major.
A portion of the team is working on addressing crashes, usability issues, and regular ol’ bugs. We tend to focus these diaries on new features, but we also know that fixes for common issues improve quality of life for players and have a big impact on the overall experience.
Please keep the reports coming in on all platforms and we’ll do our best to listen, resolving them as soon as we can. As a small team we can’t do everything all at once, but your reports help us to prioritize the major issues that matter to you.
Seasonal Leaderboards
One new feature we’ve been excited about for quite some time is Seasonal Leaderboards. This system adds an extra layer of competitive play for newcomers and grizzled veterans alike. It’s been a long path to get here, to say the least!
More than a year ago we introduced “Trials of the Isle.” The game awarded Trials Tokens for wins in regular matches, which could be used to enter ultra-competitive Trials matches where players competed for exclusive loot. We loved the added competitive aspect, but the system didn’t work well with everyone’s play schedule, it wasn’t easily accessible, and it fragmented the queues.
With lessons learned from the Trials system, we considered several alternatives and ultimately decided on a seasonal leaderboards system. Each of your matches is scored based on placement and kill count (with a few other factors thrown in to spice things up), and your best matches of the season form a cumulative season score that determines your leaderboard rank.
Whether you’re a brand new player looking to break out of Bronze or a wily vet vying for the top of Diamond, each of your matches provides a new opportunity to improve your standing.
You can expect to hear more details about Leaderboards soon, but until then we’ve decided to give you a sneak peek of what they could look like. Keep in mind, these mock-ups are works in progress, so the final result is likely to change.On the ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ season 4 finale, Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) and Jake (Andy Samberg) are in deep trouble as they learn the truth about their idol.
On the ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ season 4 finale, Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) and Jake (Andy Samberg) are in deep trouble as they learn the truth about their idol. Fox/Brooklyn Nine-Nine
On the “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” season 4 finale, Jake (Andy Samberg) and Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) are in deep trouble as they learn the truth about their idol. Also, Gina’s (Chelsea Peretti) old flame threatens to destroy her relationship with Charles (Joe Lo Truglio).
Spoiler alert: This recap contains plot details about season 4 of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” The fourth season premiered Sept. 20. The series is available for Australian viewers to watch on SBS every Wednesday at 8:00 p.m.
Jake found out last episode (“The Slaughterhouse”) that his and Rosa’s idol, Melanie Hawkins (Gina Gershon), is really a “dirty” law enforcement officer. The two actually competed for the hard-core lieutenant’s admiration, but it turns out that she’s a big player in the Golden Gang bank robbery case. Jake overheard Hawkins’ conversation with the criminal he had a hard time capturing, and the lieutenant was clearly into the stolen diamonds from the start.
It’s going to be interesting to see how Rosa reacts when Jake tells her that their hero is one crooked cop. But one thing is for sure, the two detectives are in deep trouble now that Hawkins’ real motives have been revealed. Dan Goor, the comedy series’ co-creator, revealed some details about the upcoming episode.
“An undercover mission goes south, causing Jake and Rosa’s entire worlds to come crumbling down around them,” Goor said. “It puts their careers and lives in jeopardy. Serious jeopardy.”
Goor also hinted that Jake and Rosa are going to be forced to act like they’re dirty cops themselves, those that go all-out when it comes to partying and drugs. Helping the two get their act together will be the beloved Captain Holt (Andre Braugher) and Rosa’s eccentric lover, Adrian Pimento (Jason Mantzoukas), who returns in this season’s finale after a long layoff.
“They enlist the help of the dirtiest clean cop they know who shows them how to get by in the world of drugs, though maybe accidentally doing a few himself,” Goor said. “It’s a tour de force by Mantzoukas.”
Gina, meanwhile, is set to reveal a number of skeletons in her cupboard, including those that involve Milton, a former flame who’s a pro snowboarder. According to Goor, one of Gina’s skeletons threatens to destroy her relationship with Charles, who is going to be all over Milton. “Cruel Intentions” star Ryan Phillippe is set to play the snowboarder.
Fans should also look forward to Charles’ white hair and wheelchair status next episode, as EW notes. Apparently the stress will be too much for Jake’s best friend to handle. What’s more, the two-part “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” season 4 finale is also going to feature Amy (Melissa Fumero) and Jake’s experience with horny pigs, Rosa’s “La La Land” guilty pleasure and Terry’s (Terry Crews) embarrassing appearance on an MTV Beach House-like show during the ‘90s.
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‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ season 4, episode 20 spoilers, recap: Jake and Rosa compete for their idol’s reverence on ‘The Slaughterhouse’Film fans have been denied the talents of Francis Ford Coppola for far too long. His last feature film, 1997's "The Rainmaker," certainly didn't seem like an appropriate swan song to a career that included "The Godfather," "The Godfather: Part II" and "The Conversation" (those were all made in succession, by the way).
Since that unprecedented early 1970s trifecta, Coppola's career has ebbed and flowed. Bombastic successes like "Apocalypse Now" and "Bram Stoker's Dracula" were matched by stunning commercial or critical failures, like "One From the Heart" and "Jack."
Now Coppola says he's reignited his passion for moviemaking thanks to "Youth Without Youth," an experimental meditation on philosophy and mortality starring Tim Roth as a linguistics expert made young again, thanks to a lightning bolt from above.
Coppola visited MTV News to discuss his heady new work, why he's always been plagued by self-doubt and what he and Mario Puzo had planned for "The Godfather: Part IV."
MTV: This film seems like a departure for you, relative to films like "The Godfather" and "Apocalypse Now." The subject matter is a bit less accessible.
Francis Ford Coppola: It's funny that one would say that "Godfather," "Apocalypse" — someone today mentioned "The Conversation" — those movies are as different from each other as could be.... Of course ["Youth Without Youth" is] not like "The Godfather," it's not like "Apocalypse," and I beg the audience to allow me to not spend the rest of my life trying to imitate things I've done in the past. [What] it represents more is me being sort of the more personal-style film director that I wanted to be when I was 19, when I was seeing the great films of the Italian directors or the New Wave or [Ingmar] Bergman or [Akira] Kurosawa, that's what I wanted to be.
"Godfather" was an accident. I didn't expect it to happen to have a success like that. I'm thrilled with my life, but if anything, I would love the chance to still be the kind of filmmaker I wanted to be when I was 18 or 19, and write unusual subject matter and explore the meaning of life or try to shed illumination on life... and I think that's what "Youth Without Youth" represents.
MTV: You've said before that a movie is like a question and that when you make it, you find the answer. What's been the question and answer of "Youth Without Youth"?
Coppola: I wanted to learn a better way to express the miracle of human consciousness and understand what it was. What I learned in making the film is that it's the introduction of language that seems to blossom into this thing called consciousness. They called me "Francie" when I was a kid. When was I Francie? When did I first have this conscious personality? It had to be at 3 or 4, and that's when I had a little bit of language.
MTV: Do you worry that an audience conditioned to consume mass entertainment won't be so willing to engage in a film like this?
Coppola: The young audiences have been brainwashed as to what a movie is. [Movies] have been made because it's a business, to be simple to understand, and that's made [them] formulaic. We're all capable of understanding this kind of stuff. It's good to have a movie that makes you think about your own life. It's fun to speculate on what the reality of life is.
MTV: I was surprised to learn that you are often filled with dread on a set.
Coppola: "Totally.... It was always based on embarrassment.... I went to 20 schools before I got to college, so it was always, "Oh, here's Francis Coppola, he's the new kid," and everyone would laugh 'cause my name was Francis. I think being on the set and then suddenly everyone looking at me like I'm supposed to know what I'm doing, sometimes my brain freezes and it's like a panic attack.
MTV: I would think, though, that in the early '70s, when "Godfather," "The Conversation," "Godfather: Part II"... [did] you feel bulletproof at that time?
Coppola: To all you artists out there, young and old: Artists are filled with self-doubt. All of them are Marlon Brando was.... It's just part of being a creative artist, that you are feeding on stuff in your personality, of which self-doubt is a part. That's why you achieve.
MTV: "Godfather IV" was talked about, it seems, at one time. You and Mario Puzo — is this true? — went to Paramount and said, "We're interested, we'll do it," and they said, "We're not interested."
Coppola: I never thought making a second "Godfather" made sense to me.... I thought the end of the first "Godfather" film was the end of it. Michael has become what he's become. He's paid a terrible price for it, and that's the point. The last shot of closing his wife out was the end. So when they wanted a second "Godfather," it was just to make money.... It was the beginning of this franchise mentality, so I resisted it.... But I was working on an original idea of... telling a story of a father and a son at the same age... two stories paralleling. They prevailed on me so much that I said, "Well, I'll do it, but I'll have total control, and I'll make it be this story and work it into 'The Godfather.' " When that was done — miracle of miracles that it was well-received; like anything, it could have gone as bad as gone right — then I was done with it.
Many years later, after "One From the Heart," after [accumulating] huge debt, unbelievable debt for a young guy, the chance to do "Godfather III" was a chance for me to get out of my problems, and I did it as best I knew how.... And then there was talk of a fourth "Godfather." And I had an idea of how you could do it, oddly enough, again paralleling two stories because it was a big part of the book that had never been made — it was the period sort of between the old period in "Godfather II" and when you see Marlon Brando in "The Godfather." Mario called it the "happy years" — when we killed them and they didn't kill us. [He laughs.]
And Mario was very concerned to make money because he was getting older and he really wanted to leave his kids well-fixed, and I said to Paramount, "Look it, we have an idea of a structure of this thing. Pay Mario Puzo a million dollars to do this first draft, and I'll help him and work with him. You don't have to pay me anything. But he's getting old, and he's not entirely well." And they basically didn't do it. And then he died.
MTV: To hear you talk about "Youth Without Youth," it sounds like you're more content making these smaller films on your terms for now.
Coppola: I don't know. After I make this film in Argentina "Tetro", it's about a lot of personal demons. When and if I exorcise them by making this film, I'd be curious what I would want to tackle.
Check out everything we've got on "Youth Without Youth."
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Want trailers? Visit the Trailer Park for the newest, scariest and funniest coming attractions anywhere.CONCACAF unveiled the shortlists and opened fan voting for the third annual CONCACAF Awards on Tuesday, honoring the top players, coaches, referees and goals of the region during the past year.
There is plenty of MLS representation among the nominees, including a trio of MLS players – Seattle Sounders forward Clint Dempsey, Orlando City rookie sensation Cyle Larin, and Toronto FC midfielder Michael Bradley – in the running for the Male Player of the Year.
VOTE NOW: 3rd Annual CONCACAF Awards
Three MLSers are up for Male Goalkeeper of the Year as well: Philadelphia Union's Andre Blake, D.C. United's Bill Hamid and Montreal Impact's Evan Bush. Former MLS 'keepers Tim Howard, Brad Guzan and Jaime Penedo are also nominated for the award. Howard took the honor last year.
Meanwhile, two MLS coaches are nominated for Male Coach of the Year: Caleb Porter (Portland Timbers) and Jesse Marsch (New York Red Bulls), along with US national team head coach Jurgen Klinsmann.
Demar Phillips (Real Salt Lake), Matt Besler (Sporting KC) and Roman Torres (Seattle Sounders) are eligible for the Male Best XI award, as well as midfielders Dax McCarty (New York Red Bulls) and Bradley, and forwards Dempsey, Kei Kamara (Columbus Crew SC) and Sebastian Giovinco (Toronto FC).
Canadian referee David Gantar, who officiates MLS matches, was one of the nominees in the Male Referee of the Year category.
The CONCACAF Awards use votes from fans, national team head coaches and captains, and media members, divided in equal percentages, to determine the winners. This is the first time fans and media will be able to vote for the Male and Female Best XIs.For some reason I had it in my head that deep down everyone is essentially versatile, turns out I’m quite wrong. Even here in rock and roll London there are men who prefer never to stray from their chosen sexual identities. I can’t help feeling that this leads to some pretty weird sex myths developing on the hook up scene, particularly with guys who identify as ‘100% top’. Here’s a thought,
NOBODY LIKES GETTING FUCKED BY A TERRIBLE TOP!
If you are one of those gay men who confuses penetrative roles in sex play with preconceived notions of masculinity, then you need to stop having sex for a while, head to a halcyon world that has only ever existed in shitty porn films, like a public school or a prison, and beg to get punch-fucked by a retarded drug addict; because, generally speaking, gay porn is fucking awful at representing mutual pleasure in sexual intercourse. Gay porn exists for onanism, which is fine if you don’t take it literally, it’s about sitting on your own and masturbating. If you haven’t figured this out yet, then you really need to stop having sex for a while…etc..etc…
The other day I read on my friend’s Facebook feed that some gay guys were organizing workshops here in London in order to become ‘better bottoms.’ Well, having been sexually versatile, it is my opinion that we really need to start at the ‘top‘ and work our way down. Looking back over previous posts, I tend to
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inside surfaces of the duct need to be sanded fairly smooth. When humidity must be increased—a more common condition—simply pour a small amount of water down the shaft and check on the effect the next day or so. An aluminum foil pie tin filled with sand and placed directly below the shaft makes a good receptacle and evaporator of this moisture. Four racks made of wooden lath, of a size to cover most of the pit bottom, will keep the produce sacks raised a couple of inches for good air circulation. One final design detail, small homemade wooden cleats, strategically located, conveniently secure the various rope ends.
As for the size of these installations, a well box four feet square is a convenient size when working with dimension lumber and requires an excavation three feet on a side. Four feet is a good hole depth and well box height. This depth will reach below frost line in most places and this height will, even after being banked with earth and mulch half way up, remain above snow line in most winters.
Figures 6-14. Tying a main line hitch and making a millers knot
Perforated plastic bags are best for holding varieties which require high humidity. The larger bread wrappers can be pressed into service for quantities of a few pounds each and for small containers of insulation. They can efficiently be ventilated to any required degree by folding and re-folding until only two or three inches square and punched a half a dozen times more or less with a leather punch. The cheaper models costing six or eight dollars are plenty good enough for this use and can be bought at many craft or hardware stores. Roots of some varieties (cabbage, leek, and celery), that need to be kept moist, can be bagged in unvented bags and secured with string or rubber bands. Open mesh bags are best when dry conditions are wanted. Each bagged specimen should ideally be separated by something like moss or sawdust to cushion them. Best of all is cattail down, plentiful and free for the taking in the fall. These materials are also used in the insulation sacks.
To hold roots for sprouting, four wooden crates (Figure 15) can fit between the struts supporting the duct shaft. Like the sacks, they can be stacked several tiers high on a long line. Several holes high on the sides provide ventilation. Braided nylon rope is best for this application. It handles and grips well. Quarter inch is adequate for all but huge sacks of heavy produce and three eighths is a better choice for heavy earth filled crates and much easier on the hands.
For the definitive word on cold storage see the book Root Cellaring by Mike and Nancy Bubel. It contains a wealth of information including the fine points of designing and building full size installations.The Memphis Hustle, the Grizzlies’ NBA G League affiliate, today announced the Grizzlies have assigned center Deyonta Davis and forward Ivan Rabb to the team.
Davis (6-11, 237) appeared in 36 games for the Grizzlies during his rookie season and averaged 1.6 points and 1.7 rebounds in 6.6 minutes. The 20-year-old competed in 11 games (10 starts) for the Iowa Energy last season in the NBA G League and recorded 10.6 points, 8.6 rebounds and 2.36 blocks in 27.9 minutes. A native of Muskegon, Mich., Davis was drafted by Boston (draft rights later acquire by Memphis) in the second round (31st overall) of the 2016 NBA Draft following his freshman season at Michigan State University.
Rabb (6-10, 220) appeared in four games for the Grizzlies in the preseason and averaged 3.0 points and 2.8 rebounds in 10.1 minutes. The 20-year-old appeared in 31 games (30 starts) and averaged 14.0 points, 10.5 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.00 blocks in 32.6 minutes last season as a sophomore at the University of California, shooting 48.4 percent from the field (151-of-312 FG) and 66.3 percent from the free throw line (124-of-187 FT). The 20-year-old was named All-Pac 12 First Team after leading the Pac-12 in rebounding both overall and in conference play (11.4 rebounds) and also was one of 10 finalists for the Karl Malone Award, given by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame to the nation’s top collegiate power forward.
Fans who want to support the Memphis Hustle by purchasing 2017/18 Season Tickets can do so by calling (901) 888-HOOP and pressing 6. Season Ticket Packages start at just $8 per game and include multiple Season Ticket Member benefits including discounts on gear and merchandise, playoff ticket priority for both the Memphis Hustle and Memphis Grizzlies, invitations to select Grizzlies games during the 2017/18 season and more. Single Game Tickets start at $10 and are available for purchase at all Ticketmaster locations, Ticketmaster.com, the Landers Center Box Office, online at memphishustle.com or by calling (901) 888-HOOP.
For more information on the Memphis Hustle, visit memphishustle.com, follow the team on Twitter and Instagram (@MemphisHustle) or like Memphis Hustle on Facebook.Image copyright Reuters Image caption The two leaders met for the first time since October 2015
Russian President Vladimir Putin has renewed his call for a political solution to the war in Syria, during a rare visit by his Syrian counterpart.
Mr Putin told Bashar al-Assad the military campaign was "wrapping up", but there was still "a long way to go".
A two-year Russian air campaign has given Mr Assad a clear upper hand in the civil war, which began in 2011.
The meeting comes ahead of talks between the president's allies, Russia and Iran, and rebel backer Turkey.
The three powers have increasingly co-operated in recent months to set up a series of so-called "de-escalation zones" aimed at calming fighting in western Syria.
Speaking to Russian television after the meeting on Monday evening, Mr Putin said he intended to talk with US President Donald Trump and the Emir of Qatar about a resolution to the conflict.
"We still have a long way to go before we achieve a complete victory over terrorists," Mr Putin said at the meeting in Sochi. "But as far as our joint work in fighting terrorism on the territory of Syria is concerned, this military operation is indeed wrapping up."
The Syrian and Russian leaders have long characterised Syrian rebels as terrorists.
Mr Assad was on Russian soil for four hours, a Kremlin spokesman told the RIA news agency. He last visited Mr Putin in Russia in October 2015, a month after the Russian military launched a campaign against his opponents.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC witnesses the last stand of IS in Syria
Mr Putin announced in March 2016 that his forces had largely achieved their objectives in Syria, but the campaign continued.
Russia has been accused of killing hundreds of Syrian civilians with its air strikes, something it has denied.
Speaking to Russian state television after the meeting, Mr Assad said: "At this stage, especially after we achieved victory over terrorists, it is in our interests to move forward with the political process."
The leaders of the US, UK, France, Germany and the EU have all called for Mr Assad to step down since the beginning of the country's bloody civil conflict, and the issue of Mr Assad's future has been a stumbling block in previous peace talks.
Various Syrian opposition factions are due to meet in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Wednesday, to try to form a single representative body for the latest round of UN-backed talks in Geneva next week.
The head of a Saudi-backed umbrella group that represented the opposition at the last round, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), stepped down on Monday.
Riyad Hijab wrote on Twitter that he had been "forced to announce" his resignation after almost two years in post, but wished the committee "further achievements".Three unnamed women who say they were sexually assaulted on or near the Baylor campus while students, filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the university.
According to the suit, one of the alleged sexual assaults involved an athlete.
Naming the plaintiffs as Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2 and Jane Doe 3, Jim Dunnam, of Waco’s Dunnam and Dunnam Law Firm, filed the suit Wednesday in Waco’s U.S. District Court.
The suit lists only the university as a defendant.
Fired head football coach Art Briles is not named.
“We’ve made no specific allegations against him, at this time," Dunnam said.
The suit alleges each woman was the victim of a sexual assault while on campus at Baylor and that the university failed to respond to their reports, misinformed each about their rights, and failed to protect each of them from harm.
Baylor issued a statement late Wednesday afternoon in which it said it could not comment on the specific allegations.
“Due to the deeply personal and sensitive nature of individual cases and federal law, we do not publicly address specific cases, even when a student publicly shares details or reports of his or her own experience," the university said.
"The decision to report to the university or other authorities is a brave and personal choice and occurs on the student’s timetable. We’re committed to and have already begun to implement changes in order to provide a safe and supportive environment for students and faculty.”
The lawsuit filed Wednesday says a significant history of student on student harassment “resulting from deliberate indifference, has been allowed to continue” at Baylor “for many years.”
The suit alleges that each of the women reported incidents of sexual abuse and sexual harassment while students, and says that Baylor “failed to adequately investigate each and every one of the events the Plaintiffs reported in violation of Title IX.”
Jane Doe 1 started school at Baylor in January 2014 and lived at the Baylor-owned University Parks apartments.
The suit alleges she was sexually assaulted at the apartment complex on April 26, 2014 by a student who also was a player on the university’s football team.
The complaint says she reported the assault to a university physician who “misinformed Jane Doe 1 and concealed from Jane Doe 1 as to her options to further report the incident, accommodations she was entitled to under Title IX, and further investigatory actions that could be taken by the University,” the complaint says.
She also reported the assault to the Baylor advocacy center but no official action was taken by the university, the suit says.
Ultimately Jane Doe 1 lost her scholarships and left Baylor in the fall of 2015.
Jane Doe 2 enrolled at Baylor in August 2004.
The suit alleges she was sexually assaulted on Sept. 4, 2004 and at the time was younger than 18.
She reported her assault to a chaplain, a dormitory director and to the Baylor Police Department, all of which ended without investigation or follow-up, the suit says.
The suit says police told her she would be contacted by an investigator, but says she has no memory of talking with any detective about the assault, the complaint says.
She also eventually left school and in May 2008 moved out of state.
She was allowed to re-enroll in the fall of 2015, but the suit says poor grades, because of anxiety over her previous experience, led to her suspension from the university, the complaint says.
Jane Doe 3 enrolled at Baylor in August 2012 and was assigned to Teal Residential College dormitory, the suit says.
She reported that she was harassed and sexually assaulted by a male student beginning in the fall of 2013 and continuing through December 2015.
Both Jane Doe 3 and her assailant were dormitory staff members, the suit says.
“At the time of these incidents, the Defendant University had no Title IX coordinator to whom Jane Doe 3 could report,” the suit says.
“Ultimately, Jane Doe 3 informed the Baylor Police Department of the situation where a case number was assigned and purportedly the investigation remains open,” the suit says.
In summary, the complaint says: “Defendant failed to take immediate, effective remedial steps to resolve the complaints of sexual harassment, and instead acted with deliberate indifference towards Plaintiffs.
“Defendant engaged in a pattern and practice of behavior designed to discourage and dissuade students and guest students who had been sexually assaulted from seeking prosecution and protection and from seeking to have sexual assaults from being fully investigated,” the complaint says.
The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction that would force Baylor to “refrain from unlawful discrimination and/or retaliation” and to order the university to “rectify any and all Title IX violations and to order the athletic department to refrain from condoning such behavior by athletes.
The lawsuit also seeks damages “including actual damages, compensatory damages, nominal damages, punitive damages, court and litigation costs, expert fees, attorney’s fees, statutory interest and injunctive relief.Today marks one month until graduation. I know, it’s horrifying. And, with that in mind, here is a list of 30 things to consider doing before your departure from the Happiest of Valleys. If you’re an underclassman, first of all, I envy you, but you have ample time to tackle this list. So keep it mind, maybe do a couple of these things, but don’t worry about it. Seniors, as they say in those cheesy promotional videos for Penn State, “It’s Our Time”
Penn State Bucket List: 30 Things in 30 Days
1.) Take a picture by the Lion Shrine.
2.) Go on a bar tour (or two) with your friends.
3.) Take a midnight run on the White Loop – you won’t regret it.
4.) Scream “We Are” at a Lion Ambassador led tour group. They have to reply – it’s in the rules.
5.) Finish an entire R U Hungry sandwich and feel the satisfaction. Also the remorse.
6.) Go see our baseball team play at Medlar Field.
7.) Explore the library and try not to get lost in the stacks.
8.) Slide down the wooden railings inside the library.
9.) Blow off some school work. Your time here is almost up and that homework assignment couldn’t be less important; go hang out with your friends.
10.) Eat some ice cream from The Creamery. They don’t sell it anywhere else.
11.) Climb Mount Nittany.
12.) Climb Mounting Nittany. Sorry it was too easy – I had to.
13.) Go to Otto’s or The Brewery and drink a beer that isn’t a Natty Light.
14.) Re-live your freshman year. Whether that means going back to East Halls for dinner or taking a trip back to Altoona, I think we can all agree that those were the days.
15.) Check out the inside of Old Main.
16.) Order wings from Wings Over Happy Valley. If you’ve yet to do so; shame on you.
17.) Get a Monkey Boy at Saloon – you won’t regret it. Actually you might.
18.) Check out the State Theatre. It’s an awesome venue and very under-appreciated.
19.) Take a trip to The End Zone, but only if you’re into that sort of thing. Just don’t steal a taxi.
20.) Tailgate at Blue/White Weekend and pretend it’s a real football game.
21.) Have a conversation with the Willard Preacher.
22.) Have a conversation with Sam Richards to get a view from the complete opposite side of the spectrum. Be happy you’re somewhere in the middle.
23.) Go to Mad Mex on a Monday, sit outside, and get a $5 margarita. So worth it.
24.) Walk out to the University Terrace just to say you did it. It’s a whole different world.
25.) Pregame class. Okay maybe not the best idea but you’re a senior and Cafe’ is a great place to spend an afternoon. I’ll see you there.
26.) Take a tour of Penn’s Cave. C’mon it’s America’s only all-water cavern and it’s like 15 minutes away.
27.) Go to Indigo on a Wednesday to see Go-Go Gadget and dance your face off.
28.) Visit the Nittany Mall. Actually, on second thought, don’t waste your time.
29.) Get a job. Easier said than done, I know. But it’s time to make moves in the real world, I wish you all the best of luck.
30.) Realize how truly blessed you are to have attended the best school in the country. We still are and will always be.
It’s been an incredible four years. I can’t even begin to describe what the Penn State experience has meant to me. Looking back, I can truly say that I wouldn’t change a thing. But our time isn’t over just yet. Enjoy your last month and soak it up – soon this will all be gone forever. Do as much as you can before you have to say, “Oh shit, I’m not in college anymore.” What are some of the things you would say you’re definitely doing in these last 30 days?
Tyler Hoy (@Tyler_Hoy) is a senior majoring in Public Relations and currently looking for employment (hire him?). He enjoys writing snarky blog posts and long walks on the beach. He can be reached at [email protected]
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About the AuthorMELBOURNE: Archaeologists have discovered remains of 66 humans dating back to 3000 years in a cave in Sumatra island of Indonesia.
The team which excavated the Harimau or Tiger Cave also found the first example of rock art in Sumatra besides the discovery of 66 human burials.
"Sixty-six is very strange," said Truman Simanjuntak from Jakarta-based National Research and Development Center for Archaeology, adding that he and his colleagues have never found such a big quantity of burials.
"It means that this cave was occupied intensely by humans and they continued to occupy it for a very, very long time," he said.
The findings shed new light on the complex cultural behaviour of Indonesia's first farming communities, who lived in the limestone caves of Harimau and used them as a burial place and a 'workshop' for tool-making activities.
With much of the cave still to be excavated, researchers are excited about the secrets they might hold.
"There are still occupation traces deeper and deeper in the cave, where we have not excavated yet. So it means the cave is very promising," Simanjuntak said.
Simanjuntak visited University of Wollongong, Australia earlier this month to address researchers at the Centre for Archaeological Science (CAS).
CAS researchers will likely date the findings from the cave.Still for more than 20 months, the turbine on Pond Street in Hanover is on its way to being repaired. Contractors hope to finish repairs by October.
The blades on Hanover’s 165-foot wind turbine are once again spinning.
While the turbine is now operational, the town’s newly hired contractor said several mechanical problems still plague the $790,000 turbine.
Originally slated for completion in February 2012, the machine laid dormant for nearly two years afterward, as issues with its tip-braking system, hydraulic temperature and twisting power cables prevented the turbine from spinning to harness wind energy.
“Right now it is operating as it was designed,” said Timothy Stearns of Aeronautica Windpower. “There are no issues with it and the twist issue is not a function of the design. It’s a function of improper installation.”
The turbine began turning again on July 17 when the town’s new contractor, Plymouth-based Aeronautica Windpower, repaired the issues with its tip braking system. The tip brakes prevent the tri-blade system from spinning out of control in heavy winds.
The turbine shutdown temporarily from July 22 through July 28 so Aeronautica could replace brake pins on the turbines other two blades. Aeronautica engineers found that some of the turbine was improperly assembled and decided to replace all three tip brake pins as a precaution to prevent future problems.
The last problem affecting the turbine’s function is twisting power cables, according Stearns.
“When the turbine chases the wind, the cables are becoming twisted,” he said.
Aeronautica deployed a safety mechanism that restricts the number of times the turbine can rotate in order to prevent further damage. The company is visiting the turbine weekly to physically untwist the power cables. Aeronautica is working with the turbine manufacturer, a German company called Siba, to address the issue.
Siba promised a two-year warranty on the turbine once all repairs are complete. The manufacturer will inspect the turbine sometime in late-September or early-October prior to issuing the warranty, Stearns said.
The town hired Aeronautica to consult on how to mitigate the mechanical repairs and two months ago, the firm replaced the original contractor, Lumos, to complete the project. The surety agency, Hanover Insurance, has covered all costs associated with the repairs over the amount of the original bond.
Aeronautica has experience both in manufacturing turbines and in assembling them. Stearns said he is confident the turbine will generate $50,000 to $60,000 worth of electricity annually, once all repairs are complete.
“We are not seeing problems with this particular model, no,” Stearns said. “We have found discrepancies between the installation manual and what was done. We are correcting those issues.”
At Town Meeting in 2008, taxpayers approved an initial $500,000 bond to erect a turbine that would offset the electricity costs at the town’s Pond Street water treatment plant. An additional $500,000 was allocated at the 2009 Town Meeting after the size of the turbine was increased.
The original contract between the town and Lumus Construction allows for liquid damages in the amount of $1,000 per day past the contracted completion date that the turbine remains inoperable. Town Manager Troy Clarkson said per that contract, the town is owed more than $1 million, but added that it is difficult to collect on liquid damages.
“We are still troubleshooting with Aeronautica, the firm hired by mutual consent of the town and Hanover Insurance,” Clarkson said. “Once the turbine is running consistently, we will sit down and negotiate a financial settlement.”
Follow editor Erin Tiernan on Twitter @ErinTiernan.England international agrees one-year contract
Reading Football Club are delighted to announce that highly sought after left-back Wayne Bridge is to sign for the Royals.
The vastly experienced former Southampton, Chelsea and Manchester City defender has agreed on a one-year contract at Madejski Stadium and becomes Nigel Adkins’ first signing as Royals boss.
“I’m delighted to be signing for Reading and excited to be joining a team that is going to be looking for promotion next season,” Bridge said.
“I spoke to the manager and he told me about the direction he wants the team to go in. Everything we talked about was positive - and he was really positive about signing me which means a lot.
“And, from the outside, Reading look like a team who are capable of getting back into the Premier League, a team that works hard for each other. That is something I want to be a part of and I’m really looking forward to next season.”
Bridge joins the club with more than 300 Premier League appearances and 36 England caps to his name. During six successful years at Chelsea, he won all three domestic trophies whilst, on the international scene, he featured in two World Cup squads and went to one European Championships tournament with Sven-Göran Eriksson’s England.
The 32-year-old full back spent last season on loan from Manchester City, making 42 starts for Gus Poyet’s Brighton - achieving a play-off place with the Seagulls as well as the left-back position in the Football League Championship Team of the Year 2012/13.
Director of Football Nick Hammond said, “I’m delighted to have secured this agreement so early in the summer window. Both Wayne and his representatives have been very straightforward and professional to deal with and the player will add great experience and quality to our squad.”
Wayne is due to meet up with his new Royals teammates for the first time when the squad return for pre-season training at the end of this month.Why?
I’m going on vacation to Austin in a couple weeks so, as is customary, I’ve built a spreadsheet of the first 950 Yelp one-dollar sign ($) search results. I then filtered and sorted based on my experience to generate the 49 cheap eats restaurants in Austin that I want to try. This list is not meant to be exhaustive or definitive. It is almost certainly a good place to start in discovering the best of Austin’ top cheap eats.
The Top 49 List
Yelp Rank Name # of Reviews Type of Food Yelp Rating Yelp Link 1 Abo Youssef 218 Mediterranean 5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/abo-youssef-austin 2 Ceviche7 153 Peruvian 5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/ceviche7-austin 3 Sweet-n-Cheezy 118 Food Trucks 5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/sweet-n-cheezy-round-rock-2 4 Bistro Vonish 93 Food Trucks 5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/bistro-vonish-austin 5 Tacos Guerrero 93 Mexican 5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/tacos-guerrero-austin 6 The Pita Shop 78 Mediterranean 5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-pita-shop-san-marcos 7 Torchys Tacos 1449 Tex-Mex 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/torchys-tacos-austin 8 Koriente 1171 Asian Fusion 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/koriente-austin 9 Little Deli & Pizzeria 924 Delis 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/little-deli-and-pizzeria-austin 10 Tacodeli 822 Mexican 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/tacodeli-austin-3 11 Hey!… You Gonna Eat or What? 635 Southern 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/hey-you-gonna-eat-or-what-austin 12 Cabo Bobs Burritos 600 Mexican 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/cabo-bobs-burritos-austin 13 Valentinas Tex Mex BBQ 592 Food Trucks 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/valentinas-tex-mex-bbq-austin 14 Tacodeli 563 Mexican 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/tacodeli-austin-4 15 Tan My Restaurant 485 Vietnamese 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/tan-my-restaurant-austin-2 16 Fricanos Deli 476 Delis 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/fricanos-deli-austin-15 17 Veracruz All Natural 441 Food Trucks 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/veracruz-all-natural-austin-6 18 Slab BBQ & Beer 429 American (Traditional) 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/slab-bbq-and-beer-austin 19 Inka Chicken 391 Peruvian 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/inka-chicken-austin 20 More Home Slice Pizza 389 Pizza 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/more-home-slice-pizza-austin-3 21 Pho Please 363 Vietnamese 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/pho-please-austin-3 22 Thanh Nhi 321 Vietnamese 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/thanh-nhi-austin 23 Capital City Bakery 321 Bakeries 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/capital-city-bakery-austin 24 Troy 316 Turkish 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/troy-austin 25 Kebabalicious 307 Turkish 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/kebabalicious-austin-4 26 Pueblo Viejo 307 Mexican 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/pueblo-viejo-austin 27 Noble Sandwich 304 Sandwiches 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/noble-sandwich-austin-3 28 The Big Kahuna 290 Food Trucks 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-big-kahuna-austin-3 29 Pita Fusion 287 Sandwiches 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/pita-fusion-round-rock 30 Taco Joint 284 Mexican 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/taco-joint-austin-2 31 Tea Haus 283 Desserts 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/tea-haus-austin 32 T-Locs Sonora Hot Dogs 279 Hot Dogs 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/t-locs-sonora-hot-dogs-austin-4 33 The Halal Corner 272 Halal 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-halal-corner-austin 34 The Best Wurst 267 Food Stands 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-best-wurst-austin 35 Bombay Express 263 Indian 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/bombay-express-austin 36 Peace Bakery and Deli 261 Mediterranean 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/peace-bakery-and-deli-austin-3 37 Taco More 253 Tacos 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/taco-more-austin-2 38 Hoodys Sub Shop 252 Sandwiches 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/hoodys-sub-shop-round-rock 39 Way South Philly 252 Cheesesteaks 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/way-south-philly-austin 40 Paperboy 234 Food Trucks 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/paperboy-austin 41 Browns Bar-B-Que 233 Barbeque 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/browns-bar-b-que-austin 42 Mi Tradicion 230 Bakeries 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/mi-tradicion-austin 43 Crepe Crazy 226 Creperies 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/crepe-crazy-austin-2 44 Cow Bells 222 Burgers 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/cow-bells-austin-3 45 The Flying Carpet 218 Moroccan 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-flying-carpet-austin 46 Cabo Bobs Burritos 207 Mexican 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/cabo-bobs-burritos-austin-2 47 Sa-Ten 206 Japanese 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/sa-ten-austin-7 48 Bombay Dhaba 197 Food Trucks 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/bombay-dhaba-austin 49 Lebowskis Grill 194 Burgers 4.5 https://www.yelp.com/biz/lebowskis-grill-austin
MapCass Midgley and Dr. Bob Pondillo interview an ex-Christian, and now police officer, Mark Stephens. Mark’s story has a lot to do with him noticing that much of his Christian way of thinking—the “logic” whereby Christians made choices, for spouse, for President, for where to live, what college to go to, just life choices in general, were flawed. When he ventured outside reliance on scripture or prayer for making decisions and trusted his own skills of deduction and reason, he found that he made wiser choices and reaped better outcomes.
We taped these conversations on October 1st, 2016. We hope to encourage people in the process of deconstructing their faith and help curb the loneliness that accompanies it. We think the world is a better place when more people live by sight, not by faith. Please subscribe to our podcast, give it 5 stars, and/or leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. Our show is available on most podcast platforms. Also, you can support us monetarily in two easy ways: you can pledge one dollar per episode through Patreon; that’s www.patreon.com/eapodcast, or leave a lump-sum donation through PayPal at our website, www.everyonesagnostic.com. The smallest contribution is greatly appreciated. Our Indigogo fundraiser is here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ea-podcast-equipment-upgrade#/
Credits:
"Towering Mountain of Ignorance" intro by Hank Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3v3S82TuxU
Intro bumper "Never Know" by Jack Johnson
The segue music is by Sam Maher recorded on a handpan in the NY city subway.
Thanks for listening and be a yes-sayer to what is.
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/
DarkMatter2525 video about why Christians take our Atheism personally
The insert I put in the middle of the interview:
I’m stopping the tape here to enter a footnote regarding this issue of the Christian notion of the Fall or what Mark is calling here Sin. I didn’t fully understand the gravitas of Bob’s question in real time, but after listening back to it, I realized that there is something here to elucidate. We’re talking about the problem of evil and how the fact that an alleged good, all-powerful god doesn’t heal amputees or intervene in any measure of suffering is a big problem. It’s important to understand how Christians get around this and maintain their allegiance to and a loving image of a good god, despite this evidence. To most Christians, God created everything perfect. And there are actually several Falls that ruined God’s perfect world—the two main one’s being the Fall of Satan from Heaven as he questioned God’s authority and wanted be like God, and second, the Fall of Adam of Eve, which was prompted by Satan as the serpent to do the same—question God and desire to be like God. Now being like God, in this context, would mean being knowlegable—knowing stuff—the knowledge of good and evil for example, but also being free. The rebellion to want to eat from any tree I want to. The desire to think for one’s self, etc. It’s important that we understand that to the Christian, God is the only source of goodness. In the Biblical narrative, humans have always messed things up and God is constantly disappointed and frustrated with our ineptitude. This is pounded into us over and over. Eden was only the first time we fucked things up. The flood was God giving his creation a do-over because our disobedience and rebellion led to debauchery and ruin. The same with Sodom and Gomorrah, the same with the Tower of Babel. This is what is drilled into the Christian mind—humans always ruin things when they ignore God. These narratives keep God’s reputation squeaky clean and human’s reputation hopeless. This is why they are so quick to assume malice when we misbehave, this is why’s it’s easy for them to demonize humans, and have ZERO reservoir of hope for humanity. They already walk around with a presupposition that humans are evil, hopeless, and incapable of turning things around. “Only God can save us” is there goto answer for everything. In fact, when they hear some of us saying that we trust our own ability to think and reason our way out of problems and don’t need God to fix this, THEY HEAR SATAN. They hear the voice of the Serpent. They hear Adam and Eve. They hear the stomping footsteps of a wrathful God approaching. Atheists, naturalists, secularists, scientists scare them and anger them just like their blind ignorance and allegiance to their non-existent savior angers us. We both think the other’s ideology leads to more suffering. Eden represents the perfection of God’s world before humans got prideful and disobedient and rebellious. To the Christian, restoring the Kingdom of God, represented here by pre-Fall Eden, is their main agenda. Why, because they hate suffering too. They want to end racism, poverty, famine, and war. They too want social justice, equality, civil liberties, but many of them only see it possible by way of humbling ourselves before God and crowning him King of the World. But I think it’s helpful to keep in mind that we both want the same things (at least for the earth). Now the after-life is really another layer of this altogether, but I think all humans, especially as were born into this world as children, pre-tainted by fears and prejudice, want the same good things—food, water, and shelter for everyone, peaceful relations, joy and laughter, fun and freedom, etc. We just see two very different means to those ends. They believe that the invisible third-party Maker of everything is the only hope of that coming to fruition. In fact, God will thwart the efforts of humans who have not called on His help first. This is what would lead Newt Gingerich or Mike Huckabee to say things like whoever’s president should be first and foremost a man of prayer. Christians want the good life too, but they frame it as wanting to get back to Eden. They want the kingdom of God to come on earth as it is in heaven which will only happen when every nation, tribe and tongue bows the knee to Jesus. This is why they do missions around the world. And they’ve added a loophole just in case that’s impossible here on earth (and they fear it is), and that is that God will create a new heaven and earth populated only by Christians and that’s when they’ll get their Eden back. And then God will have his way. Because finally, He’s got a bunch of obedient people around him. They see me and my atheism as rebellion and disobedience to the God who wants to bring it about. I see their fictional narrative as a brainwashing that impedes us solving these problems ourselves. And here we find ourselves.Posted 23 December 2012 - 11:46 AM
Well it's been quite the year and it's hard to believe that just over a year ago there wasn't a line of code or single process in place for MechWarrior Online. We've come a long way but as we've also stated we know we still have a lot further to go.So let me take a moment to address some of the most commonly noted technical issues.Well not exactly 4 fps
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ian War of the fifth century B.C., Athens and Sparta, the two dominant powers in ancient Greece, came to blows. The war was not unforeseen, as tension had been rising between the two powers for years, but the timing and the rapidity of its outbreak was. After all, Sparta and Athens were technically at peace with each other, having signed a 30-year peace treaty, agreed to settle disputes through arbitration, and having generally avoided escalation throughout multiple crises over the proceeding 15 years. But, in response to a seemingly trivial dispute involving their allies and the imposition of economic sanctions against the city of Megara, the Greeks voted for war.
The resulting conflict inexorably expanded into something like a world war, as most of the known world was drawn into the vortex of a struggle that lasted nearly three decades. The conflict was so costly in lives and treasure that it devastated winner and loser alike, precipitating massive social and political ruptures and leaving the Greek city-states divided and vulnerable to external conquest. Few observers had initially expected that a quarrel over client states would bring about the end of Greece’s golden age and the eventual eclipse of the Greeks as powerful and independent actors on the world stage, but this was precisely what happened.
More recent centuries give little reason to think that the nature of international relations has fundamentally changed. Europe, which stood at the center of the international system for nearly 400 years, suffered repeated descents into cataclysm, from the Thirty Years’ War of the 17th century to the French revolutionary wars in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to the two world wars of the 20th century. Each of these conflagrations was preceded by intensifying challenges to, and then surprisingly rapid breakdowns within, the prevailing international order. And, in each case, the ensuing destruction and violence were appalling.
The Thirty Years’ War, which began as a conflict between Catholic and Protestant states within the Holy Roman Empire, eventually expanded to encompass all of Europe. In the German states alone, it resulted in demographic disaster — a population decline of roughly 25 percent by even the most conservative estimates, equivalent to 80 million American deaths today. The French revolutionary wars lasted for over two decades, revolutionized European politics, and unleashed warfare on a scale and intensity previously unknown. Sobered by these upheavals, the major powers constructed a fairly stable peace thereafter, marred “only” by localized great-power conflicts such as the Crimean War and the wars of German reunification. But this comparative tranquility utterly collapsed in the 20th century with the outbreak of World War I in 1914 — another global explosion triggered by a seemingly minor spark — and then, after a mere 21 years’ respite, the unleashing of World War II. These conflicts fundamentally transformed the modern world: They devoured tens of millions of lives, empowered some of the most brutal political and ideological forces in human history, and ultimately brought Europe’s time atop the global system to an end.
Even a casual survey of modern history thus suggests that breakdowns of international order litter the historical landscape. These breakdowns occurred for multiple and varying reasons: sometimes having to do with relative shifts in the balance of power, sometimes having to do with clashing ideologies, sometimes having to do with simple blunders and other idiosyncrasies of statecraft. But the results were all too often similar — and catastrophic. In an anarchical world characterized by sharp competition between states, tragedy is often simply a fact of international life.
Tragedy as inspiration
In fact, these breakdowns were so traumatic that modern international orders — systems of rules, norms, and power relationships that govern international affairs — have generally taken shape in the wake of such tragedies and been designed to prevent their recurrence. International orders rest on more than historical memory, of course. They are also dependent on favorable configurations of power in the global arena and often on some degree of ideological consensus among the system’s leading actors. But it has often been the recollection of tragedies experienced — and the hope that future tragedies might be averted — that has motivated key states and leaders to summon their creativity and power in the service of order.
Consider the order-building project that established the modern international system. Exhausted by the violence of the Thirty Years’ War, the rulers of Europe signed the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 to control the forces that had stoked that violence. Westphalia was a diplomatic revolution. It created a political order that precluded interference in other states’ domestic affairs, enshrined secular and not religious authority as the basis for state sovereignty, and attempted to prevent aggression and war through the maintenance of a balance of power between those states. And it rested on a recognition, shared among key participants, that the continental cataclysm that had befallen Europe in the three decades prior to Westphalia simply could not be permitted to happen again.
Similarly, the British-led Congress system after 1815 was designed to prevent Europe from imploding as it had during the French revolutionary wars and succeeded in that task for nearly a century. It did so by drawing the five major powers of Europe into a system in which they had at least minimal incentive to uphold a stable peace. This system was anchored by British and Russian power and by the conservative political values that prevailed in most European capitals after 1815. It, too, was a profound innovation in the history of modern international relations — one that featured regular consultation to contain local conflicts and diplomatic antagonisms and one that required each member to forgo some degree of unilateral advantage as the price of relative peace. But like Westphalia, it was an innovation that looked backward as much as forward, for it was designed to stifle the sources of the conflicts that had plagued Europe after 1789 — and what ultimately held it together for so long was the hard-earned recognition that the likely alternative to such a system was a resumption of bitter upheaval.
One need not even look so far back into history to understand that tragedy has often served as inspiration for such painstaking efforts to reconstruct international order and preserve the peace. This was precisely what motivated the generation of Americans who lived through World War II and shaped America’s response to the postwar world. American leaders and elites — the “wise men,” as they were known for decades; “the blob,” as they would be called less generously today — consciously rejected the isolationist attitudes that had prevailed in the 1930s. They committed to making the extraordinary exertions necessary to stabilize the postwar world and prevent World War II from coming to be seen as mere prologue to an even more destructive global conflict.
They did so by embracing American leadership, embedding the United States within a global network of security alliances, participating in multilateral institutions, and promoting broadly beneficial concepts like free trade, democracy and human rights, and respect for the rule of law. They committed to confronting aggressors early, before they could destabilize key regions or pose an existential threat to international peace and security. They accepted that there would be no “return to normalcy,” that the United States — as the world’s strongest nation and the only one capable of bearing this burden — would have primary responsibility for upholding a congenial world order. And they based these efforts on a set of basic intellectual principles that guided U.S. policy for generations: that it was cheaper to maintain international order than to restore it once it had been destroyed; that it was better to make modest sacrifices now rather than enormous sacrifices later; that global norms and stability were not self-sustaining but rather required continual support and maintenance by those countries that sought to perpetuate and advance them.
In the late 1940s as in the years after 1815, the U.S.-led world order was informed as much by haunting lessons from the past as by inspiring visions of the future and particularly by the multiple failures of the isolationist strategy of the 1930s. After the searing experience of World War II, American leaders concluded that failure to stand up for friendly nations in the face of external aggression, failure to speak up on behalf of democratic values under assault, failure to prevent a trade war born of or sparked by protectionism, and failure to support international organizations by withdrawing American support produced a world with a leadership vacuum and an invitation to chaos. These failures, in turn, directly informed the great successes of postwar American foreign policy: the creation of a positive-sum global economic order anchored by the Bretton Woods institutions, the erection of a containment policy that for decades checked the aggressive impulses of the Soviet Union, the building of an international alliance system that maintained stability and tamped down conflict in key regions, and many others. What we now think of as the brilliantly successful postwar international order was a response to the repeated tragedies that had preceded it — and the menace of an expansionist, illiberal Soviet Union reminded Americans that tragedy could all too easily recur if the United States pursued a different path.
Indeed, America’s leaders were acutely aware of how precarious and easily disrupted international peace traditionally had been, and this knowledge steeled them in the face of the challenges of the postwar era. In January 1950, for instance, the Harry Truman administration declared that the Korean Peninsula lay outside the American defensive perimeter, based on the judgment that it was not, by itself, critical to the global balance of power. But when Kim Il Sung marched his forces southward five months later, Truman quickly made the difficult decision to resist. He based that decision, he later wrote, on his earlier experiences living through the dark years preceding World War II:
In my generation, this was not the first occasion when the strong had attacked the weak. I recalled some earlier instances: Manchuria, Ethiopia, Austria. I remembered how each time that the democracies failed to act it had encouraged the aggressors to keep going ahead.… I felt certain that if South Korea was allowed to fall, Communist leaders would be emboldened to override nations closer to our own shores.… If this was allowed to go unchallenged it would mean a third world war, just as similar incidents had brought on the second world war.
International order had to be reinforced when challenged, Truman understood; the use of military force now could prevent the necessity of fighting an even larger conflict later. To the generation of statesmen who had seen just how rapidly and completely the international system could erode, the lesson was clear: Eternal vigilance was the price of an enduring peace.
This approach led to tragedies and excesses of its own, of course, with a costly and divisive U.S. intervention in Vietnam being the most notable example. There is such a thing as being too vigilant, and the United States occasionally learned this lesson the hard way. But on the whole, it is hard to argue with the approach that U.S. policymakers took in the postwar era. The Cold War is now generally seen as a “long peace,” the postwar era as a veritable golden age in which human prosperity increased by leaps and bounds and the democracies — not the brutal authoritarian regimes that threatened them — came to dominate the global arena. All of these accomplishments rested on the unique and unprecedented ways in which the United States deployed its unmatched power in the decades after World War II. And those efforts, in turn, were inspired by tragedy.
The contemporary amnesia
This postwar order has been so successful, in fact, that Americans now seem to be losing the tragic sensibility that brought it about in the first place. It has been — thankfully — almost three-quarters of a century since the United States last confronted the sort of catastrophic insecurity associated with a crackup of the international system. And it has been 25 years since the end of the Cold War, leading many observers to conclude that geopolitical competition itself is a thing of the past. The effect has been a natural slackening of the efforts required to maintain the stability and security to which Americans have become accustomed. In 1961, John F. Kennedy could confidently assert that Americans were willing to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe” in support of a favorable concept of world order. That willingness now seems, increasingly, to be in doubt.
Consider the state of the U.S. defense budget. A robust, well-funded peacetime defense has been the cornerstone of America’s order-building efforts since World War II; outright military primacy has been the foundation of the international system since the end of the Cold War. But today, America’s dominance is slipping, and its willingness to stem that decline is uncertain. Russia and China are pouring money into their own military capabilities in hopes of negating U.S. power in Eastern Europe and East Asia and projecting their own influence farther afield. The U.S. military budget, meanwhile, declined in real terms from $768 billion in 2010 to $595 billion in 2015; on its current trajectory, defense spending will soon represent a smaller share of GDP than at any time since the outbreak of World War II. Steps to bolster the American military deterrent in any meaningful way — as opposed to the smoke-and-mirrors “buildup” proposed by President Donald Trump — are politically infeasible, with entitlement spending still a sacred cow and tax increases apparently unfathomable.
Americans and their elected representatives seem to have forgotten, in other words, that there are worse things than having to reform Social Security or pay another 3 to 5 percent of one’s earnings in income taxes and that American military dominance has traditionally been what prevents those worse things from happening.
Or consider the broader state of American public opinion on foreign affairs. The last several years have seen a remarkable resurgence of sentiment to the effect that it is time for the United States to tend its own garden, rather than tending the world’s. In 2013, 52 percent of Americans agreed that the United States should “mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.” Three years later, the number agreeing with a similar statement had risen to 57 percent. This is some of the most pronounced anti-internationalism that we have seen since the years immediately following the Vietnam War, and it reflects a growing sense that Americans are no longer so eager to bear the burdens traditionally associated with global leadership.
And it is hard to blame them. Their leaders, in recent years, have too frequently stoked that very sentiment. Barack Obama repeatedly argued that it was time to forsake nation building abroad in favor of nation building at home, and he claimed that the arc of the universe bent inevitably toward justice — thereby implying that America didn’t need to do much bending of its own. Senior Obama administration officials dismissed Russia’s dismemberment of Ukraine as “distinctly 19th- and 20th-century decisions” instead of acknowledging such actions as typical of the renewed great-power revisionism that increasingly threatens to define the 21st century. More recently, Donald Trump has repeatedly characterized America’s alliances and other commitments as sucker bets that allow other countries to make a killing at Washington’s expense; he has revived the language, and even proposed reviving some of the policies, associated with the “America First” program of the 1930s.
There is, particularly in Trump’s worldview, no tragic sensibility to be found here — no recognition that the international system, and the United States itself, has avoided tragedy and made so much progress over the past seven decades only because America has labored so diligently to make it so. And there is no recognition that attacks on free trade, admiration for autocratic leaders, and questioning of U.S. alliances threaten to undo these very accomplishments.
Indeed, if Americans have grown tired of bearing the burdens of international leadership, it is probably because they have simply forgotten why that leadership is worth bearing in the first place. Why do we have troops and military hardware stationed around the globe? Why do we have an extensive system of alliances the world over? Why do we worry so much about what happens in faraway places like Ukraine or the South China Sea? Why do we pursue free trade even when it sometimes comes at a near-term cost to certain industries and workers in the United States? There are, of course, good historical answers to all of these questions, and they all come back to the very nasty things that tended to happen to the international system before the United States took up its ambitious, globe-girdling role. But now most of the country has forgotten that history, in part because of the simple passage of time but more precisely because the successes of American leadership have made it possible to forget. America’s tragic sensibility has faded and has increasingly been replaced by a worldview that is equal parts naive, dangerous, and ahistorical.
The darkening horizon
The irony is that this amnesia is afflicting us precisely as the international environment is once again becoming more threatening. In East Asia and Eastern Europe, revisionist authoritarian powers are coercing their neighbors and nibbling away at the international order. Chinese leaders are laying plans for a Sino-centric Asia, and Russian leaders are talking about the transition to a “post-West” world: It is hard to see how either transition can be accomplished without coercion and violence. In the Middle East, Iran is asserting its regional ambitious, Bashar al-Assad is perpetrating a slow-motion genocide, and the Islamic State and other jihadi groups continue to wreak havoc even as their military fortunes decline. North Korea is racing ahead with its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of the international community, posing an ever greater threat not simply to its neighbors but to the United States as well. And across these various regions and issues, the rules that seemed to have gained such global dominance in the wake of the Cold War are increasingly being challenged and transgressed. Nonaggression and the peaceful resolution of disputes, the ability of countries to choose their economic and geopolitical alignments free from intimidation or coercion, freedom of navigation in the world’s key waterways — all of these norms are being tested more severely today than at any time in decades.
The threats today are diverse, but they do share a common theme. They represent the warning lights flashing on the dashboard; they are indications that an international system that has long been so historically exceptional in its effectiveness and stability is now fraying at the edges. The revival of great-power competition is particularly concerning: Geopolitical revisionism on the part of unsatisfied major powers is traditionally the sort of thing that has preceded large-scale war with all of its horrors. Hard as it may be for us to imagine, it is by no means inconceivable that we will one day look back on the challenges and disruptions the international system is now experiencing as auguries of the greater tragedy that would follow.
But if tragedy is commonplace, it is not inevitable. And this dark scenario need not materialize, for the United States and its myriad allies do not lack the strength to prevent it from materializing. Yes, the international power balance is undoubtedly shifting; it is no longer as favorable as it was in 1945 or 1991, and some corresponding degree of change is therefore unavoidable in global politics. But the United States is no fallen hegemon just yet; it still commands unmatched economic and military capabilities, and Washington and its allies still control a preponderance of global military and economic power. The existing international order is under challenge, then, but it can still be effectively defended; the alliances, institutions, and arrangements that have underpinned it may yet remain resilient if the countries that have so vigorously supported them in the past make up their minds to do so again.
The key questions, then, are not simply questions of power — they are also questions of willpower. Will the countries that have historically defended the international order summon the nerve, unity, and resources to defend it again today? Will they realize that it is not historical inevitability, or some triumph of “the better angels of our nature,” but rather incessant and determined effort that holds disasters such as great-power war and catastrophic instability at bay? Will they remember precisely how bad things can get, and how quickly they can get that way, when international orders fall apart? The United States and its allies once found, in tragedy, the determination necessary to create something beautiful. Will they now recover an equivalent determination to keep that good thing going?
In writing about the successes and ultimate failure of the Congress system in the 19th century, Henry Kissinger observed that “in the long interval of peace the sense of the tragic was lost; it was forgotten that states could die, that upheavals could be irretrievable.” Today, Americans are likely to end up rediscovering their sense of the tragic one way or another — either by reacquainting themselves with the tragic sensibility that they seem to have lost or by experiencing the real-world tragedy that their amnesia, if not corrected, may help bring about.
Photo credit: MARK WILSON/Getty ImagesFollowing months of hopes, dreams, and speculation, we’re learning today once and for all that The Office series finale will indeed include a return by Steve Carrell.
TV Line confirms with sources that Carrell will be making “a cameo [more] than a full-fledged guest appearance” on The Office season 9 finale which bows on May 16.
Over the weekend, Carrell made a surprise appearance at The Office series wrap party held in Scranton, Pennsylvania. A photo from his appearance can be seen below:
“To be completely sincere, I miss the people. They’re really good friends. And the booze,” Carrell said at the farewell event held over the weekend.
“I miss them everyday,” he added, “and I know America’s going to miss them in two weeks.”
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The Office fans had figured for some time that Carrell would be making an appearance of some sort given his importance to the first several seasons of the show.
Reports in recent weeks indicated that NBC had made an 11th hour attempt to get Carrell one final time. His rep went on to confirm that he was on the set for the show’s final shoot, but denied any involvement in the filming itself.
We’ll be sure to share a clip from Carrell’s The Office series finale cameo after the episode airs. We imagine NBC will remain mum to try and keep the surprise for as many people as possible.
Thanks, TV Line.
While we wait: How do you think Michael Scott will appear in The Office series finale?17 year-old Zeynep K. was rescued in Cizre on her wedding night as she was about to be forcefully wed, this was following her imprisonment in her home for six months after she had initially refused, at which time she was subjected to physical violence from her brother.
The circumstances of 17 year-old Zeynep K. who was being forced into marriage by her family were brought to the attention of the YDG-K, the Patriotic Democratic Women’s Youth.
The Women’s Youth intervened on the wedding night by arriving at the house where the wedding party was taking place and rescuing Zeynep.
The women held talks with the family and the wedding was cancelled. Zeynep was reported to be happy at the prospect of starting a new life. Stating that she did not wish to be married off whilst still a child Zeynep said, ‘I want my future to go in a different direction’.
‘They were there beside me. This is a great source of strength’
Zeynep spoke of her experiences, saying, ‘I went to the self defence force and explained my situation to them. Then I went home and began waiting. They arrived on the wedding night and asked me in front of my family, ‘Do you want to get married?’. I said, ‘no’ and from there the wedding was cancelled. After speaking to my family they said, ‘we’re leaving’ and I left the neighbourhood in their company. They saved my life. At this young age I did not want to become part of that world. I want to be free and to be myself. Thanks to the People’s Assembly and the women of the YDG-K I have been saved from forced marriage whilst still a child. From now on I would like to decide for myself in which direction my life will go. They said to me, ‘take any path you like, we are behind you’. For me this is a great source of strength.’
Zeynep went on to talk about how many of her friends had been married whilst still children and how many women she knew had suffered violence. She said that since they were able to appeal to the self-defence force they had been easily able to break free of such problems. The self-defence force always see things from the woman’s perspective and they are a force to support women everywhere, we are also hearing that they’ve drastically changed the lives of a large number of women.
‘Zeynep was imprisoned in her home for six months for standing up to her family’
Delilal, a member of the YDG-K self-defence force said that Zeynep had tried to escape her fate for the previous six months but that her family had ignored’ her. Delila said, ‘For months Zeynep has been crying out that she does not want to get married, but no-one listened to her. After she came and explained the situation to us we immediately took action. It was as if she was wearing a shroud, not a wedding dress on her wedding night. She had also been suffering physical violence. Even though she was undergoing such things she still didn’t want to speak out because she was thinking of her family. When we spoke with her the main thing she was saying was, ‘I don’t want to get married’. Then we found out that she had been locked up in her house for six months and been subjected to physical violence by her brother. We went and spoke with her family and then took our sister to the People’s Assembly.’
‘Families must stop trying to determine in the lives of their children’
Finally Delila appealed to all families, saying, ‘You cannot force a woman to marry against her will, and you certainly cannot consider marrying off your young daughters either. It is our duty to intervene in such situations and to take their side. We will do whatever is necessary, together, to achieve this,’ she said.
The state and men in general are governing women by way of dirty politics
We spoke to the Cizre People’s Assembly Co-chairperson Asya Yüksel in relation to the matter. She said, ‘The self-governing authority get involved in solving a whole host of community problems and are not just involved in self-defence’. Asya went on to point out that especially in male-dominated communities the problems suffered by women were brought to the attention of the Assembly by the self-defence group and that their taking a stance in support of women had led to improvements in solving their issues. Asya stated that among the cases put before the Assembly were cases of child marriage, polygamy and violence against women, going on to say, ‘Both the state and men in general are using dirty politics against women’.
Solutions that protect the woman and not the family
‘The problems of many women come before the Assembly. The criteria under which we operate is not to protect or defend the family but to arrive at solutions that protect the woman’, said Asya, mentioning also that families were causing great harm by marrying off their progeny whilst they were still just children, ‘The family will say, ‘he’s fine, he’s my friend, this family are friends of mine and they’ll marry off their children like this and later the problem lands with us.’
With 70-80 such cases being lodged on average on a monthly basis Asya announced that a website was being set up to help those making the applications. Finally Asya stated, ‘The YDG-K and YDG-H have been reported to be organisations undertaking dirty work but this is nothing but the propaganda of the state. Along with these organisations we are finding solutions to community problems and as well as self-defence we are helping to shape the lives of our communities.’
Source: JinhaBrian Kersey/Getty Images
There's nothing like a good contract narrative, and here's a toast to how Jon Lester's is suddenly a heck of a lot more interesting now than it was before.
There just wasn't that much drama there for a while. The word in January was that Lester was willing to take a hometown discount to stay with the Boston Red Sox rather than aim for free agency at season's end. Toward the end of spring training, Peter Abraham of The Boston Globe reported that the two sides were indeed close to a deal. Yawn.
Next thing you knew, boom. Drama.
Ken Rosenthal of FoxSports.com reported last week that Lester had rejected Boston's latest proposal, a low-ball offer of four years and between $70-80 million, and that he had cut off negotiations for the rest of the year. Like that, what was boring had become intriguing, for Lester leaving the Red Sox had gone from a mere possibility to something more like a probability.
And after Lester's latest start, it's maybe never been more apparent how much the Red Sox would be losing if they do indeed cut ties with their ace lefty.
Lester turned in yet another excellent outing on Thursday night at U.S. Cellular Field in Boston's 3-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox. He took a perfect game into the sixth before ultimately walking off the mound having allowed one run on seven hits in eight innings. He struck out nine and walked none.
So tell us, David Ross. Just how good was Lester on Thursday night?
Via Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald:
A weird compliment as far as compliments go. But since it's a compliment all the same, let's be content to nod our heads at it and get on with the good stuff.
And there's plenty of that to talk about regarding Lester's hot start to 2014, as he currently finds himself among the cream of the crop among qualified American League starters.
Via FanGraphs:
Jon Lester Through Four Starts Split IP K/BB ERA FIP xFIP WAR Lester 29.0 7.25 2.17 2.36 2.71 0.9 AL Rank 1 7 20 10 7 3 FanGraphs
Most of this should be familiar, but I can explain FIP and xFIP if you're hazy on what they are.
That's Fielding Independent Pitching and Expected Fielding Independent Pitching, and their job is to estimate what a pitcher's ERA should be by focusing only on the four things within his control: walks, strikeouts, hit-by-pitches and home runs. The difference between the two is that xFIP replaces a pitcher's home run total with an estimate for how many home runs should be on his record.
What these two stats tell us is that Lester's 2.17 ERA in the early goings isn't too fluky, and his ranks in both categories tell you the same can't be said about other top ERA merchants in the American League thus far. So far, Lester's been truly elite.
Which really isn't the biggest surprise, because Lester's been doing the whole elite pitcher thing for more than just four starts. He was among baseball's best between 2008 and 2011, and he was dominant down the stretch and in October last year.
In his last 13 starts of the 2013 regular season, Lester posted a 2.57 ERA and 2.77 FIP. His FIP dipped to a modest 3.17 in his five postseason starts...But his ERA checked in at 1.56. He was especially excellent in his two World Series starts, allowing just one run in 15.1 innings with 15 strikeouts and one walk.
So rather than a four-start stretch of excellence, what Lester is riding is more of a 22-start stretch of excellence. That's a decent-sized sample size, as it were.
Decent enough, even, to feel safe enough in saying that Lester's over the year-and-a-half "meh" spell he endured in 2012 and 2013. He's an ace again.
Which is a hard thing to replace if you lose one. The Red Sox could conceivably fill Lester's spot in the rotation by dipping into their deep bag of talented pitching prospects if he does happen to walk, but counting on one of the young guns to replace the numbers the Red Sox would be losing in the short term would be foolery. This is a good time for young pitchers, but they can't all be Jose Fernandez.
And though the numbers are the main thing—it's my duty as a geek to make that point clear—you can lose more than just numbers when you lose an ace. You can also lose the benefits that come with those numbers.
For example, you can lose a stopper. That's what Lester was for the Red Sox when took the mound at Yankee Stadium on April 11, hurling 6.2 innings of two-run ball to help keep Boston from what could have been its sixth loss in eight games.
Another thing you stand to lose is a dragon slayer. Lester outlasted CC Sabathia, who pitched a lot better than the four runs on his line score indicated, at Yankee Stadium. On Thursday night, he was able to overshadow Chris Sale despite his seven-inning, 10-strikeout performance.
In beating Sale, I would also say that Lester flashed his ability to win the big games, but...Nah. April starts aren't big starts for anyone, but they're especially small for guys who have pitched well in two World Series.
So a guy who can put up ace-like numbers and deliver all the benefits that come with them. That's what the Red Sox stand to lose if Lester walks as a free agent after the season's over.
And it looks like they could be reminded of it every time he takes the hill the rest of the way.
Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.
If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.U.S. consumers are embracing next-gen bundles and telco and cable providers need to adapt or risk losing significant market share to disruptors, says market research firm Ovum. Their new report, Digital Consumer Insights 2017: Multiplay, outlines changing bundling trends.
The traditional triple play bundle of Internet, TV and phone proved to be quite successful for service providers who could deliver it. The cable industry used the addition of phone to TV and Internet quite effectively, especially against telco competitors. Telcos responded with their own version of TV, IPTV or DBS, to compete with a triple play bundle of their own. Both sectors rode a wave of success for a while. But times are changing.
Next-gen bundles are now in demand by a growing number of consumers and they feature broadband as the main component, bundled with services like smartphones/mobile or OTT video. More double play than triple play, and featuring applications and services that enable the digital lifestyle. Ovum forecasts that these next-gen bundles will capture 25% of the global market by 2021, with a larger impact in the U.S.
“Competition in the bundles space in the US, in particular, is fierce,” said Kamalini Ganguly, Ovum senior analyst, Broadband and Multiplay, in a brief about the report. “Cable companies have been losing pay-TV subscriptions for some time and as a result have also lost momentum in traditional bundle subscription growth. Telcos are following a similar path.”
This is one reason you see Comcast entering the wireless space with Xfinity Mobile and targeting their broadband base with a mobile bundle.
Ganguly believes telcos may be particularly vulnerable. “More often than not, telcos are not aware of demographic trends and how to bundle in accordance with changing demographics within their customer base or the wider community, particularly in the US,” she said.
This trend could cause particular pain with smaller regulated tier 3 telcos in the U.S., who are often compelled to tie a phone line with broadband, often in a bundled fashion. Ovum predicts that penetration of traditional bundles will decrease from 60% in 2017 to roughly 44% in 2021.
Other key findings from the Ovum survey include:When the magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake and resulting tsunami struck off the northeast coast of Japan on March 11, they caused widespread destruction and death. Using observations from a dense regional geodetic network (allowing measurements of earth movement to be gathered from GPS satellite data), globally distributed broadband seismographic networks, and open-ocean tsunami data, researchers have begun to construct numerous models that describe how the earth moved that day.
Now, a study led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), published online in the May 19 issue of Science Express, explains the first large set of observational data from this rare megathrust event.
"This event is the best recorded great earthquake ever," says Mark Simons, professor of geophysics at Caltech's Seismological Laboratory and lead author of the study. For scientists working to improve infrastructure and prevent loss of life through better application of seismological data, observations from the event will help inform future research priorities.
Simons says one of the most interesting findings of the data analysis was the spatial compactness of the event. The megathrust earthquake occurred at a subduction zone where the Pacific Plate dips below Japan. The length of fault that experienced significant slip during the Tohoku-Oki earthquake was about 250 kilometers, about half of what would be conventionally expected for an event of this magnitude.
Furthermore, the area where the fault slipped the most -- 30 meters or more -- happened within a 50- to 100-kilometer-long segment. "This is not something we have documented before," says Simons. "I'm sure it has happened in the past, but technology has advanced only in the past 10 to 15 years to the point where we can measure these slips much more accurately through GPS and other data."
For Jean Paul Ampuero, assistant professor of seismology at Caltech's Seismological Laboratory who studies earthquake dynamics, the most significant finding was that high- and low-frequency seismic waves can come from different areas of a fault. "The high-frequency seismic waves in the Tohoku earthquake were generated much closer to the coast, away from the area of the slip where we saw low-frequency waves," he says.
Simons says there are two factors controlling this behavior; one is because the largest amount of stress (which is what generates the highest-frequency waves) was found at the edges of the slip, not near the center of where the fault began to break. He compares the finding to what happens when you rip a piece of paper in half. "The highest amounts of stress aren't found where the paper has just ripped, but rather right where the paper has not yet been torn," he explains. "We had previously thought high-frequency energy was an indicator of fault slippage, but it didn't correlate in our models of this event." Equally important is how the fault reacts to these stress concentrations; it appears that only the deeper segments of the fault respond to these stresses by producing high-frequency energy.
Ampuero says the implications of these observations of the mechanical properties of tectonic faults need to be further explored and integrated in physical models of earthquakes, which will help scientists better quantify earthquake hazards.
"We learn from each significant earthquake, especially if the earthquake is large and recorded by many sensors," says Ampuero. "The Tohoku earthquake was recorded by upwards of 10 times more sensors at near-fault distances than any other earthquake. This will provide a sharper and more robust view of earthquake rupture processes and their effects."
For seismologist Hiroo Kanamori,
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train depot building. We were greeted by two older folks, a man and a woman, volunteers who help run the village. They were more than helpful, and cheerful to boot, as the woman showed us around the entire village and, catty-corner, across the street, a historic Victorian house filled with exhibits as well.
The buildings were very standard fare for what you see in re-created towns across the plains area; train depot, school, church, blacksmith… But the quality of the exhibits and artifacts were above par. You can tell a lot of time and care has gone into every detail here. Another thing that I found very interesting was the close proximity of origin for all the buildings and artifacts, they all came from very close to St Paul. Sometimes you’ll go to an ‘Old West’ town and the buildings and exhibits are from states away. Howard County Historic Village has done a fantastic job of keeping everything close to home and therefor that much more genuine and realistic.
The village and house boasted many types of exhibits; trains, homesteading, World War I & II, native artifacts, local history. No matter what kind of history you’re into, there’s bound to be something of interest for you here. Me, personally… I enjoyed it all. As many re-created main streets and ‘Old West’ towns as I’ve been to, the Howard County Historical Village and the Gruber House still had a lot for me to take in and enjoy. This is among the top I’ve been to, with quality exhibits and super-friendly staff. It was awfully sad to see the dates in the guestbook spaced out as much as they were (even taking into consideration they are only open Sat-Sun). Hopefully people just aren’t signing the guestbook! Cause I would much rather that be the case as opposed to people just not visiting this hidden gem.
Come see the Howard County Historic Village, and the town of St. Paul in general, as soon as you can, I highly recommend it.2017 MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL POSTSEASON TICKET TERMS & CONDITIONS
IMPORTANT: YOUR GAME TICKET IS A REVOCABLE LICENSE; USER ACCEPTS RISK OF INJURY; NO RE-ENTRY UPON EXIT; THIS TICKET LIMITS USER'S LEGAL RIGHTS
By using this ticket, ticket holder ("Holder"), on his/her own behalf and on behalf of any minor accompanying Holder to the Game (as defined below) ("Minor(s)"), agrees to the following terms and conditions (the "Agreement") which contains an AGREEMENT TO ARBITRATE And A class action waiver. The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball ("BOC") may change the terms of the Agreement at any time, without notice, and Holder's use of this ticket after such change is posted will mean that Holder accepts such change(s). Holder is solely responsible for reading and understanding the Agreement before using this ticket and/or those of Minor(s):
Holder agrees that: (a) neither Holder nor Minor(s) will transmit or aid in transmitting any information about the game to which this ticket grants admission or any entertainment, attractions, warm-ups, practices, pre-game, post-game or between-inning activities, promotions or competitions offered in connection with the game (collectively, the "Game") including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Game (collectively, the "Game Information"); (b) the BOC or Major League Baseball Properties, Inc., as applicable, is the exclusive owner of all copyrights and other proprietary rights in the Game and the Game Information; and (c) the BOC, Major League Baseball Properties, Inc., MLB Advanced Media, L.P., The MLB Network, LLC, each of the Major League Baseball Clubs, and each of their respective past, present and future subsidiaries, affiliates, agents, officers, employees and owners (collectively, the "MLB Entities") and certain current and future sponsors and licensees of such MLB Entities will have the unrestricted right and license to use Holder's image, likeness, name, voice, comments and/or other proprietary or public rights and/or those of Minor(s) in any live or recorded broadcast, telecast, photograph, video, audio, audiovisual and/or other recording taken in connection with the Game or other transmission, distribution, public performance, or reproduction in whole or in part of the Game, for all purposes, worldwide, in perpetuity, and in any and all media now or hereafter known, without compensation. The rights granted herein to the MLB Entities are assignable.
Holder (i) consents to allowing the MLB Entities to inspect Holder's and/or Minor(s)' person and/or any bags, clothing, or other articles for security purposes, whether by walk-through metal detection, handheld metal detection, bag checks or otherwise, and (ii) acknowledges and agrees that Holder and/or Minor(s) may be denied entry to or ejected from the Game if Holder and/or Minor(s) is/are in possession of any item or object that the MLB Entities consider potentially dangerous, hazardous, inappropriate and/or injurious to other patrons, and any prohibited items may be confiscated. Holder consents to security searches and/or screening of Holder and/or Minor(s) and waives any claims that Holder and/or Minor(s) might have against the "Released Parties" (as defined herein). Holder acknowledges that the MLB Entities have no liability for Holder's and/or Minor(s)' person or property.
The MLB Entities reserve the right to terminate the license granted by this ticket and/or those of Minor(s) by tendering to Holder the purchase price printed on this ticket and/or those of Minor(s). Further, the MLB Entities reserve the right, without refund of any portion of the purchase price, to revoke the license granted by this ticket and/or those of Minor(s) and refuse admission or eject any person (a) who violates the terms of the Agreement; (b) who appears to be or is intoxicated; (c) whose conduct is deemed by any of the MLB Entities to be improper, disorderly or unbecoming; or (d) who uses vulgar or abusive language.
ALL GAME TIMES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE. THE MLB ENTITIES ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR LOST, STOLEN OR DUPLICATED TICKETS.
Holder assumes all risk associated with the purchase of this ticket and/or those of Minor(s) from anyone other than the BOC or its designated agents. Neither this ticket nor those of Minor(s) may be used for advertising, promotion (including contests and sweepstakes), or other trade or commercial purposes without the express written consent of the BOC. No offer to resell or resale of this ticket and/or those of Minor(s) is permitted to the extent prohibited by any applicable federal, state or local law or regulation. Any resale referenced above will invalidate the license granted by this ticket and/or those of Minor(s). Neither this ticket nor those of Minor(s) may be resold or offered for resale inside the host ballpark ("Ballpark"), and any person who sells or offers this ticket and/or those of Minor(s) for resale at any price inside the Ballpark will be removed from the premises and may be prosecuted.
WAIVER AND RELEASE OF LIABILITY
Holder recognizes that attendance of Holder and Minor(s) at the Game is voluntary and may result in personal injury (including death) and/or property damage and agrees to stay alert and remain aware of his/her surroundings and the surroundings of Minor(s). By using this ticket or by attending, observing or participating in the Game, Holder, on behalf of himself/herself and Minor(s), acknowledges and assumes all risks and dangers associated with Holder and/or Minor(s): (i) being a spectator before, during, and after a baseball game (including all warm-ups, practices, pre-game, post-game and between-inning activities, promotions and competitions), and (ii) attending, observing or participating in the Game, in each case, whether any such risk or danger occurs prior to, during or subsequent thereto, including specifically (but not exclusively) the danger of being injured by thrown bats; bat fragments; thrown or batted balls; thrown, dropped, or launched items; projectiles; persons; animals; other hazards or distractions; and any incidents or accidents associated with crowds of people or the negligence or misconduct of other spectators. Holder agrees that: (a) the MLB Entities, (b) the MLB Entities' respective past, present and future licensees, sponsors, and vendors, and all of their successors and assigns, (c) all other Major League Baseball related entities, (d) the Ballpark and the owners and/or operators thereof, (e) any local or state governmental body associated with the Ballpark, (f) the ticket manufacturer and/or provider, and (g) all past, present and future affiliates, successors, assigns, players, managers, coaches, employees, partners, members, directors, officers, owners, agents, representatives and independent contractors of such entities (subsections (a) through (g), collectively, the "Released Parties"), will not be responsible for any personal injury (including death), property damage, or other loss suffered as a result of Holder's and/or Minor(s)': (x) participation in, attendance at, and/or observation of the Game and/or (y) the negligence of any of the Released Parties (collectively, the "Released Claims"). Holder hereby releases, forever discharges, and covenants not to sue the Released Parties from and against any and all Released Claims and/or any other claims which Holder and/or Minor(s) has or may have for invasion of privacy, defamation, violation of any right of publicity, right of privacy or any other cause of action arising out of the production, reproduction, distribution, transmission, publication, public performance, broadcast or exhibition of advertisements, promotions, content, programs and/or materials in which recordings or photographs of Holder or Minor(s) from the Game appear.
BY ATTENDING AND/OR PARTICIPATING IN THE GAME, HOLDER, ON HIS/HER OWN BEHALF AND ON BEHALF OF MINOR(S), IS DEEMED TO HAVE GIVEN A FULL RELEASE OF LIABILITY TO THE RELEASED PARTIES TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
IF MINOR(S) IS/ARE ACCOMPANYING HOLDER TO THE GAME, HOLDER IS DEEMED TO HAVE GIVEN ALL OF THE FOREGOING GRANTS OF RIGHTS, RELEASES AND WAIVERS ON BEHALF OF SUCH MINOR(S) AS THEIR PARENT OR GUARDIAN OR AS THE AUTHORIZED AGENT OF THEIR PARENT OR GUARDIAN. IF HOLDER DOES NOT WISH TO OR IS NOT AUTHORIZED TO GRANT SUCH RIGHTS, RELEASES AND WAIVERS ON BEHALF OF THE ACCOMPANIED MINOR(S), HOLDER SHOULD IMMEDIATELY LEAVE THE BALLPARK WITH THE MINOR(S).
Holder will indemnify, defend and hold harmless the Released Parties from and against any and all demands, suits, claims, costs (including reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses), expenses and liability arising out of, incidental to or related in any way to (i) Holder's and/or Minor(s)' attendance at, observation of, and/or participation in the Game, (ii) Holder's and/or Minor(s)' acts or omissions, or (iii) Holder's breach of any of the terms, conditions or representations made in the Agreement.
ENTERING THE PLAYING FIELD, DISRUPTING A GAME AND/OR ATTEMPTING ANY PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH A GAME PARTICIPANT IS A CRIME PUNISHABLE BY FINE AND/OR IMPRISONMENT. VIOLATORS MAY BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW.
MANDATORY ARBITRATION AGREEMENT & CLASS ACTION WAIVER ("ARBITRATION AGREEMENT")
The MLB Entities care deeply about maintaining good relationships with fans. If you have a problem with your ticket and/or those of Minor(s) or the Game, a telephone call to customer service may resolve the matter quickly and amicably. Any dispute not resolved informally must be resolved in accordance with this Arbitration Agreement.
Unless prohibited by federal law, Holder and the MLB Entities agree to arbitrate any and all claims and disputes relating in any way to Holder's purchase or use of this ticket and/or those of Minor(s), Holder's and/or Minor(s)' participation in, attendance at, and/or observation of the Game, the Agreement, and any related dealings between them, including, without limitation, claims of bodily injury or property damage arising out of Holder's and/or Minor(s)' attendance at and/or participation in the Game ("Arbitration Claims"), except for Arbitration Claims concerning the validity, scope or enforceability of this Arbitration Agreement, through BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION. This Arbitration Agreement involves interstate commerce and shall be governed by the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. §§ 1-16 ("FAA"), and not by state law.
In any Arbitration Claim to be resolved by arbitration, neither Holder nor the MLB Entities will be able to have a court or jury trial or participate in a class action or class arbitration. Other rights that Holder and the MLB Entities would have in court will not be available or will be more limited in arbitration, including the right to appeal. Holder and the MLB Entities each understand and agree that by requiring each other to resolve all disputes through individual arbitration, WE ARE EACH WAIVING THE RIGHT TO A COURT OR JURY TRIAL. ALL DISPUTES SHALL BE ARBITRATED ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS, AND NOT AS A CLASS ACTION, REPRESENTATIVE ACTION, CLASS ARBITRATION OR ANY SIMILAR PROCEEDING. The arbitrator(s) may not consolidate the claims of multiple parties.
Arbitrations shall be administered by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") in accordance with its then-existing commercial arbitration rules. You may obtain information about arbitration, arbitration procedures and fees from AAA by calling 800-778-7879 or visiting www.adr.org. If AAA is unable or unwilling to arbitrate a dispute, then the dispute may be referred to any other arbitration organization or arbitrator the parties both agree upon in writing or that is appointed pursuant to section 5 of the FAA. The arbitration shall take place in the city where the Ballpark is located. The arbitration shall be presided over by a single arbitrator, who shall be selected in accordance with the rules that, as specified above, shall govern the arbitration. The arbitrator shall be authorized to award any relief that would have been available in court, provided that the arbitrator's authority is limited to Holder and the MLB Entities alone, except as otherwise specifically stated herein. No arbitration decision will have any preclusive effect as to non-parties. The arbitrator's decision shall be final and binding. The parties agree that this Arbitration Agreement extends to any other parties involved in any Arbitration Claims, including, but not limited to, Minor(s) and the Released Parties. This Arbitration Agreement shall take precedence over the rules of the arbitration organization or arbitrator in the event of any conflict.
The MLB Entities will be responsible for paying all arbitration fees other than the amount of filing fees Holder would have incurred in the state or federal court where the Game took place, whichever is less. Notwithstanding any other provision herein, Holder and the MLB Entities may seek relief in a small claims court for Arbitration Claims within its jurisdiction. In addition, Holder and the MLB Entities each may exercise any lawful rights to seek provisional remedies or self-help, without waiving the right to arbitrate by doing so. Notwithstanding any other provision of the Agreement, if the foregoing class action waiver and prohibition against class arbitration is determined to be invalid or unenforceable, then this entire Arbitration Agreement shall be void. If any portion of this Arbitration Agreement other than the class action waiver and prohibition against class arbitration is deemed invalid or unenforceable, it shall not invalidate the remaining portions of this Arbitration Agreement. This Arbitration Agreement will survive the termination of the Agreement, the conclusion of the Game, and/or the bankruptcy or insolvency of a party (to the extent permitted by applicable law).
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REJECT THIS ARBITRATION AGREEMENT, BUT YOU MUST EXERCISE THIS RIGHT PROMPTLY. If you do not wish to be bound by this agreement to arbitrate, you must notify us by mailing a written opt-out notice, postmarked within seven (7) days after the date of the Game. You must send your request to: Major League Baseball, Attn: Legal Department, Re: Postseason Arbitration, 245 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10167. The request must include your full name, address, account number, and the statement "I reject the Arbitration Agreement contained in my Postseason Ticket." If you exercise the right to reject arbitration, the other terms of the Agreement shall remain in full force and effect as if you had not rejected arbitration.
Prior to bringing a claim under this Arbitration Agreement, the Claimant shall give the other party or parties written notice of the Arbitration Claim (a "Claim Notice") and a reasonable opportunity, not less than 30 days, to resolve the Arbitration Claim. Any Claim Notice to one or more of the MLB Entities shall be sent by mail to Major League Baseball, Attn: Legal Department, Re: Postseason Claim Notice, 245 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10167. Any Claim Notice must (a) identify the Claimant by name, address, email address, and telephone number; (b) explain the nature of the Arbitration Claim and the relief demanded; and (c) be submitted only on behalf of the Claimant, and not on behalf of any other party. The Claimant must reasonably cooperate in providing any information about the Arbitration Claim that the other party reasonably requests and must give the other party a reasonable opportunity to respond to the demand for relief.
IF MINOR(S) IS/ARE ACCOMPANYING HOLDER TO THE GAME, HOLDER IS DEEMED TO HAVE AGREED TO THIS ARBITRATION AGREEMENT ON BEHALF OF SUCH MINOR(S) AS THEIR PARENT OR GUARDIAN OR AS THE AUTHORIZED AGENT OF THEIR PARENT OR GUARDIAN. IF HOLDER DOES NOT WISH TO OR IS NOT AUTHORIZED TO MAKE SUCH AGREEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE ACCOMPANIED MINOR(S), HOLDER SHOULD IMMEDIATELY LEAVE THE BALLPARK WITH THE MINOR(S).
NOTICE
Retain possession of this ticket until the Game has been played. This ticket cannot be replaced if lost, stolen or destroyed.
This ticket is good only for this particular Game and no part of the purchase price will be refunded by reason of the failure of Holder to use it for this Game.
Should the Game not be played or otherwise completed, this ticket will admit the Holder on the date or dates on which such Game is rescheduled or resumed, as may be announced in the sole discretion of the BOC. No part of the purchase price will be refunded by reason of the failure of the Holder to use this ticket on such rescheduled or resumed date or dates.
REFUND POLICY FOR UNPLAYED GAMES
In the event that the series for which this ticket is issued concludes before the scheduled date of the Game, a refund or credit will be issued according to the refund policy applicable to the category of ticket held by Holder (i.e. SEASON, PHONE/WEB, INDIVIDUAL, MLB, CLUBS).
Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr.
Copyright 2017, Office of the Commissioner of Baseball. All rights reserved.Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, left, and his wife, Maureen, arrive to vote in Richmond. The McDonnells have been under state and federal investigation stemming from their dealings with a wealthy political benefactor.
Nov. 5, 2013 Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, left, and his wife, Maureen, arrive to vote in Richmond. The McDonnells have been under state and federal investigation stemming from their dealings with a wealthy political benefactor. Steve Helber/AP
A judge will hear arguments Monday about whether he should throw out the federal corruption charges against former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell (R) and his wife — or at least separate their cases.
The hearing in federal district court in Richmond is perhaps the most significant yet for the couple, as their attorneys will try to persuade Judge James R. Spencer to dismantle the prosecutor’s case long before a jury hears it.
Though experts say it is unlikely, Spencer could dismiss the corruption counts if he agrees with defense attorneys’ contention that the McDonnells neither promised nor performed any “official acts” for Jonnie R. Williams Sr., the Richmond area businessman who is said to have lavished them with gifts and loans in exchange for their help.
Spencer also could order Robert and Maureen McDonnell to be tried separately — as their attorneys have requested — and put prosecutors at a strategic disadvantage.
The McDonnells were charged earlier this year in a 14-count indictment that alleges they lent the prestige of the governor’s office to Williams and a company he used to run, Star Scientific, in exchange for his largess. They have pleaded not guilty, and a jury trial is scheduled for July 28.
The arguments from both sides Monday probably will come as no surprise to Spencer, as he has been considering written filings about the disputes since March.
The McDonnells’ defense attorneys have contended that the actions the McDonnells are accused of taking for Williams and Star — including arranging meetings between Williams and state officials and promoting Star’s products — are not “official.” Prosecutors must prove that the McDonnells either promised to perform or performed “official” acts to substantiate the corruption charges.
“Returning a supporter’s phone call, asking a subordinate to meet with a supporter, attending a supporter’s event, inviting a supporter to a reception, or saying nice things about a supporter are not ‘official acts’ — even if they enhance that supporter’s actual or perceived stature — because none of those actions deploy the sovereign power of government,” the McDonnells’ defense attorneys wrote in a court filing.
Prosecutors have countered that the acts the McDonnells took for Williams were official, even if they were not particularly substantial. Prosecutors also have argued that at this stage, Spencer need only determine whether they are alleging official actions were taken, and jurors could determine at trial whether they had proven those allegations.
Even if Spencer dismisses the corruption counts and an obstruction charge against Maureen McDonnell, the couple still would face charges stemming from false information prosecutors say they put on financial documents. The McDonnells have disputed those charges, but did not formally move to have them dismissed.
And if Spencer allows any of the charges to move forward, he still could deal a blow to prosecutors by granting the couple’s request for separate trials. Their defense attorneys have argued he should do so because of concerns about marital privilege and the McDonnells’ right not to incriminate themselves.
Only at separate trials, they have argued, would Maureen McDonnell agree to testify — without fear of incriminating herself — that her husband was largely unaware of her dealings with Williams. And only at separate trials, they have argued, would Robert McDonnell be able to testify on his own behalf without his wife silencing him through marital privilege.
Prosecutors have resisted that effort, too, noting there is “a strong presumption in favor of trying defendants together who have been indicted together” and questioning why Maureen McDonnell would not testify at a single proceeding. The bid to sever was dealt a blow, too, when Spencer ruled that the McDonnells’ attorneys could not keep hidden from prosecutors declarations detailing their clients’ prospective testimony at separate proceedings.
The attorneys elected not to file the declarations, which they had hoped would support their arguments, as part of the case. They have, however, indicated they would file the declarations under seal and to the judge only for appeal purposes. Neither Spencer nor prosecutors will review that filing.
Though Spencer could issue rulings right away — as he did at an earlier motions hearing in the case — he could also take time with what he hears Monday before he makes any decisions. The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m.This Thanksgiving, we have a lot to be thankful for. In particular, we should be thankful for America's law enforcement officers. They put their lives on the line each and every day to protect us. Those of us in government—including the FCC—owe it to them to do whatever we can to keep them safe. We'll take up this cause at our monthly meeting on December 14.
Specifically, we'll vote on an order to authorize the use of "Blue Alerts." Similar to the use of AMBER Alerts to notify the public of missing children, Blue Alerts may be used by state and local officials to notify the public of threats to law enforcement over the Emergency Alert System (EAS) and the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system. The FCC has been working closely with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services to help develop compatible and integrated Blue Alert plans throughout the United States. This past May, I attended an event at the Justice Department at which I was honored to stand with officials from that agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and other law enforcement agencies to declare my support for Blue Alerts and to pledge swift FCC action towards creating a dedicated EAS Blue Alert event code. At our December meeting, I hope the FCC will honor that commitment.
The new Blue Alert event code could be used by state and local authorities to notify the public through providers of broadcast, cable, satellite, and wireline video services when there's actionable information related to a law enforcement officer who is missing, seriously injured, or killed in the line of duty, or when there is a credible, short-term threat to an officer. These Blue Alerts would also be passed through the existing Wireless Emergency Alert system so that the public receives them on their mobile devices. A Blue Alert could warn you if a violent suspect is in your community and tell you how to contact authorities and stay safe.
Our December meeting will also feature an important proposal aimed at bridging the digital divide. Few sectors hold more promise for broadband-enabled advances than health care. This is especially true for rural and remote areas where telehealth services can overcome more limited health care access and vast distances. So I've shared a proposal with my colleagues to review the FCC's Rural Health Care (RHC) program. The program provides funding to eligible health care providers for communications services necessary for the provision of health care.
For the second year in a row, demand for the RHC program will likely exceed the funding cap. As a result, leading participating health care providers may face unanticipated funding cuts. At the same time, the current RHC Program rules also open up opportunities for waste, fraud, and abuse. So any misspent funds come at the expense of health care providers (and their patients) that are acutely in need. In December, we'll take a fresh look at this program. We'll aim to figure out how it can operate more efficiently and have a sufficient budget so that Americans can get the advanced health care they need.
Turning to the wireless sector, the FCC will vote on a Public Notice and draft Program Comment to facilitate the collocation of wireless equipment on so-called "Twilight Towers." That's a mouthful, but here are the basics. Between 2001 and 2005, a bunch of wireless towers were built. This happened before the FCC outlined the process for complying with historic preservation laws. A longstanding question has been how to certify that those towers are in compliance with our rules. Allowing collocation—that is, different companies sharing space on a tower and installing their wireless equipment—would have no adverse impact in the vast majority of cases. In fact, it would seem to be a happy medium; it would minimize any harms to historic properties while encouraging the efficient installation and operation of wireless infrastructure. The Commission has spent years negotiating with Tribal Nations and industry to find ways to use these towers without triggering the need for full historic preservation review. After more than a decade of inertia, we'll finally move to ease access to these towers. This solution was developed under the leadership of Commissioner Brendan Carr, who I have asked to lead the agency's efforts on wireless infrastructure. I am grateful to him for helping us resolve this issue.
I'm also asking my colleagues to modernize our wireless rules at our December meeting. The Commission's current rules classify various wireless services as commercial or private. And they assume that licensees in certain frequency bands should be regulated as commercial. But that assumption is sometimes wrong, forcing licensees to ask us to waive these rules. The FCC routinely grants these waivers, but not without delays that can slow the rollout of new business plans. To promote more regulatory certainty and conserve our own staff's resources, we'll vote on eliminating sometimes inaccurate rule-based classifications.
Speaking of modernizing our rules, we'll continue our initiative to update our media rules. This time, the Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that seeks public input on updating certain notice requirements that apply to cable operators. Among other things, we'll explore allowing these companies to send "written" (that's the word we use in our regulations) communications to subscribers electronically, rather than by paper mail. We'll also ask whether and how to update our rules that currently require broadcasters to send carriage election notices to cable or satellite operators via certified mail.
Rounding out our December meeting will be two matters that were previewed yesterday.
First, the FCC will consider an order that would restore Internet freedom and return to the bipartisan, light-touch framework that helped America's Internet economy become the envy of the world. In a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, I detailed how the heavy-handed public-utility style regulations adopted in 2015 have stifled infrastructure network investment and innovation. Repealing these regulations will create jobs, increase competition, and lead to better, faster, cheaper Internet access for all Americans. My view is that the Internet should be run by engineers and entrepreneurs, not lawyers and bureaucrats.
And unlike the previous Administration, which pushed through its Internet regulations without letting the public see what was being proposed, anyone can read my plan. It's on the Commission's website and available here—more than three weeks before our scheduled vote.
Second, consistent with my commitment earlier this year, the FCC will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that kicks off a comprehensive review of the national television ownership cap, including the UHF discount. In 2016, the Commission (including the current minority) concluded that "[it] has the authority to modify the national audience reach cap, including the authority to revise or eliminate the UHF discount." We'll take a fresh look at this issue. A comprehensive review of the national cap and the UHF discount is warranted in light of considerable marketplace and technological changes since the national cap was last modified in 2004.
Suffice it to say that the FCC will end 2017 not with a whimper but a bang. And we've been busy pretty much every month of this year. That we've been so productive is due to the tireless work of the FCC's talented staff. And that brings us back to tomorrow. As the nation pauses to give thanks tomorrow, I would like to offer my deepest gratitude to the public servants of the FCC. Every day, they help us strive to serve the public interest.Quote: Originally Posted by springer.music Originally Posted by Do you mean that there's even less space than on 6.0?
Titanium Backup reports that there 15.6 MB free. Shouldn't this be enough for a very small mod such as an edit to build. prop?
This post is likely an important one going forward, it could be the answer to various issues people have on 6.0 related to /system.The conversation below pertains specifically to Nexus 6 @ 6.0.1, which has an almost full /system, but I'll bet the issue exists on all Nexus devices.So after some further investigation, something pretty odd is going on.ext4 (the filesystem) has various types of reserved blocks.I suspect the tools on booted Android do not count one type of reserved block. Indeed, when you use "df" utility (both toolbox and toybox), it shows 15mb or so free. Using the same "df" utility in recovery (busybox) shows 0b free. It does show that not all blocks are in use, but the remainder is likely reserved.If you use a root shell on either booted Android or in recovery, trying to write contents to a new file in /system will fail. To make matters worse, file creation succeeds, but writing content does not, so you end up with a 0 byte file. You need to delete a few extra megabytes of files, before you are able to write even 1 byte to a new file!Many editing tools remove the old file and write a new file at the same spot rather than truly editing a file. I'm not sure if the latter has any chance of succeeding, but the former would definitely fail in this scenario.While the issue is understandable technically, it is likely to trip up a lot of tools, as the error is generated at the least expected moment.This issue is a magnet for file corruption and bootloops. Beware this issue when modifying anything on /system!Immediate hunch is that the difference is explained by usage of struct statfs's bfree vs bavail member.Yes, even though TiBu and whatever other tool are showing you megabytes free, adding/modifying files is likely to give unexpected results on a (near-)full /system partition, and an unlucky edit can definitely prevent the device from booting! Can't give you exact numbers right now, but beforefiles orfiles to /system, I would recommendfiles until you have at least 30-ish mb free.Eugenie Bouchard of Canada is committed to playing the Citi Open for the fifth time since it launched a women’s draw in 2011. (David Vincent/Associated Press)
Eugenie Bouchard’s history with the Citi Open stretches back to its beginning.
Bouchard competed in the first year of the women’s draw at the tennis tournament, in 2011, as an inexperienced 17-year-old, one of the up-and-coming women’s players handed a wild-card entry in a tournament that served as a proving ground for rising stars. It was the site of Bouchard’s first WTA match victory, 6-3, 6-2 over American Alison Riske in College Park, where the event was originally held.
From that moment, the Citi Open had itself a loyal participant.
“I’ve always really enjoyed playing in D.C. It’s where I got my first WTA match win,” Bouchard said in a recent phone interview. “I’ll always have good memories, get good vibes from this event.”
Bouchard, ranked No. 52 in the world, will play in the Citi Open for a fifth time this year. The event runs from July 29 to Aug. 6 at Rock Creek Park Tennis Center.
Tournament officials announced Tuesday that the Montreal native — along with ascendant young player Alexander Zverev, ranked No. 10 in the world, and 25th-ranked American Steve Johnson — will join an eclectic field.
Defending men’s singles champion Gael Monfils announced in March that he will compete in this year’s event, as will three-time singles winner Juan Martin del Potro and doubles superstars Bob and Mike Bryan, who captured the title in Washington in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2015. John Isner, the second-highest-ranked American man at No. 21 overall, and world No. 8 Dominic Thiem have also committed. Rio Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig co-headlines the women’s draw along with Bouchard.
For Bouchard, the Citi Open carries meaning beyond nostalgia — it’s is also strategic scheduling. The 23-year-old chooses to begin her hard-court season in Washington’s late-summer heat and humidity for a reason.
“D.C. is probably one of the tougher conditions we’re in, so it really prepares us for what we have to play next,” Bouchard said. “Playing other tournaments are a breeze after what we’ve went through! And it’s one I enjoy so much. I love playing. I love competing. I see it as a preparation tournament, but I also see every tournament as a chance in and of itself. Especially if you can win a tournament in one week — that’s a huge deal. I think it’s the right way to start my hard-court season this year, for me.”
Bouchard’s best result in Washington came in 2012, when she lost in the quarterfinals to Sloane Stephens. The Canadian bowed out in the first round in her two most recent appearances, in 2013 and 2016.
This year, Bouchard suffered five straight first-round losses before she found her footing on clay in Madrid. There, she beat Maria Sharapova for the first time in her career as well as world No. 1 Angelique Kerber before losing to Svetlana Kuznetsova in the quarterfinals.
The Madrid tournament gave Bouchard renewed confidence she hopes will carry over as she recovers from an ankle injury and turns her attention toward the grass-court season before arriving in Washington. The win over Sharapova, whom Bouchard publicly criticized in the wake of the Russian’s 15-month suspension for doping, was particularly meaningful.
“That was big, of course — I had never beat her before,” said Bouchard, who lost in the second round in her next tournament, the French Open. “Other than that, [it was an] up-and-down spring. I think that’s the most frustrating thing as an athlete: You kind of have to figure out what’s not working out well, or just keep going, and believe that it’ll come. That’s what I kept doing. I would get back on the court the day after I lost, no day off, just keep grinding, practicing and believing that it would come.
“The most important thing I want to take into the summer is that the tennis is there. Even though I had some bad results, I still had it inside me somewhere. It was just a matter of finding it.”SEAN HANNITY: Senator, you can smoke a joint in the streets of New York City and all you're going to get is a summons. I'm not even kidding. That is how this mayor treats that issue.
SEN. RAND PAUL: I don't want to make light of this. I've seen the video, unfortunately, several times and it is sad. It's horrific to see him gasping for breath and saying, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe." And there was a case like this about 30 years ago, there was the Michael Stewart case where in New York City he was spraying graffiti on the subway walls, and it's illegal, we don't want it to happen, but he was held in a chokehold by 11 white police officers, again, who were indicted but were not convicted.
The question here is something wrong really also with our tactics. I understand police have a tough job and if someone's armed, and you're unsure, and it's dark and all this, but this was in the daylight they outnumbered him five to one, I think there was a better way than holding him in a chokehold.
SEAN HANNITY: I am sure, and I really want the evidence released because -- we have to
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meci de baschet, iar marti dimineata a postat pe Facebook un mesaj prin care a transmis ca a fost operat, interventia fiind "mult mai complicata decat se anticipa". Premierul a precizat in mesajul transmis ca are "totala incredere in medicii romani", sustinand ca a ales Turcia pentru ca acolo are parte de ceva ce era imposibil acasa "liniste si odihna"."Multumesc tuturor celor care in aceste zile au avut un gand bun pt mine - operatia a fost mult mai complicata decat se anticipa, dar sunt convins ca pana in decembrie voi putea face sport din nou. Multumiri speciale doctorului Ionut Codorean, care a fost langa mine si mi-a dat curaj prin profesionalismul sau (evident ca am totala incredere in medicii romani - aici insa am ceva ce era imposibil acasa - LINISTE si ODIHNA)! Vreau sa-i asigur si pe cei care "se bucura" de necazul meu ca ma voi intoarce mai sanatos si mai puternic!", a scris Ponta pe Facebook.Luni dimineata, avocata lui Victor Ponta a fost la Directia Nationala Anticoruptie, unde ar fi urmat sa se prezinte premierul, urmarit penal pentru trei infractiuni in dosarul lui Dan Sova. Potrivit unor surse oficiale, avocata ar fi cerut o amanare cu o saptamana a audierii premierului, motivand prin faptul ca acesta este in Turcia, unde ar urma sa se opereze la genunchi.Tot luni, Ponta a semnat decizia prin care vicepremierul Gabriel Oprea este desemnat sa coordoneze activitatea Guvernului in perioada 16-19 iunie Saptamana trecuta, premierul Victor Ponta a fost la Spitalul Militar Central din Bucuresti, pentru un control la genunchi, iar in urma investigatiilor medicii au stabilit ca are un ligament rupt si ii sunt afectate meniscul si cartilagiul, recomandandu-i o interventie chirurgicala.Galindez writes: "It would be best to just increase taxes and give everyone public healthcare. That will not happen with Trump and Republicans in control of our government. They will instead throw millions of people off their healthcare, causing many to die unnecessarily."
Obamacare supporters. (photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
Repealing Obamacare Will Be Negligent Homicide
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
Negligent homicide is the killing of another person through gross negligence or without malice.
here is no doubt that Obamacare is flawed. Something has to be done to control costs. There was a very effective cost-cutting provision in the original legislation. It was called the public option. Republicans and blue dog Democrats killed the public option, resulting in no incentive for the insurance industry to control costs.
Opponents of the public option declared that insurance companies would not have been able to compete with a government plan. They called it a backdoor to single payer. They were right, but that was a good thing. Insurance companies are not necessary. They are only a payee and make huge profits while providing nothing.
This is a personal issue for me. Obamacare saved my life, according to my doctor. She was talking to a medical student who was observing my initial appointment. My doctor described the medical conditions that I had that had progressed over years of not being treated. She said I wouldn’t have lasted much longer.
I had gone at least a decade without seeing a doctor. I had an employer who was willing to help me pay for health care and provided health care when I lived in California. I moved to Northern Virginia to set up a DC Bureau. I was then on my own as far as finding a plan. I applied for several plans and received the same answer: Declined. The reason? Body type. I was 5’4” and weighed 210 lbs. Insurance companies wanted nothing to do with me. When I had insurance in California, I was borderline diabetic. When Obamacare finally went into effect, I was diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic. I don’t know how many years that went untreated, but the next two conditions I had indicate that it was likely a long time. I also had congestive heart failure caused by kidney failure.
My doctor believes that if I hadn’t lost healthcare when I moved, diabetes would have been detected earlier and I would not have developed the kidney failure, therefore not developing the congestive heart failure. If I hadn’t gotten treated when I did, I might have died.
Obamacare saved my life and has saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who were sick but for financial reasons not going to a doctor. The Republican Party is preparing to throw millions of people off their healthcare. Many people will die of conditions that could have been prevented if they were covered. That is why I believe they would be guilty of negligent homicide.
Instead of repealing Obamacare, we should take the next step toward universal healthcare and allow the federal exchange to negotiate a public option with healthcare providers. That public option would not have costs inflated by profit margins for insurance companies. The public option wouldn’t have costs built in for advertising, either.
I hear people all the time asking why healthy people have to buy in. The answer is simple: someone has to pay for the money insurance companies are losing on people like me. When today’s young healthy people get old and sick, the young people of that era will make up for the high cost of their health care.
In the end, it would be best to just increase taxes and give everyone public healthcare. That will not happen with Trump and Republicans in control of our government. They will instead throw millions of people off their healthcare, causing many to die unnecessarily. They know it, and that is why it is negligent homicide.
Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott moved to Des Moines in 2015 to cover the Iowa Caucus.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.The goalkeeper joined the Blues from Genk in 2011 and returned to Stamford Bridge this summer having spent the previous three seasons on loan at Atletico Madrid, where he lifted both the La Liga and Europa League titles. He was also an important member of the Belgian side that reached the World Cup quarter-finals in Brazil this summer.
Courtois said: ‘I’m very happy with this new deal, it’s really nice to have signed this new contract for five years.
‘My future was already sorted but it’s nice to know I’m going to be here for another five years and now I can just concentrate on playing games.’
The 22-year-old has started each of our three league games this season, impressing with his shot-stopping and dominance of his area.All William Haynes SourceFed Videos Minezbot Jun 20th, 2015 ( edited ) 726 Never 726Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 10.06 KB I wrote a program that scans every video made by SourceFed and checks the description for the hosts (@mrwilliamhaynes) twitter handle as that is something that is posted in the description for each of their videos. 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RAW Paste Data
I wrote a program that scans every video made by SourceFed and checks the description for the hosts (@mrwilliamhaynes) twitter handle as that is something that is posted in the description for each of their videos. Here are the results: (Total: 487) Edit: Now with SourceFedNerd Videos (Total 276) (Full Total: 763) Key: youtube.com/watch?v={ID} SourceFed: bbPXGDmBV-Y s9zpLweDWcE FFF70wgNxjc qBHgkTUvXa0 1DqNhaxDWD8 OmBZbyM4GKo aac5-rnUg9Y Krv3-6KrO44 Jox0udZ4aJQ QDclZkH9bAs -pVN-WLHI_o fS
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also been extended with several Warner Bros. titles, as follows:
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Batman: Arkham Origins
Injustice: Gods Among Us
Mortal Kombat
F.E.A.R (single-player campaign)
The Lego Movie Videogae
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7
LEGO Batman: The Videogame
The PS Now service is essentially Sony’s answer to backwards compatibility, offering gamers the chance to play hundreds of PS3 classics on the PS4 through Sony’s streaming service. Sure, getting the service won’t mean you actually own any of the games, but it will give you the chance of playing them. While fans who already own most of these titles on the PS3 won’t be too impressed, it’s still a great way for those who don’t to get plenty of entertainment for the buck. More details about the limited offer deal and the newly added games can be found on the official Playstation blog.December 4, 2011
2011-12-04T11:59:54-05:00
https://images.c-span.org/Files/011/302718-m.jpg
David Brooks, a New York Times Op-Ed columnist and a commentator on “The PBS Newshour,” talked about his life and career. He also responded to telephone calls and electronic communications. Topics included the 2012 election and class division in American society. The former contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly is the author of several books, including Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There; On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense; and his latest, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement.
David Brooks, a New York Times Op-Ed columnist and a commentator on “The PBS Newshour,” talked about his life and career. He also responded… read moreImage caption Jeremy Birch died from a stroke just before the general election in May
By-elections have been held following the death of Hastings Borough Council leader Jeremy Birch.
Mr Birch, who suffered a stroke in the week of the general election, was a Labour councillor for 17 years.
He had led the council for 13 years over two separate periods before he died in May at the age of 63.
Labour retained both the borough council seat of St Leonards and the the county council seat of Old Hastings and Tresswell, previously held by Mr Birch.
Terry Dowling was elected to the borough council and Tania Charman will take her seat on East Sussex County Council.
Martin Clarke held the Conservative seat of St Helens on Hastings Borough Council in a third by-election, triggered by the resignation of Matthew Lock.In my opinion, the Thais give the best massages in the world. Those petite girls are so strong, and know exactly what they are doing.
I go to Thailand quite often as I find it works out cheaper to go there for a week than it does to go to the Gold Coast. For a couple, we usually pay around $2000 for a week away in a 5 star resort, with breakfast, and return airfares. And depending on what it is that you do in Thailand, you don’t need a whole heap of spending money.
I go there to relax. Relaxing is very difficult for me to do. By nature I am a very highly strung person, as well as suffering from insomnia. You could basically say that I need to take a chill pill at times, so I find this is the perfect location for me to unwind.
As I have frequented Phuket a bunch of times, I have pretty much seen everything there is on offer, so I don’t bother with the touristy things anymore (day trips out to Phi Phi island, elephant riding etc). I just go there to swim, ride a scooter around the island, get a tan, eat the Thai cuisine, and the most important part – get cheap massages.
The massages are very inexpensive in Thailand. The price is usually around 400THB (or roughly AUD$12.00) for a 1 hour massage. They offer a few different massages, including the famous Thai massage, which I tend to avoid as its almost a form of torture. I always opt for the oil massage. Obviously after having been a regular visitor to the island of Phuket, I am familiar with the best places to go for these massages. In the beginning however, I did have an incident which never fails to get a laugh out of whoever I relay the story to.
Thai massages usually require you to strip down to your underwear. I have no problem with getting naked, so this part is a non-issue for me. They start with your back first, and then make you flip over so they can do your front. The best part of this is, they actually massage your breasts – in a totally non-sexual way of course. And whilst I’m aware that the Thais are known for their “happy endings”, if you go to a good place, there is absolutely nothing sexual about these massages.
The massage that has managed to be now forever imprinted in my mind is this dinghy little massage parlour I went to one night in Patong. All Thai massage parlours are the same. They all have a bunch of girls standing at the front trying to tempt clients into their shops. “Massage!” they yell out to each potential client that walks past. If it’s a seedy place, the girls are dressed in denim short shorts, and if it’s a professional place, they are dressed in sarongs. This is the easiest way to distinguish between the clean ones, and the more “rub n tug” style of places.
The one I went to this particular night was in one of the back alleys. It was late – around 11pm (the massage parlours are generally open until midnight), and the two girls that were left were in a very jovial mood. The Thais are very friendly people, however it does tend to border on flirting a lot of the time I must warn you. We followed them upstairs to the massage rooms. Most of the massages are conducted upstairs of the premises – the downstairs areas are set up like a hair salon. They generally have hairdresser work stations in half of the downstairs of the area, and the other side of the shop contains reclining chairs where the foot massages, and pedicures are performed.
So we head upstairs – which is quite treacherous in itself – for some strange reason, the stairs in these buildings are very steep, and each step is built at a different height to the other, so you really have to be careful when navigating these staircases that seem as though they have quite possibly have been constructed by the Thai girls themselves.
So we get upstairs and are ordered to undress. I take off everything except for my knickers, and lay down on my front and await my massage lady. She comes in and instructs me to take off my underwear as well.
“No, that’s ok, I’ll leave them on” I tell her.
God knows why she wants me to take them off. Although I wouldn’t mind her massaging my butt come to think of it.
“No, you take off.” She orders me.
I think about it for a second. Well, she can’t really see anything, and I’m sure they’ll give me something to cover up my nether regions once its time to flip over.
“Ok” I oblige, and remove them for her, and place them with my things.
Then she straddles me, and starts slapping my ass, while simulating fucking me, exclaiming “you very sexy lady!”
I am beyond mortified.
My husband, who is laying next to me having a massage, is beyond pleased – after all, isn’t this every straight mans fantasy? I know the Thai women are touchy feely, and love to muck around, and as I’m reasonably tolerant to most things, I let it go.
She knocks it off after a second, and starts to massage my shoulders and I finally begin to relax. She works her way down my back, before getting to my butt, which she massages firmly, commenting again that I’m “very sexy”, and then suddenly, her fingers are suddenly precariously close to areas they most certainly shouldn’t be.
“Um ok!” I exclaim as I sit up swiftly. “Can you stop that?!”
She laughed, and stopped it thank fully. My husband was enthralled.
“Ok, turn over” she said in her sing song voice. I’ve always wondered why Thai women spoke like that.
Turn over? Ok, I was fine with having my (lack of) breasts on display, but I was not fine with being naked from the waist down.
“Can I have my underwear back?” I requested.
“Its ok, me not shy” came the response.
Holy shitballs.
“Uhhh, that’s ok, I’m shy” I responded to her. I was beginning to get frustrated.
“No, no, me not shy. We have same!” she replied, pointing back and forth to herself and me.
“No, no, I want to put my underwear back on” I said more firmly now.
“Ok!” she laughed as she grabbed my underwear and held them out for me to put back on. “I put on for you!” she said as she was holding them out in the same manner that
you would for a 3 year old child.
“Um, no, I can put them back on” I said as I snatched them from her outstretched hands, her face now looking rather disappointed. Good grief.
So even though this was a particularly odd experience that I was molested on this occasion, it certainly isn’t indicative of the type of massages I go to Thailand for, nor the excellent ones that are on offer. Ordinarily they rock. Just take my advice and choose a place where the girls are spruiking for clientele wearing sarongs, and you’ll quite literally be in safe hands.Airport shuttle services have struggled in Metro Detroit. The last full-time service other than SKOOT folded in 2001 after years of losing money. (Photo: File photo / Detroit News)
The plan to create an express shuttle between Detroit Metropolitan Airport, the city and its suburbs was expected to generate wide interest in the long-missing service.
But, no one came forward, with some potential bidders citing a lack of data on passenger numbers, high upfront costs for vehicle fleets and airport authority rules. So Regional Transit Authority officials decided to solicit feedback from potential bidders with hopes of reissuing a request for proposals by year’s end.
As transit officials build a vision for the region that will culminate in a November 2016 ballot initiative to expand transportation options, the RTA faces the challenge of creating good public service with scarce dollars that marries the needs of vendors and the rules and regulations of the airport.
“Once I saw the vehicle requirements, I stopped even reading. We knew we could not accommodate anything in that nature,” said Greg Bissone, the owner and operator of SKOOT, a shuttle service between Metro Airport and downtown hotels for the past two years.
“We don’t have any in our fleet. We don’t have any operators who can operate those type of buses. We’re a smaller business. I don’t have the resources to just pull the switch and say let’s go.”
Bissone’s main issue with the July proposal was the requirement to have 55-passenger vans; his seat up to 11. “I don’t know what the new RFP is going to look like, but the initial one was definitely out of our scope,” he said.
RTA officials say they hope to reissue the RFP by the end of the year and say that finding public dollars is paramount. So far, they have $1.5 million in grant money to appropriate for the duration of the demonstration project that officials hope will ultimately be funded by taxpayers.
“It was important for us to get immediate feedback from industry leaders on what they needed as clarifying factors on the RFP for regional connections to the airport,” said Michael Ford, CEO of the RTA. “We received positive comments, which has led us in the direction of being more specific with the outlined request.”
Tiffany Gunter, the chief operating officer of the RTA who has spearheaded the shuttle project, said the shared concerns from vendors gave transit officials much to think about, and seeking more funds was at the top of the list.
“We were asking them to essentially find the funding and they weren’t willing,” she said. “We are looking at the funding that does exist as well as the duration of the demo — and essentially when we want the service to start and end.”
Not all the comments were positive. Chad Cushman, the vice president of Indian Trails, and his counterpart Ody Norkin at the Michigan Flyer, wrote a scathing letter about the RFP, primarily criticizing the airport’s new intercity bus operator permit which they feel is restrictive to vendors.
The proposed agreement, which hasn’t been formally presented, calls for any airport express bus operators who make 30 or more trips to and from the airport to indemnify Metro from any claims or lawsuits and damages. Cushman said his company’s interpretation is that it will indemnify the airport “from every single incident or accident that occurred out there, even it it was their fault.”
“I’m not shocked at all that there were no bidders,” Cushman said. “That permit prevents anyone from being able to operate in or out of that airport. We can’t agree to something with the hope or understanding that some of those things can be negotiated.”
Cushman said the only way the RTA would be successful in its bid to award a shuttle contract would be to tell the airport to toss out the intercity bus operator agreement.
“No one’s not bidding on it because they don’t want a $5 million or $10 million a year contract. That’s not it. Trust me, we’d love to get it,” Cushman said. “At the same time, we’re not going to invest millions of dollars into a venture with the hope that some of these issues can be worked out.”
Brian Sadek, assistant general counsel for the Wayne County Airport Authority, which runs Metro Airport, said the permit process was “a collaborative effort” between the airport and the RTA and that airport officials do support needed transit from its facility.
“There are no boogeymen hidden in that permit, there are no bombs dropped,” Sadek said. “It just enshrines current operational practices.”
Sadek said it would augment “what is already going on down” in the ground transportation center and that many airports across the country have similar clauses in agreements with transportation vendors.
RTA officials have estimated the service may cost $6.5 million to operate but would possibly be folded into next year’s November election, when voters will decide whether to fund transportation projects, including bus rapid transit on three regional routes.
Airport shuttle services have struggled in Metro Detroit. The last full-time service other than SKOOT folded in 2001 after years of losing money.
Limousines and taxis charge passengers between $45 and $60 one way, while standard fare on the Michigan Flyer coaches from Ann Arbor to Metro Airport, for example, are $12 one-way and $22 round trip.
Gunter said given the feedback the RTA received, she is more confident they will get a bidder and “build off of what an existing provider already has” in its operation.
Michael O’Callaghan, the executive vice president and CEO of the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau, said RTA and airport officials seem to be on the right page of “providing reasonably priced transportation from our airport” to various locations.
But O’Callaghan said both sides need to put their thoughts together and come up with a solution that will meet the RTA and vendor needs.
“The airport is recognized as one of the finest in the U.S., but I believe that it behooves everybody that the next impression that visitors have is the transportation piece and that it also leaves a positive impression,” O’Callaghan said. “I think there are a lot of very smart people at the airport authority and the RTA and we should all be able to come together and come up with something that makes sense.
“There is a real need for public transportation from the airport.”
[email protected]
(313) 222-2620
Twitter: @leonardnfleming
Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/1NjH49gThe Book:
Scurry: The Drowned Forest is an approximately 120 page book collecting the second part of the story along with several pages of concept art, character biographies, process images and more. Scurry appears as a webcomic that can be read at scurrycomic.com.
The first book, The Doomed Colony is also available again. The original Kickstarter can be found here. I made every effort to make sure the book lived up to backers' expectations and judging from the comments, it was a success. So let's do it again!
Below is a video showing the early proof process. The first step in printing is underway.
This book is about 20% longer than the first one. The story is complete and the artwork is about 85% done (I expect it to be nearly finished soon after the Kickstarter is over.) After that is some book design and some final preparations for printing, but once the proofs are approved, the printing will be ready to go.
Reward Tiers
Notes:
If you want a combination of rewards, simply add the price of the reward to your pledge (no need to include extra shipping on fewer than 5 books), and you can specify what you want in a survey that will be sent out after the campaign ends.
For bulk orders, I will message you about the number of each book you want.
International shipping is unfortunately very expensive, but I have managed to reduce the cost quite a bit since the last Kickstarter. It's still higher than I would like, but shipping is tough.
U.S. shipping (for non-retail tiers) = $7
Canadian shipping = $12
International shipping (where available) = $16 (Does not include duties and taxes that may apply in your country.) EDIT: I went ahead and added an international shipping option for the sketch tier, but unfortunately it's very expensive for me to ship those overseas. Those are $40 to ship (though it actually costs me $50-$60).
Scurry orders are now Canada and EU friendly!
Update:
I added a tier for people looking to upgrade their first book to the Premium edition by getting the foil stamped slipcase. Extras are not available right now, but may be available in the future on my store.
More Info:
Mac is an artist, illustrator and writer based in Portland, Oregon (but has lived all over the country). He worked in the entertainment industry for over ten years primarily as a concept artist for videogames, but got tired of the studio grind, so he left Southern California and moved to a tiny apartment in the Pacific Northwest to set up shop as an independent artist. It hasn't always been easy (He makes far less money and has zero free time, etc.) but so far it's been one of the best decisions he's ever made. He loves creating art again. Hopefully, with your help, he can continue.
Doug is a dog. A very hairy, very mysterious dog. Mac doesn't know what kind he is, but everyone asks. If Doug knows, he isn't telling anyone. Doug is super secretive about his past.In a transcript of a Pentagon Press Briefing, released this week by Airwars, Central Command’s Deputy Director for Operations made a striking admission about U.S. investigations into civilian casualties in Syria:
Q: Okay. So, you didn’t talk to anybody on the ground and nobody visited the site. Is that — that correct, right? GEN. BONTRAGER: That is correct, Bill, and that’s common. It’s a rare thing with strikes like this that we can get on the ground in person, or that we can talk to anybody on the ground is not uncommon at all.
The admission was made as Bontrager described his investigation into the March 16, 2017 al-Jinah strike, a U.S. strike that human rights NGOs say may have killed up to 38 civilians praying at a mosque. Bontrager concluded, in contrast, that only one civilian “likely” died.
Human rights groups have long voiced concerns about the inadequacy of U.S. investigations into the consequences of U.S. strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere, but it is rare to see such an open and general acknowledgement from the Pentagon that its investigators rarely conduct site visits or speak with witnesses and other people on the ground.
Bontrager described his investigation into the al-Jinah strike as “leaving no stone unturned.” The U.S. Director of National Intelligence has elsewhere criticized NGO research into U.S. strikes and asserted that the U.S. government uses “post-strike methodologies that have been refined and honed over the years.”
But the U.S. government’s failure to regularly interview witnesses is a critical flaw in their investigation methodology. A lack of on-the-ground networks, security concerns and/or issues related to impartiality are not insurmountable and can all be addressed if they are considered to be necessary to a robust investigation.
The U.S. government’s investigations regularly exclude one of the most important sources of evidence, and are at odds with international fact-finding best practice, developed over the past decades by researchers and investigators with human rights NGOs, the United Nations, and international criminal tribunals. It would be unthinkable in those contexts to maintain a regular practice of “investigating” human rights or humanitarian law violations without site visits where possible and without actually speaking with witnesses, victims, and family members. Interviewing is so essential that it has been described as the “bedrock” of human rights fact-finding, and every major guide to or principles for human rights fact-finding contains significant sections on witness interviewing (see here, here, here, here).
Human rights investigators have developed techniques to conduct on-the-ground investigations and witness interviews all around the world, in highly insecure and conflict areas including in Afghanistan, the Philippines, the Central African Republic, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Sites are visited to observe first-hand physical damage, and witnesses and survivors are interviewed to obtain essential information about what happened, how, when, and where.
Witness evidence, of course, can be flawed: eyewitnesses may have poor recall, they may be biased, they can intentionally falsify. (Meghan Foster Lynch’s chapter in the edited volume Counting Civilian Casualties (2013) and Nancy A. Comb’s Fact-Finding without Facts (2010) both include excellent overviews of the challenges in obtaining reliable and credible testimony). This is why human rights investigators need to be trained in interviewing techniques, why large numbers of people are often interviewed, and it is why researchers seek to corroborate witness statements with other sources of information, such as site visits, physical evidence, photographic evidence, medical reports, hospital records, and so on.
Bontrager said his team reviewed “all available video and images.” Many human rights groups are increasingly using satellite imagery techniques and other technologies to document human rights abuses and humanitarian law violations. But these techniques can rarely stand as a full substitute for speaking with victims and witnesses, who help provide important contextual details, resolve inconsistencies, and can shed light on people’s identities, motives, and intentions. This direct contact can also help dispel false assumptions that foreign militaries may have about unfamiliar “pattern of life” behavior. Accounts from Afghan civilians were key to coalition forces learning that it could be farmers, not Taliban fighters, who were escaping the sun by planting their crops, and not IEDs, near the road during the night.
Speaking to victims, witnesses, and other people on the ground also helps provide these investigations a degree of transparency. Without this, affected communities often criticize these investigations as being secretive and incomplete. It is similarly important for as much of the investigation results to be made public as is possible — something the Pentagon has not done in this case and which inhibits independent detailed reviews of their methods and findings. A short (closed) press briefing is deeply insufficient.
The investigation into the al-Jinah strike is a prime example of how important it is to interview witnesses. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, U.S. authorities claimed that it had struck a community hall. True, the building did not have a dome or a minaret that would indicate that it was a mosque to aerial surveillance. But multiple witness statements explaining in great detail the layout and use of the targeted building, together with photos and videos of the interior, allowed civil society organizations to conclude that the targeted building was part of a mosque, a fact that the Pentagon also had to admit after its investigation.
A thorough investigation of the al-Jinah strike could also determine, for example, how many of the people in the mosque were fighters and how many were civilians and whether the pre-strike intelligence provided a correct estimate of this. Although not the only issue to consider in determining the lawfulness of the attack, establishing such facts is nonetheless important in evaluating the reliability of the intelligence so that lessons can be learned from attacks that cause higher than expected civilian casualties. Interviewing witnesses would provide important information about who was a civilian and who was a fighter, especially if people don’t carry weapons or wear uniforms.
In some cases, NGOs and the UN face difficulties in visiting or interviewing at the sites of an alleged abuse—because of extreme insecurity, denial of access by a government or non-state actor, or concerns about retaliation to witnesses or families if they are seen with investigators. In such cases, human rights researchers have found other ways to obtain evidence. Some researchers conduct interviews in highly discrete locations or work with other researchers who can more safely meet with witnesses; witnesses are brought to other sites, interviewed in other towns or countries far away from the site of an attack; and interviews are conducted by phone or video link. The UN’s Commission of Inquiry into North Korea, for example, when North Korea denied their entry, interviewed scores of witnesses in other countries. The international criminal tribunals and the International Criminal Court have interviewed witnesses away from the immediate site of conflict.
When NGOs or the UN have not conducted site visits or interviews, governments lambast them. The U.S. government, for example, heavily criticized a 2006 report of UN Special Rapporteurs in these terms:
It is particularly unfortunate that the Special Rapporteurs rejected the invitation to visit Guantanamo. [The visit was rejected by the Special Rapporteurs after the U.S. said it would only permit a visit subject to restrictions on access, including to detainees.] As a result, their Report does not reflect the direct, personal knowledge that this visit would have provided… We categorically object to most of the Report’s content and conclusions as largely without merit and not based in the facts… [During a visit, the UN team] would have observed first-hand the conditions of detention.
The U.S. government accused the UN investigators of not doing “any meaningful investigation,” listed their failure to visit Guantanamo as the first “flaw” in the UN’s investigation, and critiqued the UN team for not speaking directly with U.S. Department of Defense officials in Washington, DC.
It is undeniable that it can be difficult for the U.S. government to speak directly with victims and witnesses to the al-Jinah strike or its other strikes in insecure locations. This does not, however, allow the government to shed its responsibilities for conducting thorough investigations where there are such serious allegations of civilian casualties and human rights abuse. International law requires governments to carry out comprehensive investigations of alleged serious human rights and humanitarian violations. Investigations into alleged unlawful deaths should be prompt, effective, thorough, independent, and transparent, and victims and families have a right to information about what occurred.
Human rights investigators have demonstrated that the hurdles are not insurmountable. The U.S. government’s failure to speak to people on the ground demolishes Bontrager’s claim that his investigation left “no stone unturned.” Human Rights Watch, in contrast, interviewed 14 people by phone who had first-hand knowledge of the attack, including four who were in the mosque at the time of the attack; eight local residents, first responders, and local journalists who arrived at the site shortly after the attack; and two medical personnel who treated people injured in the attack. Significant reforms are needed to the U.S. government’s investigations to ensure it meets its responsibilities to account for its possible violations of international legal obligations.
Image: Getty/Gokhan SahinBy Cory Woodroof
*finishes hyperventilating*
Oh, hey, everyone, are you still alive?
After the hate-eternal gut punch of Super Bowl 51, the Atlanta Falcons got back at it in the Windy City against a stout Chicago Bears squad. The team didn’t bring the fireworks on offense like we got accustomed to seeing last season, but they did more than enough to secure a win, though it was the defense who sealed the deal.
Brooks Reed, the mighty pass rusher of long hair, sacked Mike Glennon on 4th-and-goal scramble to run the last few seconds off the clock and give Atlanta a road win to start the year. The team looked more complete on both sides of the ball than they did in Week One of last year, which is encouraging knowing the trajectory of the team from Week Two on last year. Though, no season is the same as the other (unless you’re the 7-9 Saints).
Getting new OC Steve Sarkisian adjusted to play calling in the NFL is going to take some time, though if Sunday is as bad as it’s going to get for the Falcons offense, they should be considered one of the best units in the league this season during the transition. On defense, the team had four sacks (two for Reed, one for Vic Beasley Jr., one for Brian Poole), and did a great job of maintaining the Bears’ offense for a good portion of the game. Rookie RB Tarik Cohen looked like Darren Sproles Jr. in his Chicago debut, and gave the Falcons trouble, particularly in the second half.
It could really have gone either way right there at the end with the Bears surging and the defense starting to look a little gassed, but thankfully, Reed stopped Chicago when it counted, and we’re glad to be writing about a narrow victory instead of a narrow loss. Here’s five takeaways from the game.
The Falcons are going to ease Julio Jones back slowly after his foot surgery
Falcons Twitter was irate about the lack of targets for WR Julio Jones today, who still had four catches for 66 yards on a day when he was assumed absent (The Julio Effect). Why not feed the beast when he was clearly going up against a weaker secondary missing its best player? Well, remember who just had surgery, and the point in the season, and check yourself before you wreck yourself. Julio needs time to get comfortable with his foot early in the season – there’s no need to overuse him and risk injury with the Falcons other weapons. WR Taylor Gabriel was also ailing with a hamstring in preseason, and both of those guys really didn’t need to screw up their existing injuries or have another happen on the unforgiving turf of Chicago’s Soldier Field. The Midway Turf Monster remains undefeated, after all. Don’t be fooled, Julio is going to get lots of targets this year. They just might not come as quickly as fans would have hoped.
Wes Schweitzer and Duke Riley are both a work in progress
If you’ll remember last season, and the season before, and all the other football seasons of football seasons past, it sometimes takes time for guys who have not played in the NFL before to play in the NFL at a good-to-great level. Today, the Falcons started two green players – second year guard Wes Schweitzer and rookie linebacker Duke Riley both got the ups from the coaches to get premiere playing time this season. Both guys had rocky days. Schweitzer struggled mightily going up against DE Akiem Hicks, and Riley took his lumps in coverage. Calls to bench Schweitzer rang out as loudly as an alter call after a particularly good sermon, and Riley didn’t really endear himself to new fans either. Guess what? They’re both going to be OK. Riley’s ceiling is higher than Schweitzer’s, but both of these guys have been entrusted with starting positions for a reason. The Falcons favor youth and upside over veteran experience. Look at Schweitzer winning the RG job over Ben Garland, or Riley getting WLB reps over a street veteran, or the rookie movements of 2015 and particularly 2016. This team is going to go with the young guy. Schweitzer and Riley both have key roles on the offense, so it’ll be important for the team’s long-term success for them to grow into them sooner than later. Let’s see how they do over the next few weeks, though, before making any snap judgments, or so sayeth the eternal optimist who knows how this sort of thing usually goes with the fan-types. Oh, the same goes for Steve Sarkisian, the put-upon play caller who was calling his first-ever NFL plays. Give the poor guy some breathing room. When Riley looks like the next great Dan Quinn draft pick, Schweitzer is playing like a young Chris Chester (yeah well he’s not going to be Marshall Yanda) and everyone is talking about how well Sark’s transition is going, I’m pulling out the panic button Tweets from Week One.
Matt Ryan is a very good quarterback
You need to be very happy that Matt Ryan is your team’s quarterback. Lots of teams would be very thrilled if a Matt Ryan waltzed through their door to start. Our arch-rivals the Saints would honestly probably trade Brees for Ryan straight up if we asked. Honestly. Chicago confirmed this is Ryan’s second wind, and he’s got his best chance of making it back to the Super Bowl over these next couple of years. Ryan showed a lot of poise for a guy with his fourth offensive coordinator and, gracious, who knows, umpteenth new starting right guard (Chester’s stability for 2015-16 was rather remarkable, to be honest). He nary hit a snag in the pass game that seemingly left Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman absent in the game plan for the day, a far-cry from the Shanahan days (though, Sarkisian used lots of RB-driven passes in preseason). The touchdown throw to Hooper will be on his highlight reel if he repeats as MVP (which, y’know, stranger things have happened), a moment that showed his grace under pressure and ability to nail the right guy at the right time. He had a good day (21/30, 321 yards, 1TD) for a game where many would consider his unit underperformed. That’s called good quarterbacking. He’s still good, folks. The Shanahan run really helped him mature as a QB.
The Falcons did not almost lose to a bad team today
This is an important part of this five-point recap. The Falcons almost lost to the Bears today – it’s okay, they won, but they very much almost didn’t. If Jordan Howard catches that pass or Brooks Reed gets stood up and Glennon find a receiver, we’re singing a very different tune. Even if they had lost, the loss wouldn’t have been as bad before kickoff. This opining keyboard tapper didn’t really give the Bears that much credit on the defensive line, primarily he didn’t have any warning that Akiem Hicks was a force. He was once a New Orleans Saint. That’s hilarious. GM Ryan Pace is building a strong defense in Chicago. Their front seven is no joke. The LB Danny Trevathan/Jerrell Freeman combo is dang intimidating and limited our run today. When OLB Pernell McPhee gets fully healthy, their defensive front could be a problem for any and every offense they face. Their offense was pretty solid for having Glennon at QB and being down its best offensive lineman – Tarik Cohen is going to be special. You just don’t do that in your rookie debut if not. With Howard and Cohen, the Bears could be giving Atlanta a run for its money for the best running combo in the league here soon. I have no idea if Glennon is their answer or not. Mitchell Trubisky got the preseason hype, but Glennon looked alright going down to the wire. Their situation at receiver is not ideal with WR Kevin White going down for the year maybe, but Cohen’s pass-catching ability certainly helps. The Bears could be a playoff team next year. Heck, the NFL is a weird one. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Chicago is one of six teams standing in the NFC when it’s all said and done. Their crowd also showed up, and got into it as well, making it a legit road disadvantage for Atlanta. So, no, the Falcons did not lose to a bad team today. When it’s all said and done, we might see this as a pretty impressive win for a day when Atlanta’s offense wasn’t the best version of itself.
The defense is better even if it was a bit sloppy
Yes – the defense is better than it was last year. Marquand Manuel’s guys were flying around right up to the last-minute, when the Bears finally opened up the passing game and the likely-gassed defenders put up their final stand (which worked, for what it’s worth). The team had more three-and-outs than I can really remember seeing in a regular season Falcons game, limiting a team with an intimidating ground game to 17 points. That’s pretty rare, considering the audacious amount of points they let up on any given Sunday last season (oh get over yourself they low-key were not good for some of the year). Holding Jordan Howard to 52 yards on 13 carries on the ground is mightily impressive. More careful revisiting will help the scouts to see who really stands out when it’s all said and done, but as a unit, it wasn’t a bad day at the races. Yes, the tackling was sloppy, but that seems to be the case in all Dan Quinn debuts – his scheme takes fine-tuning with guys getting used to the aggressive playstyle. That leads to some inaugural sloppiness. It’ll wear out over time, like it always does.
Parting notes:
TE Austin Hooper is going to be a stud. His two plays today were stargazing-beautiful.
The Green Bay game is going to be interesting, particularly after watching what Seattle’s defensive line did to a lacking Green Bay unit. Aaron Rodgers is a magician, but he can’t avoid a pass rush. The Pack’s defense looks better, though.
OLB De’Vondre Campbell had his best game as a Falcon today. He could be a beast this year.
Vic Beasley Jr. Sack Watch: 1De’V
CB Desmond Trufant is shaking off the rust after returning from injury, but teams still respect him. Look how often Glennon threw his way. Like Arnold, he’ll be back.
Another day, another Robert Alford penalty. Bench him! Cut him! Trade him! Shut it, you nincompoop. Alford rules
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like this team was reincarnated from that Suns team that stole our hearts only four years ago. This team has the same feel of the 2010 Suns that miraculously climbed all the way up to the third seed out West by winning 14 of its last 16 regular-season games and took the Lakers to six games in the Western Conference Finals. We’ve found their spiritual successors. This season might be over, but it’s comforting to know this is a team we can grow old with.Story highlights Burr said Stein's campaign was one of two the panel was beginning to investigate
Stein attended a 2015 gala dinner in Moscow that Michael Flynn also went to
(CNN) Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr says his committee is examining the campaign of Green Party 2016 presidential candidate Jill Stein as part of its investigation into Russian meddling in the US election, and he suggested the panel has more questions for Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Burr had said Monday that Stein's campaign was one of two that the committee was beginning to investigate.
"I think it's safe to say we have two other campaigns we are just starting on," the North Carolina Republican said when asked whether the panel had interviewed a majority of the witnesses in the Russia probe.
Asked what his panel wanted to learn from the Stein campaign, Burr said whether there was "collusion with the Russians."
The senator did not identify the second campaign he was referring to on Monday, and a spokeswoman declined to comment.
Read MoreABOUT A THIRD of the way through Lolita (1955), one of Vladimir Nabokov’s American masterpieces, ill-fated Charlotte Haze receives a letter from her naughty daughter, who’s growing up quick at Camp Q:
“Dear Mummy and Hummy, Hope you are fine. Thank you very much for the candy. I [crossed out and re-written again] I lost my new sweater in the woods. It has been cold here for the last few days. I’m having a time. Love, Dolly.”
Poor Charlotte, literally barred (note the “crossed-out” I) from her child’s inner life, complains that dumb Lo “has left out a word before ‘time.’” Hummy, of course, knows better. The girl meant just what she wrote: she’s having a time, and that’s all there is to it. A red-blooded American teenybopper’s got no time for adjectives. Humbert had clearly made a careful study of Lo’s language, and so had his creator.
Nabokov’s Anglophone admirers have often oohed and aahed at his mid-career linguistic pivot — a reaction the author carefully cultivated, as he did virtually every aspect of his reception. After all, who could fail to be moved by the beauty and pity — according to Nabokov, art’s two conditions sine qua non — of his 1956 afterword to the first American publication of Lolita:
My private tragedy, which cannot, indeed should not, be anybody’s concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses — the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions — which the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own way.
A private tragedy, no one’s concern — a note of humble-humble American aw-shucks lending way to the thick, indulgent strains of Russian toska, which Nabokov defines elsewhere as “the generic term for a feeling of physical or metaphysical dissatisfaction, a sense of longing, a dull anguish, a preying misery, a gnawing mental ache.” Artfully managed. One can be forgiven for momentarily forgetting that the author, raised in part by English governesses on an aristocratic Russian estate, had been exposed to the language virtually from birth. In Speak, Memory (1966), another of his American masterpieces, Nabokov recalls a visit from his father, who “ascertained, with patriotic dismay, that [his five-year-old son] could read and write English but not Russian.” Add to that a degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1922, and his English debut in the 1940s seems a bit less of a feat.
Of course, it’s one thing to write in a language, another to make use of its “implied associations and traditions,” and yet another to align oneself with the warp and weft of those traditions, stitching oneself (cue the aw-shucks again) squarely into the American quilt. The curious, inspiring, and often deeply moving story of that great feat is the subject of Robert Roper’s meticulously researched, insightful, and refreshingly unpretentious Nabokov in America: On the Road to Lolita.
The threads of the story — indeed, entire ready-made patches — were there for the plucking, stored in the magisterial biographies of Brian Boyd (The Russian Years and The American Years) and Stacy Schiff (Véra [Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov]), the more narrowly focused work of scholars such as Alfred Appel Jr., Julian Connolly, Neil Cornwell, Galya Diment, D. Barton Johnson, and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney — assiduously cited in Roper’s bibliography — and countless exchanges among the obsessive Nabokovians who haunt the listserv NABOKV-L. There were also the primary sources: Nabokov’s Letters to Véra, recently translated and edited by Boyd and Olga Voronina; the author’s correspondence with his great American intercessor, Edmund Wilson — Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya — edited by Simon Karlinsky; and the motley strips scattered in memoirs, publishers’ archives, and public and private collections.
Roper, a gifted novelist whose previous nonfiction books have dealt with Walt Whitman and the mountain climber Willi Unsoeld, not only weaves these strands together into a compelling narrative, but enriches them with his own deep understanding and appreciation of the country that fed Nabokov for two decades, both literally and figuratively. The passages chronicling the Nabokovs’ butterfly-hunting journeys out West, a region for which the author had a particular affinity, truly take flight. Most productively, Roper — not a Russian-speaker — never loses sight of the fact that Nabokov’s take on the country is not a native’s; all the better, Roper suggests, for it made him a keener observer, gifted as he was with a “vagabond’s sharp-sightedness” (a felicitous phrase Roper draws from one of Nabokov’s poems):
Nabokov might have made a whole life in the West. The lepping [butterfly-hunting] was fantastic, and he responded joyfully to the landscapes. Writing to the artist Dobuzhinsky, he remarked on the palette of the Grand Canyon, which he mistakenly located in New Mexico: the uncanny “cleaves and cleavages” of orange earth and blue sky were captivating, he reported. In Russian there are different words for light blue (goluboy) and dark blue (siniy), and Russian speakers have been shown to be faster at discriminating among blue tones than are English speakers. “How wonderful was the journeying!” he enthused. “I, of course, in the main caught butterflies along the road, but nonetheless by habit investigated the excellent landmarks.”
Investigate isn’t the word. He “consumed” and digested them, turning out that “crazy quilt of the forty-eight states,” that vital, vertiginous experience he called Lolita — a work of beauty and pity, taking America whole but from the side, a “parody,” as Appel notes and Roper quotes, “with real suffering in it.”
Relying but never parroting Nabokov’s most perceptive exegetes, like Appel, Vladimir Alexandrov, Page Stegner, and Leona Toker, Roper is remarkably good at seeing through Nabokov’s own statements — artful to the point of dodginess — on his vision and praxis. The novelist’s claim of “inventing” America, which he makes in the 1956 afterword to Lolita, cannot be taken at face value. For Nabokov, the consummate defender of the artist’s sovereignty in an age when that sovereignty, as he saw it, was challenged from the left, the right, and the middle(brow), all works of art, however “realistic,” were inventions, the “brew of individual fancy,” an artist’s and audience’s ticket to “aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.” Yet, as he well knew, no work of art could do without a “modicum of average ‘reality,’” enhancing the work’s texture and serving to deepen and complicate the reader’s engagement. Roper understands that Nabokov may well have underplayed the value of his chosen “modicum” and of its particular contribution:
The idea that his vision of his new book, his “brew of individual fancy,” awaited only the injection of local-colorist details — Canadian or Mexican would have served as well — advances an idea that Nabokov liked to propagate, that he was on the Mozartian side of things, his imagination supreme, largely self-contained. In fact the American context was determinative. It fed meaning and amplitude into fancy’s brew.
This shrewd insight opens up new vistas, allowing Roper, for instance, to make bold comparisons between Nabokov and Salinger, one of the few contemporary American authors for whom the Russian émigré upstart had a kind word. The pairing is revealing. Both Lolita and The Catcher in the Rye (1951) explore marginalization in Truman’s and Eisenhower’s America, the fate of Romantic ideals, however warped, in a hypocritical bourgeois milieu, and the fragile sanctity of childhood, with unforeseen threats looming just around the bend. “For both [narrators],” Roper writes,
a certain period of childhood — nymphethood for Humbert, and for Holden those years when a child comes out with things that “just kill” you — is a window on radiance. If it makes sense to speak of an American zeitgeist, then these two seem to have partaken of something within it, maybe of the same thing — each, of course, in his own way.
Roper digs deeper into the American grain, through Melville and Poe (whom he appreciated), down to the Indian captivity narratives that flooded the American literary landscape in the late 18th and early 19th centuries — and which found their way to Russian through Nabokov’s beloved Pushkin and the works of the Irish-born “Captain” Mayne Reid (1818–1883), author of myriad Western potboilers that were extraordinarily popular during Nabokov’s childhood: “Knowing English,” Nabokov recalls in Speak, Memory, “I could savor his Headless Horseman in the unabridged original.” Roper adds: “As quick as he was to pick up American slang, or to become knowing about American locales, he was intuitive and subtle in knowing what tale to tell — a very old tale, as it happened, provocative, formally simple, and outward-facing, toward the American vastness.”
One of the most ecstatic stretches of Lolita takes place in that Western vastness. It features a stop in “Shakespeare, a ghost town in New Mexico, where bad man Russian Bill was colorfully hanged.” Yes, Virginia, there really was a Russian Bill — a cattle-rustler by the name of William Tattenbaum, who claimed to have been an Imperial Life-Guard Hussar in the old country; and hanged he was, in the improbably named Shakespeare, New Mexico. There’s your “modicum” of “reality.” Here it serves to recall Nabokov’s own aspirations, his fiddling with the Gregorian-Julian calendric conversion in order “to find ‘April 23’ under ‘birth date’ in [his] most recent passport, which is also the birth date of Shakespeare” (Speak, Memory). And the birthday of America’s sweetheart Shirley Temple, too. Somewhere between these two icons is our literary bad man, the Russian Bill Shakespeare, composing his love letter to the American language, enjoying a “lavish epileptic fit on the ground in Russian Gulch State Park.” He’s having a time, and he’s giving it to us good.
¤
Boris Dralyuk is the former noir editor of LARB and currently teaches at University of St Andrews, Scotland.Registration Now Open for Fourth North American Open Division Cup!
When?
Registration starts Monday, March 6th at 18:00 PST.
The window to register closes Saturday, March 18th at 18:00 PST.
The fourth tournament cup starts Monday, March 20th at 18:00 p.m. PST.
Why?
The Open Division gives amateur teams a chance to break into professional eSports. With a $14,000 prize pool, teams are competing for $1,000 per cup. More importantly, winning teams will get a chance to challenge the professional HGC-NA teams and take one of their spots in the Premier League.
From here, the top teams will advance to the playoffs and fight for a spot in The Crucible. It is here where the best team will emerge victory and earn their chance at becoming the real deal-- an official HGC team.
How?
Five players must band together and join a single team to play in the Open Division. No team members may be associated with more than one team in the North American Open Division.
Teams must select one Team Captain from within their roster of five players. The role of the Team Manager is to be the primary point of contact for the team.
Sign up your team here starting on March 6th at 18:00 PST and join the HGC Open Discord channel here.
Full list of Tournament rules can be found here.
Follow us on Twitter @GosuGamersHotS for more Heroes of the Storm news and coverage from around the world.An extrasolar world might have multiple moons, as depicted in this illustration by John Whatmough. Scientists say there are probably a lot of the moons in the galaxy, and some might support life. Find more of Whatmough's art at www.extrasolar.net.
Whilethe number of confirmed extrasolar planets is now approaching 300, the tally ofextrasolar moons so far identified is still a rather disappointing zero.
Planetsbeyond our solar system are incredibly challenging to find. Moons are nearlyimpossible with today's technology, given that they are generally expected tobe quite small compared to their parent worlds.
EvenEarth?s moon is invisible on the famous "paleblue dot" image obtained by Voyager 1 from the comparatively smalldistance of 3.7 billion miles? a photograph taken from well within our solarsystem.
Butthe search is not impossible, says Darren Williams, associate professor ofphysics and astronomy at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. Williams believesa moon in orbit around a known extrasolar planet will also be detectable if welook hard enough with the right techniques.
"Itwill add a periodic component to the combined infrared signal" of theplanet-moon system, he said.
Why it matters
Findingmoons is more than just an academic quest to count them up. Planetarysatellites can be highly interesting in their own right.
It'spossible, for example, that lifecould exist on extrasolar moons, researchers say.
And it has been suggested that theocean tides inducedby Earth?s moon may have been necessary to create the conditionsfor life on our planet to begin. At the least, the evolution of life hasbeen affected by our moon's constant tugging.
"We certainly owe our presentclimate stability to the Moon and its stabilizing influence on the spin axis, but I'm not convinced that big moons are a requirement for simple or advanced life," Williams said. "I do think that Earth would have evolved advance lifeeven with greater seasonal extremes, but it may have taken a different evolutionary path."
How to find them
Williamshas modelled an Earth-like planet with moons of varying sizes and concludedthat satellites as small as Earth's moon could be detectable in the infrareddata, owing to their large surface temperature variations. By studying anextrasolar planet and building up a picture of that world?s infrared output,any sizable moons present should be detectable in this way.
Sofar, however, no planet as small as Earth has been detected around anotherstar. But astronomers expect that barrier to be broken soon. Future missions,such as NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder and The European Space Agency's Darwin,will have the ability to return the valuable data required both for findingother Earths and, Williams figures, some moons.
"Thepresent goal is to build instruments capable of seeing something as large asthe Earth or possibly Mars. Smaller Mercury- or Titan-sized objects fall belowthat first-order threshold," Williams said.
Socould these missions cut to the chase and spot an extrasolar moon directly?
"Theymight, if the light collectors are big enough and if the moons are big enough.It will be easier to see moons that happen to transit the face of a star, suchas what the space telescope Keplerwill attempt to do starting next year," Williams explained. The space-basedKepler observatory will note dips in starlight caused by planets crossing infront of stars. If the planets are aligned in such a favourable manner, thenthinking goes, moons ought to transit the stars too.
Asimilar conclusion is reached by Szab?, Szatm?ry, Div?ki and Simon in a paperpublished in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 2005. They conclude that theKepler mission should identify a few extrasolar moons using this method ofdetection.
Upon reflection
Yeteven if we are not lucky enough to catch an extrasolar moon in transit, thesefuture space-based planet hunters will be able to do the observationalgroundwork, in visible light and in the infrared, needed to search forsatellites.
Theseplanet finders will even be capable of detecting the glint of starlightreflecting off any oceans of liquid water an extrasolar planet may harbor.
"Wateris extremely dark in the infrared except when the light reflects from thesurface at a glancing angle," Williams told SPACE.com.
Thisglint will be most apparent when the planet is in a crescent phase, when thestarlight hits the reflective surface at an oblique angle. (Mercury and Venus,as seen from Earth, go through phases similar to our moon. Observations ofother planets around distant stars will undergo phasing, too.) Observing suchreflections can help map the planet?s thermal output and infer the distributionof oceans and continents.
Indeedthe MarsExpress spacecraft is set to observe crescent Earth's ocean reflection thissummer and in fall of 2009 to help understand the phenomenon.Can you depict love in a single photograph?
National Geographic is giving members of its "Your Shot" community a chance to do just that. It's part of an ongoing effort in which the magazine selects a theme and asks readers to submit their photographs online. The current assignment is to take a "Love Snap" photo. Readers have until March 7 to send in a picture depicting their idea of love -- and the submissions so far are already tugging at our heartstrings.
"We challenge you to go beyond the saccharine-sweet clichés," National Geographic writes in the assignment's instructions, "and show us the intimate and personal aspects of your ideas on love."
You can view some of the incredible photographs below, and head to Your Shot to submit your own.
A group of children watch as a walrus performs and then waves to them.
Photograph and caption by Brenda Sutton, National Geographic Your Shot
A picture of my grandma and my young cousin.
Photograph and caption by Hadi Asgari, National Geographic Your Shot
What's more precious than capturing the love of mother and children in one shot? Priceless moment.
Photograph and caption by Drey M., National Geographic Your Shot
No caption.
Photograph by Raffaele Montepaone, National Geographic Your Shot
No caption.
Photograph by Bernard Jacques, National Geographic Your ShotFirst we did long-haul. Now we do life.
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We started as two random guys from New Zealand who’d worn a bunch of bags, but never made one. That all changed in 2013 with the original Minaal Carry-on 1.0.
Since then, you’ve told us that you’re still having huge problems finding gear you can trust; gear that gives you what you need – then gets out of your way.
Seriously, GETOUTOFMYWAY.
You (uh, quite forcefully) told us you wanted more, and this is the moment Minaal becomes more than just the bag you carry on. We want to redefine ‘travel’ in the same way the last 5 years redefined Seinfeld’s dress sense as ‘cool’. Travel is movement, and like you, we never stop moving – meaning we’re committed to building the best gear for life.
When you’re hopping between design meetings, co-working spaces, airports, and fine drinking establishments – does your laptop satchel always fit in? When you’re in a pitch meeting or a boardroom – does your messenger bag generate envious stares? When you want to rush out of the hotel and effortlessly explore a new city, country, or continent – does your wheeled luggage want to play?
"Effortless"
If you’re tired of cheap bags falling apart when you do something totally outrageous like walk around and use them, you know that investing in high-quality tools is more cost-effective and better for your sanity over time. Do you worry about durability every time you pick up your bag?
Core Feature: constantly broken
Our plan is simple: from departure lounge to feet on the ground, we’re all-in on improving how you get from A to B – whether A and B are Saigon and Stockholm, or SoMa and the Sunset.
If you care about moving seamlessly from place to place, from indoor to out, from work to play – we’d be stoked to have you join the Minaal family.
We’re 100% focused on making better stuff. There are no shareholder meetings to distract us, no investors to please, no ulterior motives. Since we launched, the team has travelled hundreds of thousands of miles with Minaal gear – if we make a crappy product, we have to use it ourselves.
Every. Damn. Day.
We’re here to start building a product ecosystem – a product range that’s built to work in harmony; that only gets more useful as you add more pieces. Kickstarter is where it all began for us, and we’re excited to be back home to launch the next phase.
Because we invest in only the best-quality components and design, we never discount regular retail prices. However, for Kickstarter backers only, we’ve massaged the numbers (don’t tell the accountant! … uh... hi Steve, didn’t expect to see you here) and are beyond stoked to be able to offer a huge limited-time Kickstarter deal, PLUS we’ll take care of the shipping to wherever you are in the world, PLUS you’ll get bags from the very first shipment we send out.
Kickstarter-only, limited-time rewards.
You’ve been searching for a high-quality, feature-rich everyday backpack that doesn't make you look like an amateur.
You’ve been craving a bag that keeps your essentials organised and close at hand, while helping you stay professional and absolutely, undeniably attractive.
Or, you already own a Minaal Carry-on, and want a purpose-designed companion bag to make your travels even faster, happier and more productive.
The Minaal Daily has been designed to work as:
Your ready-for-anything everyday backpack – whether you're coding from a cafe in Cambodia, haggling for a hotel in Holland, or doing deals in Dominica
Your active briefcase alternative, when you need to up your game
Your personal item on long-haul journeys, when your Carry-on is your main backpack
We’re on a mission to make movement more efficient, and help you reach your destination ASAP – wherever it may be. Here’s how we do it:
We build gear optimised for the life we actually live, day in and day out – tools that help us explore, create and move faster than everyone else.
Not to mention attractively active.
During the design process, our #1 criteria for all decisions is: “Will this make the experience better?”
The Minaal Daily is for you if:
You’re active, and enjoy looking 'at home' in any environment
You’re building cool stuff (whether it’s a business, art, or a house) and need to securely carry your tools of the trade
You care about maximising your time alive, and minimising wasted time (aka Travel Drag!)
You invest in gear that helps you achieve more, faster
And it’s not for you if:
You don't really care about your appearance
You're content with what's given to you
You DEFINITELY don’t care about quality components and fabric
You believe money is more important than experiences
You prefer large corporations to small, passionate crowdfunded businesses (*single tear*)
Something something Australian (JOKES guys, luv u)
After this campaign, we’ll be launching regular pre-sales, but they’ll be at a higher price and will be second-in-line to receive bags.
Also, for each location we ship from, we’re going to prioritise order of packages by backer number, so if that gets you jazzed, jump in quick!
“Wait a minute – why can’t I use my Carry-on for daily life?!”
You totally can, and you’ll be in great company. But over the past two years, many of you have told us that you’d love a bag specifically built for daily use, rather than carrying on.
The Daily is that bag – custom-built to be your: 1) personal item on long-haul trips, and 2) your daily bag once you get to where you’re headed.
Oh, and of course it integrates perfectly with...
In September 2013, we launched the original Carry-on. It raised over $340,000 in 30 days (more than 11x our original goal). It was a Kickstarter Staff Pick. And at the time, it was the most-funded bag in Kickstarter history.
Better than that? It was shipped on-time. Here’s the original video:
WOWOW Doug looks young and fresh, doesn’t he?
We had an incredible group of backers doing incredible things, and as they travelled the world doing those things, they sent us feedback.
We’re building a company that makes gear for real life. Naturally, the development process for the Carry-on 2.0 looked something like this:
10,000+ emails
2+ years of testing
Uncountable late-night Skype calls with dodgy connections
3,278,453,278 team ‘debates’
1 black eye (don't ask)
In summary: we listened, we questioned, we politely disagreed with each other, we thanked our users profusely.
And then, we made the Carry-on 2.0.
Many other bags focus only on US regulations, which is great – until you want to, um, be somewhere that isn't the US.
The Carry-on 2.0 is the result of incessant travel abuse, thoughtful design, and too many sleepless nights.
It’s been pulled apart and reviewed from the ground up – for an even faster, happier, and more productive travel experience.
Many of you have asked us why we haven't come back to Kickstarter for more than 2 years since our last campaign. There are two reasons: Scale and Listening.
Scale is the level of success we achieved with the first Kickstarter. Over $340,000 in 30 days was more than we'd ever dreamed of, and as two Kiwi dudes who'd never made a bag before, the learning curve was steep (a.k.a exciting as hell). What we expected to be a small niche brand was suddenly crafting bags in large doses to the savviest and most discerning crowd we'd ever met.
And when that crowd talked, we listened.
Firstly, we know how annoying it is to our users when promises are broken. That's why we put such heavy emphasis on meeting or beating our project deadline first time around.
Then, in the 2+ years since, we've been intensively chatting to you all – online, on the street, in departure lounges (hey Chris!) – anywhere we could pretend to be a random bystander asking you creepily intense questions about your bag (you didn't see Doug taking notes in the background?!). Listening is a slow process, and while we could've released any old product, rushed things and grown faster, our primary goal is making your life more rich by making better tools for you to use – every day.
The process begins with listening, then it transfers to the design studio. And yes, when we say studio, we mean converted shipping containers, car trunks (honestly), tiny European cafes, slightly larger Vietnamese apartments, and our parent's houses (MUM, MORE LEMONADE! THIS. IS. SPARTA!!!)
After creating specs, we start constructing prototypes and samples. This is a long, sweaty, sometimes bloody process of elimination. Think the movie '300', but with more bags.
Then it's time to fine tune-the details – again, based on real-world feedback. We spend extra time on the finish of all our gear, because we feel super good when you look super fly.
Through all of it, we keep planning to build a bigger community to listen to. That's why we do this (whereas initially, we thought "well, even if this doesn't work, we've spent tens of thousands of dollars creating a bag we'll love for the rest of our lives").
This is an open call: if you jump on this Kickstarter project, you're part of the family. We want to hear from you in the good times and the bad. We want to design what you want to carry.
And we want to run into you wearing our stuff in the toilets at DFW, because that's where the best product research happens.
*clears throat*
It’s come to our attention that some people assume because we make gear that looks good, and is optimised for business, that it must be weak in some way.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
While we make a concerted effort to avoid meaningless jargon, we DO make our bags ready for real life. As in, the one you spend outdoors.
Don’t believe us? Believe Duncan:
"A chilly hello from the North Sea!"
My original pack has been used on almost every adventure long/short, work/play since its arrival on my doorstep earlier this year!
It has taken a beating; got a little soggy; packed heavy and light; been taken to industry conferences/exhibitions (straps hidden), as well as missioned through packed underground systems in London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, NYC streamlined on my back; been a pillow on the beach; stocked essentials onboard numerous vessels at sea; been through an unknown number of domestic & international airport security lines, & slid happily into lockers full of rigid wheely bags just as well as it has discreetly tucked away 'under the seat in front'.
One word - Stoked!"
The life.
We’re not claiming to be perfect. But we ARE telling you that:
Minaal gear is built for tough conditions.
Our users lead all types of lifestyles, from office to offshore oil rig.
When things get tough, we don’t run away.
Word to your mother.
Despite the huge surprise of raising over 11x the original goal in our first campaign, we fulfilled our physical rewards early or on time around the world (the digital ones were another matter, but hey, we’re a product company!).
We take huge amounts of care with our design, manufacturing and fulfillment processes, and would never rush a delivery date by sacrificing on quality.
We plan on delivering all rewards before the end of May 2016.
Thousands (and that's not an exaggeration) of people have helped along the way. THANK YOU – we couldn’t have done even 1% of this without you. Specific shout outs to:
Sam for his epic design.
Clay for his endless knowledge.
Morgan for knowing obscure Kiwi slang, and how to grip a camera.
Professor Kliq for Ode To Charles
Needless to say, we actually care. We know you can find cheaper bags, but our belief is that you’re the type of person who values high-quality gear; that you strategically invest in tools to maximise your quality of life.
If that’s not you, no worries! There’s something for everyone. But if you’re feeling what we’re throwing down – we’re totally psyched to have you on board.
Minaal Carry-on 2.0WHY — THOUGH IN THE EARLY DAYS OF INTERLACE'S INTERNETTED TELEPUTERS THAT OPERATED OFF LARGELY THE SAME FIBER-DIGITAL GRID AS THE PHONE COMPANIES, THE ADVENT OF VIDEO-TELEPHONING (A.K.A. 'VIDEOPHONY') ENJOYED AN INTERVAL OF HUGE CONSUMER POPULARITY — CALLERS THRILLED AT THE IDEA OF PHONE-INTERFACING BOTH AURALLY AND FACIALLY (THE LITTLE FIRST-GENERATION PHONE-VIDEO CAMERAS BEING TOO CRUDE AND NARROW-APERTURED FOR ANYTHING MUCH MORE THAN FACIAL CLOSE-UPS) ON FIRST- GENERATION TELEPUTERS THAT AT THAT TIME WERE LITTLE MORE THAN HIGH-TECH TV SETS, THOUGH OF COURSE THEY HAD THAT LITTLE 'INTELLIGENT-AGENT' HOMUNCULAR ICON THAT WOULD APPEAR AT THE LOWER-RIGHT OF A BROADCAST/CABLE PROGRAM AND TELL YOU THE TIME AND TEMPERATURE OUTSIDE OR REMIND YOU TO TAKE YOUR BLOOD-PRESSURE MEDICATION OR ALERT YOU TO A PARTICULARLY COMPELLING ENTERTAINMENT-OPTION NOW COMING UP ON CHANNEL LIKE 491 OR SOMETHING, OR OF COURSE NOW ALERTING YOU TO AN INCOMING VIDEO-PHONE CALL AND THEN TAP-DANCING WITH A LITTLE ICONIC STRAW BOATER AND CANE JUST UNDER A MENU OF POSSIBLE OPTIONS FOR RESPONSE, AND CALLERS DID LOVE THEIR LITTLE HOMUNCULAR ICONS — BUT WHY, WITHIN LIKE 16 MONTHS OR 5 SALES QUARTERS, THE TUMESCENT DEMAND CURVE FOR 'VIDEOPHONY' SUDDENLY COLLAPSED LIKE A KICKED TENT, SO THAT, BY THE YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT, FEWER THAN 10% OF ALL PRIVATE TELEPHONE COMMUNICATIONS UTILIZED ANY VIDEO-IMAGE-FIBER DATA-TRANSFERS OR COINCIDENT PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, THE AVERAGE U.S. PHONE-USER DECIDING THAT S/HE ACTUALLY PREFERRED THE RETROGRADE OLD LOW-TECH BELL-ERA VOICE-ONLY TELEPHONIC INTERFACE AFTER ALL, A PREFERENTIAL ABOUT-FACE THAT COST A GOOD MANY PRECIPITANT VIDEO-TELEPHONY-RELATED ENTREPRENEURS THEIR SHIRTS, PLUS DESTABILIZING TWO HIGHLY RESPECTED MUTUAL FUNDS THAT HAD GROUND-FLOORED HEAVILY IN VIDEO-PHONE TECHNOLOGY, ANDVERY NEARLY WIPING OUT THE MARYLAND STATE EMPLOYEES' RETIREMENT SYSTEM'S FREDDIE-MAC FUND, A FUND WHOSE ADMINISTRATOR'S MISTRESS'S BROTHER HAD BEEN AN ALMOST MANICALLY PRECIPITANT VIDEO-PHONE-TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEUR... AND BUT SO WHY THE ABRUPT CONSUMER RETREAT BACK TO GOOD OLD VOICE-ONLY TELEPHONING?
The answer, in a kind of trivalent nutshell, is: (1) emotional stress, (2) physical vanity, (3) a certain queer kind of self- obliterating logic in the microeconomics of consumer high-tech.
l) It turned out that there was something terribly stressful about visual telephone interfaces that hadn't been stressful at all about voice-only interfaces. Videophone consumers seemed suddenly to realize that they'd been subject to an insidious but wholly marvelous delusion about conventional voice-only telephony. They'd never noticed it before, the delusion — it's like it was so emotionally complex that it could be countenanced only in the context of its loss. Good old traditional audio-only phone conversations allowed you to presume that the person on the other end was paying complete attention to you while also permitting you not to have to pay anything even close to complete attention to her. A traditional aural-only conversation — utilizing a hand- held phone whose earpiece contained only 6 little pinholes but whose mouthpiece (rather significantly, it later seemed) contained (62) or 36 little pinholes — let you enter a kind of highway-hypnotic semi-attentive fugue: while conversing, you could look around the room, doodle, fine-groom, peel tiny bits of dead skin away from your cuticles, compose phone-pad haiku, stir things on the stove; you could even carry on a whole separate additional sign-language-and-exaggerated-facial-expression type of conversation with people right there in the room with you, all while seeming to be right there attending closely to the voice on the phone. And yet — and this was the retrospectively marvelous part — even as you were dividing your attention between the phone call and all sorts of other idle little fuguelike activities, you were somehow never haunted by the suspicion that the person on the other end's attention might be similarly divided. During a traditional call, e.g., as you let's say performed a close tactile blemish- scan of your chin, you were in no way oppressed by the thought that your phonemate was perhaps also devoting a good percentage of her attention to a close tactile blemish-scan. It was an illusion and the illusion was aural and aurally supported: the phone-line's other end's voice was dense, tightly compressed, and vectored right into your ear, enabling you to imagine that the voice's owner's attention was similarly compressed and focused... even though your own attention was not, was the thing. This bilateral illusion of unilateral attention was almost infantilely gratifying from an emotional standpoint: you got to believe you were receiving somebody's complete attention without having to return it. Regarded with the objectivity of hindsight, the illusion appears arational, almost literally fantastic: it would be like being able both to lie and to trust other people at the same time.
Video telephony rendered the fantasy insupportable. Callers now found they had to compose the same sort of earnest, slightly overintense listener's expression they had to compose for in-person exchanges.
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contributing factor in the diagnosis of “transgender youth.”
It is a foregone conclusion that the psychological stress experienced by a young person believing they are “actually” a member of the opposite sex cannot be addressed via supportive psychotherapy to help resolve such feelings.
Permanent adult sterility, the usual consequence of puberty blockers followed directly by cross-sex hormones, is an acceptable and tolerable outcome for prepubescent “transgender children.”
Further, despite overwhelming scientific consensus that judgment, decision-making, and awareness of future risks and rewards does not reach maturity in the human brain until the early 20s, prepubescent children facing irreversible sterility are capable of understanding and choosing this consequence.
The possibility of future patient regret (a completely unknown factor at this time) is insignificant in comparison with the urgent need to treat children NOW with hormones and (possibly) plastic surgeries.
Now to the two survey studies. First, let’s look at “Parental Support and Mental Health Among Transgender Adolescents” by Simons et al, examining the impact of parental support on the mental health of 66 self-identifying “transgender” youth ages 12-24. What’s the main conclusion?
Parental support is associated with higher quality of life and is protective against depression in transgender adolescents.
What is meant by “parental support” in the context of the 66 youths included in the survey? The “limitations” section of the study tells us it wasn’t well defined:
The parental support measure did not delineate whether the subject was referring to one or more parents, differentiate between parents and other guardians or caregivers, or explore the impact of other sources of support on mental health. Also, it did not distinguish between general parental support versus support specifically for gender identity, or assess particular parental qualities or actions constituting support.
Readers who have been with me for awhile know that my idea of “support” for my erstwhile trans-identifying teenager did not include agreeing to hormone or surgical treatments. Judging by the vague criteria in the survey, my daughter and I might have presented to Olson’s clinic, with my teen rating me as “supportive” even if, in the end, we left without a prescription for testosterone or a recommendation for “top surgery” (two interventions my teen, at the time, insisted she wanted).
Here is how the study defined parental “support.” The 66 patients
completed a survey assessing parental support (defined as help, advice, and confidante support)
Help, advice, and confidante support? You better believe I provided that to my kid.
Regarding the young people who were surveyed in the study:
Before meeting with medical staff, participants underwent mental health assessment by a provider with knowledge of gender nonconformity in youth to identify major mental health concerns and provide a recommendation that hormone therapy would benefit the participant in their transition process.
But the paper doesn’t provide any hint whether “identify[ing] major mental health concerns” might have included psychotherapy or some other exploration of how these concerns might contribute to the young person identifying as transgender. Nor do we know specifics of what these concerns might be. All we know is that “hormone therapy” was recommended, and it is assumed that a “transition process” was a desirable outcome. In my own personal family case, finding a supportive therapist who was willing to explore other thorny psychological concerns was extremely important and led to a reduction in my child’s desire to medically transition.
Moving on, another limitation noted by the authors is
Findings were based on self-report and may be open to self-presentational biases.
In other words: Like the diagnosis of “transgender” itself, the survey data is based on subjective thoughts and emotions. While the researchers acknowledge this as a “limitation” of their study, why don’t they acknowledge that the “self report” of being the opposite sex (in contravention to objective biological reality) is itself a “limitation” of the entire enterprise of the medical transition of minors? The diagnosis of “transgender children” as opposed to just letting kids be kids, however they “identify,” is the mother of all confirmation biases.
Dr. Olson is listed as the first author of the 2nd study, still in press: Baseline Physiologic and Psychosocial Characteristics of Transgender Youth Seeking Care for Gender Dysphoria. The subjects were 101 youth (approximately 50/50 male and female), ages 12-24, who had indicated the “desire to undergo puberty suppression or phenotypic gender transition” at Olson’s clinic from 2011-2013.
What were some key psychological findings these young people self-reported? (Of note, physiological characteristics did not differ from other similar-aged youth.)
suicidal ideation: 50%
suicide attempt: “nearly 1/3”
depression: mild-moderate 35%, severe 11%
drug use: alcohol (75.5%), tobacco (58%), cannabis (61.5%,), other drugs (43%)
gender dysphoria experienced since approximately age 8
revealed their transgender identification to family at a mean age of 17.1 years [Remember this one]
What do Olson et al conclude from their survey?
…transgender youth are aware of the incongruence between their internal gender identity and their assigned sex at early ages. Prevalence of depression and suicidality demonstrates that youth may benefit from timely and appropriate intervention. All participants expressed a desire to begin hormonal intervention to assist in bringing their physical bodies into better alignment with their internal gender identity.
Seems to me there are several assumptions and confirmation biases in operation here:
“Timely and appropriate intervention” apparently does not include anything other than “bringing their physical bodies into alignment” with internal identity. No suggestion is made that psychological treatement aimed at helping youth feel comfortable in their bodies should even by considered.
The assumption appears to be that depression and suicidality are caused by gender dysphoria–or at the very least, the correlation of suicidal ideation with gender dysphoria–can only be solved through medical transition.
Suicidality rates for other psychological problems (apart from gender dysphoria) are not mentioned or compared in this study, only those of “normal” adolescents (6.7% for ages 12-17, 10.9% ages 18-24), even though there is research (see here, and here for examples) indicating that some disorders may occur at higher rates in people with gender dysphoria. Nothing in the survey or study design indicates any knowledge of these comorbidities, whether there was an attempt to control for them, or the fact that increased suicidality is associated with some of them.
And again, the key assumption: “Identifying” as transgender is a priori a reliable diagnosis, as opposed to a psychological problem that could possibly be exacerbated by some combination of peer pressure, societal trends, or online social media.
But enough of my criticisms. What limitations do the authors of this study see?
…these data describe those who are able to access care related to gender dysphoria and desire medical intervention for gender transition. These results may not be generalizable to transgender youth who are not receiving care or to those who do not desire a phenotypic transition with cross-sex hormones… …Lastly, data collected about early childhood gender nonconforming feelings or behaviors are subject to potential recall bias. Ideally, this information could be collected in a cohort of younger children currently experiencing gender nonconformity.
“Recall bias” means the adolescent or young adult may not be remembering his or her childhood experiences accurately. Also, and even more to the point: if most of the youth in this study “knew” they were trans at 8-years old, but didn’t “come out to family” until about age 17, how are they “truly transgender?” The phenomenon of young kids insisting they are the opposite sex is often touted as proof of some innate brain-based gender. And as anyone who has raised a child knows, 8-year-old children don’t generally hide their true feelings from their parents. If these young people profess to have “known” they were the opposite sex as 8-year-olds, why didn’t they voice this realization earlier? Why did they wait until they were 17?
I have to wonder: given that the patients who completed the survey for this study had managed to secure hormone treatments at Olson’s clinic; and given the ready availability on the Internet of the list of requirements to qualify for hormone therapy, it’s not much of a stretch to think that many likely knew that reporting a long history of identifying as transgender would be helpful in actually qualifying for treatment.
And here comes the final caveat:
Although there are guidelines and recommendations for the treatment of transgender-identified youth with puberty suppression in early adolescence followed by appropriate hormone therapy, there remain fundamental questions about when to start puberty suppression with gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues, when to add cross-sex hormones, and how young is too young for gender confirmation surgery.
Dr. Olson has repeatedly gone on record as promoting early cross-sex hormones, stating in a recent NPR interview that it is “ridiculous” to make an adolescent wait until age 16, as the current WPATH standards prescribe. (Some might counter that it’s more absurd to permanently destroy a child’s fertility.) Interestingly, Olson et al seem to almost concede that point in their last-but-not least limitation to the current study:
Finally, the trajectory of gender nonconformity among peripubertal youth is still difficult to predict, creating serious concerns for providers and families about the possibility of future regret in response to more permanent aspects of hormone therapy, such as breast development and voice deepening. The data we have begun to collect are an attempt to understand the transgender youth population and follow them over time, tracking the safety and efficacy of medical intervention as well as the impact of intervention on quality of life, high-risk behaviors, suicidality, depression indices, gender dysphoria, and potential regret in response to early medical intervention. We will continue to publish our follow-up data as they are collected,
So once again, as I chronicled in an earlier post, providers of medical transition tell us, “We just don’t know.” The implications of this cannot be overstated. These providers are, by their own admission, essentially experimenting on children and adolescents with treatments that have permanent consequences, and they have no idea what the rate of future regret will be. Let’s listen again:
“… the trajectory of gender nonconformity among peripubertal youth is still difficult to predict, creating serious concerns… about …future regret…in response to early medical intervention.”
There it is, folks, in black and white, in a peer reviewed journal. We don’t know, but we’re going to find out–after it’s too late to take any of it back.
It is not my intention to demonize Dr. Olson. In fact, to give Dr. Olson a heaping helping of Benefit of the Doubt, it’s quite possible she is operating from compassion for the suffering of the youth and families who visit her clinic. (I realize more cynical observers might say she and her fellow “gender specialists” are only in this field for profit, but I am not prepared to assign sociopathic greed at this juncture).
Might Dr. Olson be suffering from pathological altruism—a particular brand of confirmation bias?
A working definition of a pathological altruist then might be a person who sincerely engages in what he or she intends to be altruistic acts but who (in a fashion that can be reasonably anticipated) harms the very person or group he or she is trying to help
…such as the substantial percentage of her young patients who, without her intervention, would have been allowed to grow up to be gay, lesbian, or simply “gender nonconforming” adults, their fertility fully intact, without the need for an expensive lifelong medical condition treated by endocrinologists and surgeons.
or a person who, in the course of helping one person or group, inflicts reasonably foreseeable harm to others beyond the person or group being helped
That might be, in the case of the steadily increasing numbers of young women being transitioned, the harm to the lesbian community, particularly the “butch” and “gender nonconforming” lesbian community. And then there is the damage to families–parents, siblings, other relatives–whose doubts and concerns are dismissed as “transphobic.” Their prior knowledge of their loved one; their possibly correct hunch that the young person is not actually in need of such extreme intervention. Their opinions are never considered or legitimized in any research or media story I’ve seen, but brushed aside, as they watch their loved one step on the conveyer belt of puberty blockers-cross-sex hormones-surgery, to be changed forever.
Dr. Olson and the other purveyors of pediatric medical transition are certainly reasonably intelligent human beings; obtaining an MD or PhD is no mean feat. But (again from the above linked article, Concepts and implications of altruism bias and pathological altruism by Barbara A. Oakley)
Intelligence is no safeguard regarding these confirmation bias-related issues. Highly intelligent people, for example, do not reason more even-handedly and thoroughly; they simply are able to present more arguments supporting their own beliefs.Unlike many sites that have attempted to enumerate the Bible’s many contradictions, and in somewhat simplistic or even antagonistic terms, this site is devoted to explaining why there are contradictions in the Bible using modern biblical source criticism. As the term implies, this methodological approach to the Bible looks at the Bible’s sources, that is its once separate and individual texts—all of which were penned by more than 70 different authors, over a period of roughly 1,000 years, to vastly different audiences, and to address vastly different historical, political, and religious circumstances.
The Bible contains thousands of contradictions, from minute differences in narrative details to sweeping theological and ideological disagreements. This has been a well-known fact in the scholarly community for roughly three centuries! It is not debatable. What is debatable are the conclusions that one draws from this data or how to assess this data. But the textual data is unmistakable.
Starting January 01, 2013, I will post these textual data—a biblical contradiction a day! But more importantly I will explain how and why they came about, who wrote the texts that now contradict each other, to whom, when, and why these authors disagreed on the particular contradiction at hand. In sum, the Bible contains contradictions because the Bible is a composite text; it is composed from a vastly profuse array of different, and as we shall see competing, textual traditions, belief systems, and worldviews.
What usually happens in the pubic arena is that one’s personal or cultural values, beliefs, or theologies become more important than what is and is not printed on the pages of the Bible. In other words, the Bible is often vehicled to support this or that modern belief system, irregarldess of what the biblical texts actually say, why they say what they say, to whom they were written, aganst whom they were written, and prompted by what historical circumstance and conditioned by what geopolitical framework, ideology, or worldview….
Seldom do readers of the Bible actually think about the compositional nature of the text they hold in their hands. Many Jews and Christians are completely unaware that the Bible is composed of a vast collection of different texts, themselves composed from a variety of texts and traditions, all of which were written over a period of roughly 1,000 years, by varying authors, and under diverse historical circumstances and religious and political convictions. Many of the Bible’s books—or more precisely the texts and traditions that went into the composition of its books—went through lengthy periods of continual revision, often supplemented with other texts and traditions, and redrafted to suit an ever-changing audience’s political and religious needs. When the Bible as we know it was compiled, these different texts, traditions, and competing theologies were collected together. 99% of the contradictions currently in the Bible are the result of these different and competing texts having been combined together and authenticated as scripture by a later generation of readers. Distinguishing these individual texts and their unique messages, therefore, places a greater emphasis on the individual texts of the Bible, their authors, audiences, reasons for composition, etc., than that which is symbolized or invoked by the word “Bible” itself. It asks us to read and understand these once separate texts on their own terms, within their own literary and historical contexts, long before the Bible was ever created. That’s the task we will be pursuing here. Come join me in this textual and historical adventure….
I will be posting other preliminary posts about the Bible’s compositional history before we examine our first contradiction.Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
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Representative Pingree, Ad Policy
Your announcement yesterday that you will not seek the open Senate seat in Maine made my heart sink. My emotional reaction to your well-reasoned decision surprised me. After all, as someone who has operated in the political arena for quite a while now, I’m accustomed to the pragmatic decisions and political calculations that are the bread and butter of incremental progress. Still, there are moments where outrageous circumstances should trump reasonable decision making, and recent events in the world of US women have been outrageous enough to warrant one of those moments.
The reasons for your decision are apparent and undeniable: early polling shows a nearly impossible pathway to victory in a three-way race; former governor and independent candidate Angus King has established himself as the presumed front-runner and your constituencies overlap; absent one of you dropping out, the race will likely be won by the Republican candidate. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee lauded your decision as the right one for the people of Maine and progressive causes, since neither will benefit from adding another Conservative Republican to the Senate. I am quite certain that party operatives and others are lining up to thank you for “taking one for the team.” But, me? I just wonder when it will be someone else’s turn to step aside for our team.
The number of women representing Americans fell in 112th Congress for the first time in thirty years. In the November 2010 elections, women went from ninety-three seats in the House and the Senate to ninety combined, making the overall percentage of women leadership at the federal level just under 17 percent. That numbers qualifies the United States for a spot at seventy-third place in the world for female representation in government leadership. We are tied with Turkmenistan.
Your announcement comes on the heels of a week dominated by Rush Limbaugh’s series of tirades against Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. Rush has lost close to forty-six advertisers for his rant calling Ms. Fluke a slut for testifying about the need for contraception to be included in healthcare. Yet, the comments from Republican leadership have been milquetoast at best, with majority leader John Boehner seeming to blame both sides equally. Representative Darrell Issa blamed the Democrats for the tone of the contraception debate.
Just before “slut week,” the Senate debated a measure introduced by Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, who believes decisions about contraception coverage should be left to a woman’s employer. In fact, Blunt’s amendment would have allowed employers to withhold payment for other types of health service if the treatment conflicts with their conscience. In the world of the GOP, healthcare should not be between a woman and her doctor but between a woman and her employer, with her employer having final say. The amendment was barely defeated, with three Democrats breaking party to lines to narrow the margin.
This is the same body that in November of 2010 voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have ensured fair pay for women. According to the US Bureau of Labor 2011 Statistics, women earned almost 18 percent less than men last year for a week of full time work. This wage gap has proven disastrous for women on the economic edge in America. Despite the economy showing marginal signs of improvement, more and more women are living in poverty. According to the 2010 Census, four million more women than men face poverty in the United States. Mothers get special punishment in this economy. 34 percent of families with a single mother as head of household are poor and 17 percent live in deep poverty. The same is only true of 17.3 percent of families headed by a single father, with only 8 percent living in deep poverty.
This disparity isn’t only present at the bottom end of the economic spectrum either. In a culture that places a premium on innovation, male-founded startups receive venture capital funding by a margin of four to one over women-founded startups. Women-led companies are twice as likely to get debt capital versus equity capital, requiring that women shoulder more of the risk on their own. These facts are true in spite of research that shows that gender diversity within senior ranks of organizations translates into financial value, especially where innovation is part of the equation.
The issues outlined above have been marginalized as “women’s issues,” despite the fact that they are issues of family, issues of economic competitiveness and issues of national public health. But as Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted after the Blunt Amendment vote: "If the Senate was 83 women and 17 men instead of the other way around, #BluntAmendment would never have made it to the Senate floor."
I hope you understand, Representative Pingree, I respect your choice. It is you who must bear the burden of running—and potentially losing—on your professional future, on your family life, and on your personal health and psyche. You have earned, and will get, my support no matter what path you choose.
But I could not let your decision become a footnote of history without registering protest. As a champion of all of the issues above and of equality for all Americans, you should not have to step aside in this critical year. Since women’s destinies are inextricably tied to the nation’s destiny, we cannot move into a new era of peace and prosperity without addressing them. Yet, forcing these issues out of the women’s ghetto into the light of priority evidently requires more female leadership, which means that maybe it is someone else’s turn to step aside.4 charged in alleged rape of lesbian RICHMOND Hate crime prosecution possible - assailants made comments about victim being a lesbian
Richmond police are looking for 21-year-old Josue Gonzalez as a suspect in the alleged gang rape in December of a 28-year-old lesbian woman. Richmond police are looking for 21-year-old Josue Gonzalez as a suspect in the alleged gang rape in December of a 28-year-old lesbian woman. Photo: Richmond Police Department, Courtesy To The Chronicle Photo: Richmond Police Department, Courtesy To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close 4 charged in alleged rape of lesbian 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
In a case being investigated as a hate crime, two men and two teenagers have been arrested in connection with the alleged gang rape in December of a 28-year-old lesbian, Richmond police said Thursday.
Three suspects were taken into custody on Wednesday, and the fourth suspect, 21-year-old Josue Gonzalez, known by the nickname "Pato," turned himself in Thursday after authorities issued a $1 million arrest warrant, describing him as armed and dangerous, police said. Gonzalez walked into the Richmond police headquarters with his mother, stepfather and girlfriend just 10 minutes after police finished a midday news conference about their pursuit of Gonzalez, authorities said.
Apparently, the widespread publicity about the case was a factor in Gonzalez's surrender. The family "saw all the coverage on the news and got so many calls from the family, they came down to the station," said Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan.
Gonzalez, who immediately told police he wanted a lawyer, was being held on a $1 million arrest warrant on suspicion of his involvement in the alleged rape and kidnapping.
On Wednesday, Richmond police arrested a 15-year-old boy and 31-year-old Humberto Hernandez Salvador at their Richmond homes. The 15-year-old was booked on suspicion of felony counts of sexual assault, kidnapping and robbery, Gagan said. Salvador, who authorities described as the ringleader in the incident, was arrested on suspicion of felony kidnapping to commit a sex crime, carjacking, rape, gang rape, as well as on suspicion of violating probation and committing felonies while on probation.
The teenager is being held with no bail at a juvenile facility in Martinez; Salvador is being held in Contra Costa County Jail in Martinez with no bail.
A 16-year-old from Hercules turned himself in around midnight Wednesday. He is also suspected of felonies related to the alleged rape and kidnapping and was also being held in a juvenile detention center. The teenager, nicknamed "Blue," was accompanied by his family, Gagan said.
Salvador "had the most involvement and gave orders and directions to the other individuals," Gagan said. "But they're all responsible for the crimes that were committed against the victim."
Police allege that on Dec. 13, the 45-minute assault began at 9:30 p.m. in the 1500 block of Visalia Avenue in Richmond's Belding-Wood neighborhood. After the woman was struck with a blunt object and robbed, the suspects then told her to disrobe, police said. She was sexually assaulted in that location and then forced back into her car after the suspects saw someone approaching. She was driven seven blocks away to the 1300 block of Burbeck Avenue, where she was repeatedly sexually assaulted in her car, police said. She was left naked near a burned-out apartment complex, police said.
After the attack, the men drove off in her car. She sought help from a nearby resident, who called authorities.
Investigators are pursuing the case as a hate crime because of comments the suspects made about the victim's sexual orientation. The woman is openly lesbian and had a rainbow sticker on her car, a symbol of gay pride. The case has already drawn national attention.
Authorities offered $10,000 for tips leading to the attackers' arrest. So far the police have not distributed any money, Gagan said, but the community did provide helpful information in the case.
In the wake of the incident, the community held vigils, distributed leaflets and made announcements at local churches, he added.
"The crime had an immediate effect on our community," Gagan said. "Locally people were very afraid to know that these people were out there."
Gagan said the woman is recovering. Community Violence Solutions, a nonprofit rape crisis center, has opened a fund in the name of Richmond Jane Doe to help the woman pay for relocation expenses, police said.
"We know that being the victim of this crime has changed her for life. I can only imagine that knowing these people are in custody is a relief."Image copyright SNS Group Image caption The case concerns the use of Employee Benefit Trusts
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has won a judgement that Rangers' use of Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs) broke tax rules.
Rangers used the scheme from 2001 until 2010 to give millions of pounds of tax-free loans to players and other staff.
In what became known as the "big tax case", HMRC claimed these were salary payments and subject to tax.
HMRC lost its appeals at tax tribunals in 2012 and 2014. Now three judges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh have upheld their appeal.
The appeal was heard by Lord Carloway, sitting with Lord Menzies and Lord Drummond Young.
The judges ruled that if income was derived from an employee's services, in their capacity as an employee, it was an emolument or earnings and "thus assessable to income tax".
The decision is in relation to Murray Group companies including the liquidated company RFC 2012 and does not affect the current owners at Ibrox.
Image copyright SNS Image caption Rangers began using EBTs under Sir David Murray
Analysis by Douglas Fraser, BBC Scotland business and economy editor
The tax authorities have not gone after Ibrox in its pre-collapse incarnation because Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs has much interest in Scottish football. It is because it has been told to step up its pursuit of those who avoid tax.
The Employee Benefit Trust was used by around 5000 British companies, of all sizes, mostly as a reward for top earning rare talent, such as management or sport.
The question was whether the reward was part of income for work, or - as has been argued - the trustee would allocate money from the offshore, untaxed trust as a loan, each one apparently unconnected with the performance of the recipient.
The Court of Session judges have issued a very clear ruling that it is "common sense" and "self-evident" that payments were linked to work. They were merely "redirection of income", and should have been declared by the employer, with tax paid through Pay As You Earn.
If that were not the case, Lord Drummond Young observes "an employee could readily avoid tax by re-directing income to members of his family to meet outgoings that he would normally pay: for example to a trust for his wife... or to trustees to pay for his children's education or the outgoings on the family home".
The judges observe, caustically, that the principle is so glaringly simple and straightforward that it seems to have been overlooked by the tax tribunals.
Their ruling is a powerful weapon HMRC can now wield, unless it's further appealed to the Supreme Court. The tax agency offered a sort of amnesty for those who were willing to settle their tax bills, on relatively favourable terms.
So far it says it has settled with 1500 companies with similar schemes, raising £1.3bn. The opportunity do cut a deal ran out in July this year. A lot of tax lawyers and their clients are about to get busy.
Delivering the opinion of the court, Lord Drummond Young said it was "common sense" that income from employment should be subject to tax.
He stated: "If the law were otherwise, an employee could readily avoid tax by redirecting income to members of his family to meet outgoings that he would normally pay: for example to a trust for his wife... or to trustees to pay for his children's education or the outgoings on the family home.
"The funds are ultimately derived as consideration for the employee's services, and on that basis they are properly to be considered emoluments or earnings."
Tax obligation
The judges' opinion states: "We are of opinion that the sums received by the trustee of the Principal Trust, and in due course by the trustees of the sub-trusts, amounted to a mere redirection of income and thus constituted emoluments or earnings of the employees in question."
The judgement ends: "We accordingly conclude that the primary argument presented for HMRC is correct: the payments made by the respondents to the Trustee of the Principal Trust in respect of employees were emoluments or earnings and are accordingly subject to income tax.
"Furthermore, those payments were made at the time of payment to the trustee of the Principal Trust, with the result that the obligation to deduct tax under the PAYE system fell on the employer who made such a payment."
Image copyright PA Image caption Rangers celebrate with the SPL Trophy in 2005
Analysis by Chris McLaughlin, BBC Scotland sports reporter
Today's court ruling will have no financial impact on Rangers, but questions will be asked about the possibility that the club gained an unfair sporting advantage during the years in question.
Lord Drummond Young himself said in his ruling that if the club hadn't operated the EBT scheme, some players "might well have taken their services elsewhere".
Through liquidation, the "newco" washed its hands of the debt, but it was adamant that the footballing history would remain.
Rangers won a total five league titles between 2001 and 2010. We now have the strange situation whereby some of that history may well have benefited from the sins of the "oldco".
If the Murray Group do not pursue an appeal and the ruling stands, it will be an un-easy part of Rangers' history, to say the very least.
In a statement, HMRC said it had pursued the proper course of action.
"HMRC has a responsibility to make sure people pay what they owe and will always challenge tax arrangements where we do not think they work.
"As supported by the decision in this case, HMRC's view is that Employment Benefit Trust avoidance schemes do not work."
The statement concluded: "HMRC will continue to settle appeals by agreement where appropriate but will if necessary continue to litigate cases where settlements cannot be agreed."Style and sensibility.
Ever since its conception, the Ferrari 250 GT Cabriolet has evoked an illusive and elegant appeal; largely down to its relaxed top-down driving experience.
Since its introduction in 1959, the Ferrari 250 has been the ideal model for a motorist looking for a refined rider rather than full-throttle fervour. But unbeknown to many at the time, beneath the inspiring and sophisticated exterior hid the Colombo V-12 engine. Which meant despite the Ferrari’s air of assurance, it concealed a rugged edge. Making it the most sought after car throughout the 1960’s – with its charms still reigning true today.
This particular 1960 GT Cabriolet Series II, designed by the iconic Pinin Farina, rolls up to auction via RM Sotheby’s Arizona showcase commencing on the 28-29th January 2016. As part and parcel of the process, every Ferrari that passes through RM Sotheby’s is given an imitable tag of excellence, which is certifiably true. But this Ferrari 250 has that added extra which will undoubtedly make it a star of the upcoming auction series.
Built in a limited number, the Series II Cabriolet is complete in a high-shine Blue Sera paintjob, charmingly matched with the tan leather interior. The car also offers practicality to supplement its style, with the Series II Cabriolet boasting a wealth of space to be the perfect weekend-run-around.
It remains lovingly preserved and maintained, as the 1960 Ferrari GT offered its well-heeled owners lashings of luxury, style and performance. It exists to be a true gentleman’s Ferrari.Ohio Gov. John Kasich argued Tuesday that this presidential election offers voters two paths -- one of which "could drive America down into a ditch, not make us great again."
It is an unveiled slap at front-runner Donald Trump.
"Some who feed off of the fears and anger that is felt by some of us and exploit it feed their own insatiable desire for fame or attention. That could drive America down into a ditch, not make us great again," Kasich warned in a prepared speech from the the Women's National Republican Club in New York.
Kasich never mentioned Trump by name, but it's abundantly clear that he was referring to his billionaire opponent. He said Trump's political strategy is "based on exploiting Americans instead of lifting them up," and will "inevitably lead to divisions, paranoia, isolation, and promises that can never, ever be fulfilled."
Trump criticizes the GOP delegate process as "rigged"
He called some of the proposals offered by his rivals "disturbing" and slammed politicians who have made made promises to voters based on polling or on what was politically beneficial.
Kasich blasted his opponents for the nasty personal attacks they've engaged in throughout the campaign and defended his decision to run a positive campaign.
"I have stood on a stage and watched with amazement as candidates wallowed in the mud, viciously attacked one another, called each other liars and disparaged each other's character," Kasich said. "Those who continuously push that type of behavior are not worthy of the office they are seeking."
He slammed policy ideas from both of his GOP opponents during the course of the speech.
"We have heard proposals to create a religious test for immigration, to target neighborhoods for surveillance, impose draconian tariffs which would crush trade and destroy American jobs," Kasich said.
The idea that Muslim neighborhoods would be targeted for surveillance was a proposal espoused by Ted Cruz after the bombings in Brussels, and Cruz also proposed that Muslim Syrian refugees be denied entry to the U.S., but that Christian refugees should be allowed in.
Kasich also summed up Trump's foreign policy proposals in a single line:
"We have heard proposals to drop out of NATO, abandon Europe to Russia, possibly use nuclear weapons in Europe, end our defense partnerships in Asia, and tell our Middle East allies that they have to go it alone."
The former chairman of the House Budget Committee also mocked Trump's and Cruz's methodology for trimming federal spending.
"We have been offered hollow promises to impose a value-added tax, balance budgets through simple and whimsical cuts in 'fraud, waste and abuse.'"
The VAT has been used to describe aspects of Cruz's plan, and Trump's go-to response to questions about balancing the budget has generally been that he will cut waste, fraud and abuse.
In contrast, Kasich described his own path as "steep" but "well-trod" and "solid" -- one based on increased economic growth spurred by a balanced budget plan and a temporary freeze on most federal regulations.
The Ohio governor at this point in the race lags the GOP field in delegates -- CBS News' current delegate count has him at 143 delegates, behind Trump at 743 and Cruz at 540.The number of government tests and requirements for poor people receiving government aid has grown in recent years. Utah in 2012 passed a law requiring drug testing for recipients for Temporary Aid to Needy Families, Alabama passed a similar law in 2014, and Arkansas followed in 2015. Other states, including Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Kansas require drug testing if “reasonable suspicion” exists.
These drug tests target people with almost no income who, in the case of states such as Arkansas, receive as little as $204 a month. And the drug tests hardly ever turn up positive. In 2014 Governor Rick Snyder signed a law in Michigan implementing a pilot program to drug test welfare recipients in three counties; none of the people in the pilot program have tested positive for drugs.
Middle-class and wealthy Americans may not be getting housing vouchers, but they are getting tax deductions, which come when people itemize their taxes
|
News reached out to the county prosecutor, law enforcement and Trey's school district.
All declined requests for an interview citing the on going case.
If Angela does go to jail, she fears most for her children.
"Who would take care of my kids?" she asked. "My boys are mama's boys."
As much as they need her, she admitted she needs them just the same.
In May, Minnesota became the 22nd state to approve specific forms of medicinal marijuana. But the law doesn't go into effect until next year.
The Browns said they can't afford to wait.WARNING: this post is going to be oh-so-very-triggery for victims of rape and sexual assault. I am not kidding.
Dear certain conservative politicians:
Hi! I’m a rapist. I’m one of those men who likes to force myself on women without their consent or desire and then batter them sexually. The details of how I do this are not particularly important at the moment — although I love when you try to make distinctions about “forcible rape” or “legitimate rape” because that gives me all sorts of wiggle room — but I will tell you one of the details about why I do it: I like to control women and, also and independently, I like to remind them how little control they have. There’s just something about making the point to a woman that her consent and her control of her own body is not relevant against the need for a man to possess that body and control it that just plain gets me off. A guy’s got needs, you know? And my need is for control. Sweet, sweet control.
So I want to take time out of my schedule to thank you for supporting my right to control a woman’s life, not just when I’m raping her, but for all the rest of her life as well.
Ah, I see by your surprised face that you at the very least claim to have no idea what I’m talking about. Well, here’s the thing. Every time you say “I oppose a woman’s right to abortion, even in cases of rape,” what you’re also saying is “I believe that a man who rapes a woman has more of a right to control a woman’s body and life than that woman does.”
Oh, look. That surprised face again. All right, then. On the chance that you’re not giving me that surprised face just for the sake of public appearances, let me explain it to you, because it’s important for me that you know just how much I appreciate everything you’re doing for me.
So, let’s say I’ve raped a woman, as I do, because it’s my thing. I’ve had my fun, reminding that woman where she stands on the whole “being able to control things about her life” thing. But wait! There’s more. Since I didn’t use a condom (maybe I’m confident I can get other people to believe it was consensual, you see, or maybe I just like it that way), one thing has led to another and I’ve gotten this woman pregnant.
Now, remember how I said the thing I really like about raping a woman is the control it gives me over her? Well, getting a woman pregnant is even better. Because long after I’m gone, she still has to deal with me and what I’ve done to her. She has to deal with what’s happening to her body. She has to deal with doctor visits. She has to deal with the choice whether to have an abortion or not — which means she has to deal with everyone in the country, including you, having an opinion about it and giving her crap about it. And if she does have an abortion, she has to deal with all the hassle of that, too, because folks like you, of course, have gone out of your way to make it a hassle, which I appreciate. Thank you.
Every moment of that process, she has to be thinking of me, and how I’ve forced all of this on her — exercised my ability to bend her life away from what it was to what I’ve made of it. Me exercising my control.
I gotta tell you, it feels awesome.
But! You know what would feel even more awesome? The knowledge that, if you get your way and abortion is outlawed even in cases of rape, that my control of her will continue through all the rest of her life.
First, because she’ll have no legal choice about whether to have the baby I put in her — sorry, dearie, you have no control at all! You have to have it! That’s nine months of having your body warp and twist and change because I decided that you needed a little lesson on who’s actually running the show. That’s sweet.
Once the baby’s born, the woman will have to decide whether to keep it. Here’s an interesting fact: Of the women who have gotten pregnant from rape who give birth to that baby, most keep the baby, by a ratio of about five to one. So my ability to change the life of the woman just keeps growing, doesn’t it? From the rape, to the nine months of the pregnancy, to the rest of her life dealing with the child I raped into her. Of course, she could put the kid up for adoption, but that’s its own bundle of issues, isn’t it? And even then, she’s dealing with the choices I made for her, when I exercised my control over her life.
Best of all, I get to do all that without much consequence! Oh, sure, theoretically I can get charged with rape and go to prison for it. But you know what? For every hundred men who rape, only three go to prison. Those are pretty good odds for me, especially since — again! — folks like you like to muddy up the issue saying things like “forcible rape.” Keep doing that! It’s working out great for me.
As for the kid, well, oddly enough, most women I rape want nothing to do with me afterward, so it’s not like I will have to worry about child support or any other sort of responsibility… unless of course I decide that I haven’t taught that woman a big enough lesson about who’s really in control of her life. Did you know that 31 states in this country don’t keep rapists from seeking custody or visitation rights? How great is that? That’s just one more thing she has to worry about — me crawling out of the woodwork to remind her of what I did, and am continuing to do, to her life.
Look how much control you want to give me over that woman! I really can’t thank you enough for it. It warms my heart to know no matter how much I rape, or how many women I impregnate through my non-consensual sexual battery, you have my back, when it comes to reminding every woman I humiliate who is actually the boss of her. It’s me! It’s always been me! You’ll make sure it’ll always be me. You’ll see to that.
I am totally voting for you this election.
Yours,
Just Another Rapist.
P.S.: I love it when you say that you “stand for innocent life” when it comes to denying abortions in cases of rape! It implicitly suggests that the women I rape are in some way complicit in and guilty of the crimes I commit on top of, and inside of, their bodies! Which works out perfectly for me. Keep it up!
No, seriously, keep it up.
— JARTwo players with the University of Ottawa GeeGees hockey team have been charged with sexually assaulting a woman in a Thunder Bay hotel room. The incident in February led to the university suspending the hockey program for the 2014-15 season and firing the head coach.
Charged with sexual assault are David Foucher, left, and Guillaume Donovan, both of Gatineau, Que.
The men were charged this week for the incident, which Thunder Bay police said happened early in the morning of February 2. Police said the victim was a 21-year-old woman. Thunder Bay police said in a news release that they learned of the incident from a third party on Feb. 25.
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“The charges against the two men came after an extensive investigation by the Thunder Bay Police Service’s Criminal Investigations Branch,” Chris Adams of Thunder Bay police said in a prepared statement on Friday said. “Investigators travelled to Ottawa in March to conduct interviews with members of the University of Ottawa hockey program.” Helping in the investigation was the Ottawa police sexual assault and child abuse section and the Thunder Bay detachment of the RCMP. At the time of the incident, both men were players with the University of Ottawa men’s hockey team, which was in Thunder Bay to play against Lakehead University in a scheduled O.U.A. division game.
The university fired the head coach of its men’s hockey team after an internal investigation into allegations of excessive drinking and sexual misconduct during the Thunder Bay road trip. While the coach wasn’t involved in any sexual misconduct, he should have told authorities about allegations involving his team, University president Allan Rock said in June.
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The university also suspended its men’s hockey program for the 2014-15 season. As Rock announced the disciplinary moves, he said the university will also implement new policies and behaviour guidelines for its athletes. Charged with sexual assault are Guillaume Donovan, 24, and David Foucher, 25, both of Gatineau, Que. They were charged in Ottawa this week and released on an undertaking that they will appear in court in Thunder Bay on Sept. 30. The university will continue to cooperate with authorities and the program remains under suspension for the fall and winter season, a university spokeswoman said. “The university’s focus was on whether the players’ behaviour met the standards that the university community is entitled to expect from those who have the privilege of wearing the university’s colours,” she said in a prepared statement. She noted that the university suspended the men’s hockey program, not individual players. “The university is rebuilding the men’s varsity hockey program,” she said. “We are hiring a new coach and putting in place improved policies, including new behavior guidelines for student-athletes.”Providence, R.I.----- For a team that practices in the morning, San Jose State University will get accustomed to playing the majority of its 2016 football games at night this season.
The Spartans open the season, Saturday, September 3, at Tulsa, in a 6:00 p.m. (CT)/4:00 p.m. (PT) non-conference contest on the CBS Sports Network. The season-opener at Tulsa will be the first of seven night games and six San Jose State contests carried by the CBS Sports Network.
The Spartans and the Golden Hurricane are meeting for the seventh time after splitting six contests, first since 2004 when both were Western Athletic Conference members and first since both programs changed conferences. Tulsa is the first American Athletic Conference opponent for the Spartans.
San Jose State begins preparation for the 2016 season Friday, August 5 with its first fall practice. Season tickets for the six-game home schedule are available at www.sjsuspartans.com.
2016 San Jose State University Football ScheduleBaniStream (banistream.gurbanikhoj.com) is an innovative web platform, aiming to assist in the learning and practice of reading and reciting Gurbani. The goal is to have an automated “Bani Stream” which displays the related Gurbani tukhs in a continuous un-interrupted flow, at various “depths”.
In its eventual form we hope to allow users the ability to view entire scrolling Shabads at a time with the corresponding tukhs being highlighted and in-sync with audio. Users would have the added ability to zoom in, to granular levels such that they could view a single tukh, or even individual lafaj’s. All this would only just be the start of what is possible, and many other uses for such data sets would also be explored in addition too providing gurbani aid tools.
However, before we can get there we require a data set of lafaj’s synced with our current audio collection.
This is where we require your help. If you feel you have the time ~ 80 hours, over the next few months, then please login and contribute to the project. Contributing is easy and we’ve made our tools as seamless and intuitive as possible.
The tool is self learning, and works on desktop, modern tablet or phone. Simply login using a google account, and use your keyboard, mouse or finger to tap to progress the words forward with the audio. Progress is saved automatically or you can always manually click the save button. If you make a mistake, simply use the back buttons up to you last valid sync and retry.
Lastly it is worth noting that this tool and seva is currently being built around the tremendous work completed by Giani Jaswant Singh AKA Bhagat Ji of Damdami Taksal, and their loyal and dedicated team. It has been their life’s work to teach Shudh Ucharan, (Correct pronunciations), of Gurbani and to bring the arth and vidhiya as taught to them by Sant Giani Gurbachan Singh to the masses.
Any questions, comments, concerns or to just follow our progress you can get at us via the following:
BaniStream App - http://banistream.gurbanikhoj.com
Website - http://www.gurbanikhoj.com,
Twitter @gurbanikhojcom
Tumblr: gurbanikhoj.tumblr.com
Reddit: reddit.com/r/gurbanikhoj
Email - [email protected]
For more information on Giani Jaswant Singh you can visit there main site at: gursevak.com
Photo Credits -
Avatar - Gursheel Singh @ http://500px.com/GursheelPhotography
Maharaj Saroop Profile Banner - Ajmeet Singh - http://ajmeet.deviantart.com/Sinn Fein councillor Christopher Jackson
FOUR families have had to be re-housed since August 11 following sectarian attacks in mainly unionist areas of Derry's Waterside, according to a local councillor.
In the latest incident, shots were fired into the home of a young Catholic mother at Rossdowney Drive on Saturday night.
Her one-year-old daughter was asleep in an upstairs bedroom when two shots were fired through the living room window.
The woman's boyfriend, who is also Catholic, said the bullets narrowly missed him and a friend as they sat watching television.
The 22-year-old, who asked not to be named, said he had no doubt the motive was sectarian.
He told The Irish News that his 21-year-old girlfriend, who has now moved into his mother's home on the city side of Derry, was previously warned about bringing Catholics into the area.
“My girlfriend was out and I was watching television with a friend when two shots came through the window and over our head. The shots went through the window and the wall,” he said.
“One of them stuck in the top corner, just below where the baby was sleeping upstairs.
“People are trying to say that there were other reasons for this but that's not true. We don't go out much. I don't drink at all and my girlfriend barely drinks. She was out on Saturday night and I was babysitting with a friend but she was due back at half eleven or twelve."
Sinn Féin councillor Christopher Jackson said there has been a serious rise in attacks this month.
He said he has helped to rehouse four Catholic and mixed religion families since August 11.
A Catholic man and his Protestant wife and children fled their home in loyalist area after they were given 24 hours to leave, Mr Jackson said.
“I want to get the message out that the vast majority of people in the Waterside are disgusted by this and there's a lot of good work going on to bring the communities together. But we need people to step up to the mark so that these thugs have no hiding place."
PSNI chief inspector Paul McCracken said he was aware of “rumours” that the motivation for Saturday night's attack was sectarian.
“We will certainly explore this line of inquiry. However, I would stress that at this time there is no definitive evidence to suggest that this is the case," he said.
DUP councillor Drew Thompson, who is chairman of the city's policing partnership, said Saturday's attack could not be justified.
“The criminal gang that carried out the shooting have no concern for people living in the area and no matter what rationale is put forward for this attack it has no place in our society,” he said.Not to be confused with Woody Harrelson
Sherwin David "Wood" Harris (born October 17, 1969) is an American actor. He has portrayed the drug kingpin Avon Barksdale on the HBO crime drama The Wire, cocaine dealer Ace in Paid in Full and high school football player Julius Campbell in the 2000 film Remember the Titans. He is also known for playing Brooke Payne on the BET miniseries The New Edition Story in 2017. As of 2016, he plays Barry Fouray on VH1 miniseries The Breaks.
Early life [ edit ]
Harris was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of seamstress Mattie and bus driver John Harris.[1][2] He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theater Arts from Northern Illinois University (NIU) and a Master of Arts from New York University.[3][4][5] He is the younger brother of actor Steve Harris.[6]
Career [ edit ]
While enrolled in NIU, Harris starred in his first major film role in the basketball drama Above the Rim, starring opposite Tupac Shakur,[3] and appeared in many theatrical stage productions of various off-Broadway plays. Harris subsequently guest-starred in a variety of television and film venues before portraying legendary rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix in Showtime's 2000 movie, Hendrix.[3]
Later that year, Harris received his first NAACP Image Award nomination for "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture" along with the Blockbuster Movie Award nomination for "Favorite Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture" for his role as Julius "Big Ju" Campbell in Remember the Titans.[7] In 2002, he starred in the Dame Dash produced cult-classic film Paid in Full, based on the true story of three Harlem drug dealers with Harris playing the real-life kingpin Azie Faison.[8]
He starred as Avon Barksdale, loosely based on the real-life Nathan Barksdale, in the first three seasons of HBO's original series The Wire, as well as one episode in the fifth season.[4][5][9] He also produced his own debut album, Beautiful Wonderful, which was intended for release in 2005.[citation needed]
In June 2008, director Martin Guigui revealed that Harris was cast as Nate "Sweetwater" Clifton in Sweetwater, a movie about the first black player in the NBA.[10] As of April 2013, it is still in production.
In 2009, Harris starred in the film Just Another Day, as a successful fictional rapper named A-maze.[11] The film centers on a clash between a young up-and-coming rapper and an older one at the top of his game, the former played by Jamie Hector (whose character Marlo Stanfield had a similar role with respect to Harris's character in The Wire).
In 2012, Harris narrated the ESPN 30 for 30 film Benji. In the same year he also played Harold "Mitch" Mitchell in the Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams; alongside Blair Underwood, Nicole Ari Parker, and Daphne Rubin-Vega.[3]
In 2015, he reunited with The Wire cast member Michael B. Jordan for Creed, the latest installment of the Rocky franchise, reprising the role in its sequel.
Filmography [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Television [ edit ]Agents Of Mayhem [official site] explicitly plants Saints Row in a futureworld of supervillains and interplanetary metahuman agencies. I use the word ‘explicitly’ because Saints Row IV was already at least part way there, using the grammar of a superhero comic if not the language. I played through a mission of Mayhem recently and while I immediately missed some aspects of Saints Row, as an action game, Agents is streets ahead.
Saints Row IV is a brilliant game and one of the few that has ever made me laugh out loud. That it does so from its opening moments right up to the end credits is incredible. I like to compare the trajectory of the series to the Fast and Furious films, which similarly transitioned from brooding cars and crims drama to action comedies that revel in self-aware excess and ever more ridiculous feats.
In the Fast and Furious films, the central conceit or gag is that no matter how inappropriate vehicles might be for a job, the crew will always plant themselves in a driver’s seat. Whether it’s a heist or a kidnapping, a flotilla of fancy cars are the only way they can see themselves pulling off the job. If they had to deflect a bit of space debris that was heading toward off, they’d somehow manage to incorporate muscle cars into the operation, catapulting them into orbit and nitro-boosting their way to a happy ending.
For the Saints, it was their criminality that defined them even when they’d clearly moved into stories and situations that didn’t rely on their gangland background. Whether they were global celebrities, presidents or Earth’s last hope in the face of an alien menace, the Saints were always the Saints – loud, brash, purple, anarchic, violent and amoral.
With Agents of Mayhem, Volition are jumping forward in time and across the globe to Seoul, shedding the skin of the Saints for a new beginning. There are twelve agents to choose from, with three available on any given mission, and each has special abilities (superpowers) and distinct weapons that lend themselves to certain approaches, but they’re all good at one thing: beating the crap out of LEGION (League of Evil Gentlemen Intent on Obliterating Nations).
Mayhem (Multinational Agency for Hunting Evil Masterminds) operate outside the law, meaning they have some of the anarchic qualities of the Saints, but despite taking place in a future version of the same world and having surface similarities, Agents is a very different game to its predecessors. And that, a quick hands-on suggests, is because it’s actually a good action game rather than a so-so action game with a delicious wrapper.
Yes, I said Saints Row IV was brilliant right at the beginning of this write-up and it is, but the driving, shooting, jumping, climbing and melee combat is fine. Just fine. It does the job. Take away the charisma of the characters and the writing, as well as the weird missions that interrupt the ordinary flow of the game, and I wouldn’t be playing just to enjoy the actual activities – exploring the city and fighting enemies is functional rather than exceptional.
Agents of Mayhem, as much as anything else, looks to be Volition’s attempt to provide something exceptional on the action front. It’s impossible to judge having only seen a single mission but everything is pointing in the right direction. Gunplay feels much weightier, with shotguns causing kickback and hurling enemies across the room, while sniping in the heat of battle flips the entire approach to combat on its head. And you can switch at any time, swapping between the three agents taken on a mission with the push of a button.
Far from a simple way to bulk up on abilities, the agent-swapping is the key to the game’s flow. I used Rama, a bow-wielding sniper, to set up traps that sucked enemies into a mini vortex, and then switched to shotgun-wielding bruiser Hardtack to wade in and take the cluster out with a few blasts. Agent Hollywood is also a good call when enemies are grouped together, able to unleash a pyrotechnic display fit for the multiplex.
That latter is a ‘Mayhem Ability’, requiring a fully charged special bar to activate. The charge is shared between characters, so you could use the sniper, Rama, to pick off smaller enemies from a distance, building mayhem, and then switch to Hardtack to utilise a skill designed to take down a larger boss enemy as soon as the charge is full.
Switching agents is instantaneous, allowing for the construction of interpersonal combos, and while the mayhem charge is shared, health is agent-specific, so swapping out can be used as an emergency escape if someone has taken too much damage. They’ll recover while out of the field and while there was no real threat to survival during the mission I played (I suspect we were playing on easy to ensure nobody died while learning the controls), the final fight ramped up the challenge significantly.
It’s a fight against a supervillain and his bride, who is a K-pop idol that also happens to be an AI in hologram form. The mission begins with the idol on the side of Mayhem but she betrays you at the mid-point, having fallen for one of Legion’s crew, and the mission ends with you crashing the wedding, which is taking place on a giant skybarge, above Seoul.
This whole subplot is delivered in a tone that treats the agents and their predicaments sincerely – the humour is in the character work and the ludicrous situations unfolding rather than the setting itself. Essentially, Volition don’t expect you to find the basic idea of antihero superagents smashing up a city hilarious; just as in the later Saints Row games, they seem willing to explore the weirder corners of this new world for jokes rather than expecting any inherent humour of the premise to do the heavy lifting.
And if this small taster is representative of the full meal, this will be a game that makes you smile more than it makes you laugh. For all that Saints Row IV delivered on the laughs, it was also packed with charming characters. Seems odd, given that they’re a bunch of horrible bastards, but the Saints are enjoyable company. Same goes for the Agents, based on what I’ve seen (just four of the twelves). They’re ready with quips and good natured back and forth, and they’re a properly international bunch. The in-depth and splendid character customisation of Saints Row is out, which breaks my heart just a little bit, but Volition are aiming to provide as much diversity as possible in the twelve characters, and that goes for backgrounds, backstories, aesthetics and playstyles.
As I see it, there’s a definite balancing act here: even half an hour with Mayhem is enough time to declare it superior to Saints Row as an action game, but the focus on a specific set of characters in a more tightly focused experience means some aspects of the Row have been cut away.
In between raiding the wedding and fighting goons in an underground base, I had a brief dash through the city streets. Mayhem’s Seoul has far more character and colour than Steelport, and seeing traffic swerve and crash in an attempt to avoid the fights breaking out made me hopeful that it’ll feel just as (if not more) vibrant and chaotic as well. It’s impossible to tell at the moment though, and it’s not even clear how much vehicular carnage you’ll be able to cause.
This isn’t Saints Row: The Future or Saints Row: The Superheroes, and it might be missing elements of that big urban canvas that Volition’s series has offered in its finest moments. Instead, Agents of Mayhem is perhaps best understood as a singleplayer take on character-driven action games like Overwatch and Battleborn, a skill-based third-person shooter that favours knowledge of the protagonists over a twitchy trigger finger.
There’s a long wait to see if it all comes together and I hope that it’ll still be possible to cause consequence-free trouble in the city between missions, but Agents of Mayhem already feels solid and satisfying. The humour feels almost as close to No One Lives Forever as Saints Row, and the futuristic superheroics allow for that Crackdown vibe that Volition have come close to harnessing in the past. I’m eager to see more.
Agents of Mayhem will be out next year.Christina Applegate (born November 25, 1971) is an American actress and dancer.[1][2] As an adolescent actress, she started playing the role of Kelly Bundy on the Fox sitcom Married... with Children (1987–97). In her adult years, Applegate established a film and television career, winning an Emmy Award and earning Tony and Golden Globe nominations.
Applegate has had major roles in several films, including Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991), The Big Hit (1998), The Sweetest Thing (2002), Grand Theft Parsons (2003), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) and its sequel Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013), Hall Pass (2011), Vacation (2015), and Bad Moms (2016). She has also starred in the 2005 Broadway revival of the musical Sweet Charity. Applegate has played the lead role in the television sitcoms Jesse (1998–2000), Samantha Who? (2007–09) and Up All Night (2011–12).
Biography [ edit ]
1971–86: Early life and projects [ edit ]
Applegate was born in Hollywood, California. Her father, Robert William "Bob" Applegate, was a record producer and record company executive,[3] and her mother, Nancy Lee Priddy, is a singer and actress. Her parents were separated shortly after her birth. She has two half-siblings (Alisa and Kyle) from her father's second marriage. After her parents' divorce, her mother had a relationship with musician Stephen Stills. After her television debut with her mother in the soap opera Days of Our Lives and a commercial for Playtex baby bottles at 3 and 5 months, respectively,[4] Applegate made her film debut in the 1979 film Jaws of Satan (or King Cobra) at the age of 7, followed by 1981's Beatlemania. She debuted in a television movie as young Grace Kelly in the biopic Grace Kelly (1983) and appeared in her first TV series in Showtime's political comedy Washingtoon (1985), in which she played a congressman's daughter. She was also seen as a guest in the shows Father Murphy (1981), Charles in Charge (1984 and 1985), and Silver Spoons (1986). In 1986 Applegate won the role of Robin Kennedy (1986–87), a policeman's daughter, in the police drama series Heart of the City. Meanwhile, she was also seen guest-starring in several other television series such as All is Forgiven, Still the Beaver, Amazing Stories, and the Family Ties episode "Band on the Run" (1987) as Kitten.
1987–2001: Married... with Children [ edit ]
Applegate attending the Governor's Ball following the 41st Annual Emmy Awards, September 1989
In 1987 Applegate played the role of the ditzy, sexually promiscuous daughter, Kelly Bundy, on the Fox Network's first sitcom, Married... with Children. She portrayed her character for 11 years (1987–97). While working on the series, Applegate was seen in Dance Till Dawn (1988, NBC) and in Streets (1990), in which a teenage drug addict is stalked by a psychotic police officer. Applegate guest-starred in 21 Jump Street (1988) and Top of the Heap (1991, as Kelly Bundy), and hosted Saturday Night Live (May 8, 1993, and October 13, 2012) and MADtv (1996).
The character of Sue Ellen Crandell in the black comedy feature Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead (1991) was Applegate's first starring role in a mainstream film, playing a rebellious teenager who is forced to take care of siblings after their summer babysitter dies. Applegate followed with roles in films such as Vibrations (1995), Across the Moon (1995), Wild Bill (1995), Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996), and Gregg Araki's Nowhere (1997). After the sitcom Married... with Children was canceled in May 1997, Applegate starred as Claudine Van Doozen in the independent feature Claudine's Return (or Kiss of Fire), was cast in the action-comedy The Big Hit, and played the fiancée of a mob boss in the Mafia satire Jane Austen's Mafia (1998).
Applegate was one of the founding members of The Pussycat Dolls, which debuted at Johnny Depp's Viper Room on the Sunset Strip in 1995.[5][6] Applegate emceed for the group when they moved to The Roxy in 2002.[7] In 1996 Applegate auditioned for the role of Rose in James Cameron's blockbuster hit fim Titanic, but lost to Kate Winslet. In 1998 Applegate was given the title role in the NBC sitcom Jesse. The series debuted in 1998, received rave reviews, and brought Applegate a People's Choice Award for Favorite Female Performer in a New TV series and the TV Guide Award for Star of a New Series, as well as a nomination at the Golden Globe Awards for Lead Actress in a Comedy. Though the series gained critical praise, it was canceled in 2000.
2002–present: Anchorman, stage and television [ edit ]
The new millennium had Applegate playing the dual role of a 12th-century noblewoman, Princess Rosalind, and her 21st-century descendant, Julia Malfete, in the time-travel comedy Just Visiting (2001). She was Princess Gwendolyn and Kate in the movie Prince Charming (2001). After playing Cameron Diaz's level-headed best friend, Courtney Rockcliffe, in The Sweetest Thing (2002), Applegate continued to play roles in such films as Heroes (2002), and the romantic airplane comedy View from the Top (2003), as well as in the true-crime film Wonderland (2003), based on the Wonderland murders, and the Gram Parsons biopic Grand Theft Parsons (2003). In 2004 Applegate starred alongside Ben Affleck in the holiday comedy Surviving Christmas, and alongside Matt Dillon in Employee of the Month. Behind the screen, she was the executive producer of Comforters, Miserable (2001).
Applegate guest-starred on two episodes of Friends, in the ninth (2002) and tenth (2003) seasons, titled "The One with Rachel's Other Sister" and "The One Where Rachel's Sister Babysits" as Amy Green, Rachel Green's (Jennifer Aniston) sister. She won the Primetime Emmy Award[8] for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series her performance in "The One with Rachel's Other Sister." On the silver screen, she portrayed TV anchorwoman Veronica Corningstone in the 2004 films Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and the bonus film Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (an alternative film comprising alternate takes and deleted scenes and story elements).
In addition to her screen work, Applegate has performed on stage in such productions as The Axeman's Jazz, Nobody Leaves Empty Handed, and The Runthrough, as well as John Cassavetes' The Third Day (co-starring Gena Rowlands). In 2004 she debuted on the Broadway stage playing the title role of Charity Hope Valentine in a revival of the 1966 musical Sweet Charity. In late April 2005, she also took part in the annual Broadway Cares' Easter Bonnet Competition, being sawed in half by a magician in their Clearly Impossible sawing illusion. Sweet Charity ended its Broadway run on December 31, 2005.[9] Applegate eventually took home the 2005 Theatre World Award and was nominated for a 2005 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical.
While appearing in Sweet Charity, Applegate broke her foot, and it was announced that the musical would close during previews. She persuaded the producers to rescind their decision and on April 18, 2005, she made her Broadway debut.[9] Because of her injury, Applegate had to wear special shoes to prevent another incident, and in a 2013 interview said that because of what happened, she "actually can't dance anymore. And that is sad for me because I always wanted to go back. But I probably won't be able to."[10] She does dance whenever the opportunity presents, but cannot do any more strenuous roles.[10]
In 2006 Applegate appeared in Jessica Simpson's music video "A Public Affair" alongside Eva Longoria, Ryan Seacrest, and Christina Milian. She starred in the ABC comedy Samantha Who? from October 15, 2007, until it was canceled on May 18, 2009. The series costarred Jean Smart, Jennifer Esposito, and Melissa McCarthy. The series was about a 30-year-old, who after a hit-and-run accident, develops amnesia and has to rediscover her life, her relationships, and herself.[11] Shortly after the cancellation was announced, Applegate began a campaign to get the show back into production,[12] which was a failure. Applegate topped the list of People's Most Beautiful People in 2009.[13] Applegate appeared with her TV brother David Faustino (Bud Bundy from Married with Children) in an episode of Faustino's show Star-ving.[14]
She also voiced Catherine the Cat in the three-dimensional talking animal sequel Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. Applegate said her mother was the one who wanted her to be involved in the film. Prior to Cats & Dogs 2, she voiced Brittany (one of the Chipettes) in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009), Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011), and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (2015). She starred in the NBC sitcom Up All Night with Maya Rudolph and Will Arnett, and the show debuted on September 14, 2011.[15] On February 8, 2013, she left the series after its second-season hiatus, which was leading into a planned format change.[16]
On July 31, 2013, Applegate was featured on the second episode of the fourth season of the revived American version of TLC's, Who Do You Think You Are? The broadcast centered on Applegate trying to find out for her father, Robert Applegate, about his mother, Lavina Applegate Walton, who was mysteriously absent for most of her son's life and who died early in his life. Applegate also hoped to find out if the hearsay concerning her grandmother's death were true. The actress discovered that Walton died in 1955 from tuberculosis and alcohol-related cirrhosis.[17]
In 2015 Applegate starred with Ed Helms in the National Lampoon sequel Vacation,
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Shkreli caught the Secret Service's attention after he wrote a Facebook post last week that read: 'The Clinton Foundation is willing to KILL to protect its secrets. So on HRC's book tour, try to grab a hair from her... Will pay $5,000 per hair obtained'
Prosecutors also cited several other Twitter and social media postings by Shkreli that they said were harassing to women. On August 31 he posted a picture of him holding a computer chip with the caption that reads: 'How about this chip? 10 million deleted HRC emails? Oh well'
It is just one of a series of controversial social media posts since he was convicted of fraud.
He will now stay behinds bars until his sentencing, where he faces 20 years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in Brooklyn said the September 4 post, which prompted a call from the U.S. Secret Service, showed Shkreli posed a danger to the public that warranted revoking his $5 million bail.
U.S. prosecutors had moved to jail Shkreli last Thursday.
'Since his conviction on August 4, 2017, Shkreli has engaged in an escalating pattern of threats and harassment that warrant his detention pending sentencing,' prosecutors wrote in their motion to a Brooklyn, New York, federal judge in a filing Thursday.
'Most recently, Shkreli threatened former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by publicly offering $5,000 to anyone who would "grab" some of her hair on the defendant's behalf during her upcoming book tour' prosecutors wrote.
Shkreli (seen left with his attorney, Benjamin Brafman, outside U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on August 3) was convicted in August of defrauding investors of two hedge funds he ran, MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare
Shkreli (seen in the above August 15, 2017 file photo) became famous for raising the price of anti-infection drug Daraprim by 5,000 percent in 2015 while he was chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals
The threat required'significant expenditure of resources by the US Secret Service,' prosecutors said, adding that there was risk that one of Shkreli's many social media followers would take his statements seriously.
Prosecutors also cited several other Twitter and social media postings by Shkreli that they said were harassing to women.
'However inappropriate some of Mr. Shkreli's postings may have been, we do not believe that he intended harm and do not believe that he poses a danger to the community,' Shkreli's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said in a statement.
Shkreli apologized for his actions on Monday.
In a letter addressed to Judge Matsumoto, Shkreli wrote that he 'used poor judgment' and 'never intended to cause alarm or promote any act of violence.'
'I wanted to personally apologize to this Court and my lawyers for the aggravation that my recent postings have caused,' Shkreli wrote.
'I understand now, that some may have read my comments about Mrs. Clinton as threatening, when that was never my intention when making those comments.'
Shkreli was convicted in August of defrauding investors of two hedge funds he ran, MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare.
He was acquitted of stealing from a drug company he later founded, Retrophin Inc, to pay them back.
Though he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years, Shkreli will likely serve much less, in part because none of his hedge fund investors lost money.
Shkreli became famous for raising the price of anti-infection drug Daraprim by 5,000 percent in 2015 while he was chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals.
Patients and U.S. lawmakers were outraged.
Since his December 2015 arrest, he has clashed frequently with critics on social media.
Twitter banned him from its platform in January for harassing a female journalist, another incident prosecutors cited in their motion to revoke his bail.1. Idaho is more than just potatoes.
Idaho’s combined public lands total 12 million acres, including 2.4 million wilderness acres and 3,100 miles of whitewater river — that’s more than any other state in the Lower 48. So yes, potatoes made us famous, but it’s our wild landscapes and the fact that any day can include a mix of hiking, biking, rafting, and skiing that makes Idaho so epic.
2. This is not the Midwest.
Contrary to popular belief, Idaho is not just flat plains or farmland. The Sawtooth Mountains alone have more than 40 peaks over 10,000 feet, as well as hundreds of alpine lakes and 700 miles of backcountry trails. Idaho is also home to North America’s tallest single-structure sand dune (Bruneau Dunes, 470 feet) and the deepest river gorge (Hells Canyon, 8,000 feet).
3. Idaho is the birthplace of modern skiing.
Home to the world’s first chair lift, opened in 1936, Sun Valley is where skiing as we know it was born. It’s also where the first helicopter skiing outfit in the US got its start.
4. River surfing is a thing.
And it’s amazing. More than 300 miles from the Pacific Ocean, people are surfing on the curling standing waves of the Lochsa, Salmon, and Payette Rivers, and at the Boise River Park.
5. Hot springs are better than hot tubs.
After a day of skiing or hiking, nothing beats a good soak. Even better than a hot tub full of chlorine is a dip in one of Idaho’s steaming spring-fed pools. Lava Hot Springs is possibly the best known, but there are dozens of less-developed, under-the-radar pools out in the forest wilderness (this guide can get you started). In fact, there are more ‘soakable’ springs here than in any other state — 134 in all.
6. Idahoans aren’t all farmers.
With all of its wilderness area and farmland, most of the state averages fewer than ten people per square mile. But the cities are thriving, and the Boise Valley alone is a growing home to more than 616,000 people. Major tech companies like Micron and Hewlett Packard are set up in the area, so no wonder 50% of Idaho’s exports are in the technology sector, not agriculture.
7. The state is vastly different from top to bottom.
All mountain lakes and ponderosa pine forests, Idaho’s northern panhandle looks like British Columbia. Farther south, the Palouse is entirely different with its rolling grassland hills and fields of wheat. From there, the state’s central Rocky Mountains and rivers could be mistaken for wild Alaska. And the southern Great Basin Desert is like Nevada — filled with endless sagebrush steppe where you’ll find volcanic caves and black-rock river gorges studded with cottonwoods.
8. You’ve never seen stars like this.
It’s not just a few twinkling planets and the Big Dipper. When you’re miles from any city, in a valley between 10,000ft peaks, seeing the bright band of the Milky Way is almost a given. Even within the cities, stargazing is impressive on any clear night (thanks to light pollution ordinances and scant city smog).
9. There are volcanoes here.
They haven’t erupted in eons, but the scars remain. Home to cinder- and spatter-cone volcanoes and lava-tube caves, Craters of the Moon National Monument covers 618 square miles of lava fields in Southern Idaho.
10. There are still places where roads don’t go.
The Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness stretches over 2.4 million acres. And even though there are 2,600 miles of trails, over half of this wild landscape is accessible only by riverboat, small plane, or strenuous off-trail trekking with a Salmon River outfitter. Seen above is Birds of Prey National Conservation Area, another largely roadless patch of wild Idaho, despite sitting right on the outskirts of Boise.
11. Lake swimming beats ocean swimming.
Some of Idaho’s glacial lakes might be cold (popular Redfish Lake’s average water temp is barely 60 degrees by July) but crystal-clear water, beaches fringed with pine trees, and snow-capped mountain peaks in the distance more than make up for the chill. Plus, you never have to worry about sharks or rip currents.
12. It’s good to get away from it all.
Backpacking all or part of Idaho’s 1,200-mile Centennial Trail means no cell service or wifi, no power outlets or running water — you can truly unplug. As Albert Einstein said, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” Idaho is a great place for it.
13. There’s a Niagara of the West.
Niagara Falls gets all the glory, but there’s a taller waterfall this side of the Mississippi that’s just as sweet. In the spring, Idaho’s Shoshone Falls is a thing of glory, with water plummeting 212 feet over a smooth basalt wall into the Snake River Canyon.
14. No national parks, no problem.
Some people think that without a national park, there’s nothing to see here. Wrong. Equal in size to Yosemite, the nearly 800,000-acre Sawtooth National Recreation Area is arguably more wild and rugged than a park, precisely because it’s not one. It’s not crowded, it’s not paved with parking lots. As the locals say, “It’s the Tetons without the handrails.”
15. There’s more to life than work.
Idahoans work hard (proven by the state’s 3.8% unemployment rate), but they aren’t caught up in the rat race. This isn’t LA or NYC — there are ski hills and mountain bike trails within an hour of our city centers, and people take time to enjoy the beautiful outdoors in their backyard. Hopefully you will too when you’re here.
16. Open range laws always apply.
Outside city limits, Idaho cattle are free to roam and graze wherever they’re not fenced out, including on the grassy shoulders around state highways. You hit it, you buy it. Hope you like beef!
17. Idahoans are proud of where they’re from, and they’re not itching to leave.
They know Idaho is underrated, and often phonetically confused with Iowa and Ohio, but they love it here, and they’re not dying to move somewhere “better” or “more civilized.” Even if Idahoans travel or move elsewhere, they know the Gem State equals fresh powder at Christmas and a lake for swimming in summer. It’s mountains and rivers, it’s home, and that’s all that matters.GOLD Coast beachfront residents have been told not to expect help from the city council to combat erosion, even if their properties are about to fall into the sea.
City councillor Greg Betts has little sympathy for residents of luxury homes along Albatross Avenue at Nobby Beach, who yesterday watched helplessly as big seas ate away the last remaining centimetres of land between them and the ocean.
"Council does work to protect public land, but it's up to the owners to protect their own land," he said.
"We've had 20 years of really good conditions where there hasn't been erosion, and people have had plenty of time to fix up their rock walls. You really have to question why they didn't, and now they are complaining."
The seas, driven by huge swells combined with a 1.8m king tide, left several multimillion-dollar properties perilously close to falling into the ocean.
One home next to Nobby Beach Surf Club has only a few centimetres of sand remaining before its expensive glass-panel back fence is swallowed by the ocean.
Nobby Beach resident Leonie Conn said she had watched metres of beachfront dunes disappear in the past three years, with waves continuing to edge closer, stripping sand around her rock wall, leaving huge scarps and a sheer drop to the water.
"I'm not looking out at the waves today," she said.
"I keep thinking, please don't come up."
Read more on this story at the Gold Coast Bulletin.PTI By
Pope Francis told Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk that he would "do everything possible" for the country, amid fears that Russia could be about to invade.
Yatsenyuk said he asked Francis "to pray for Ukraine and for stability in Europe" and told him he was grateful for the support.
He said the Vatican had already averted wars during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the Argentina-Chile territorial dispute in 1978.
The Vatican said in a statement that Francis and Yatsenyuk had discussed the "specific role" that religious organisations could play "in fostering mutual respect and harmony".
"Mention was made of possible further initiatives by the international community in this regard," the statement said.
Yatsenyuk's spokeswoman said the premier was cutting short his trip to Rome and will miss the canonisation of John Paul II and John XXIII, as tensions mount in the eastern part of the ex-Soviet country and Western nations threaten sanctions.
Yatsenyuk spent 18 minutes behind closed doors with the pope, who had urged the international community to "prevent violence" in Ukraine in his Easter Sunday message.
At an exchange of gifts, Yatsenyuk presented Francis with a photograph of Maidan square in Kiev on New Year's night.
"This is where Ukrainians fought for their freedom and rights. Millions of people," he said.
The pope in return offered the Ukraine leader a pen, saying "I hope this pen will sign the peace", to which Yatsenyuk replied "I hope so."Arab Rapper Tests The Limit Of Israel's Artistic Freedoms
Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of Christopher Hazou Courtesy of Christopher Hazou
Thousands of teenagers swoon — Arabs and Jews alike — as Tamer Nafar takes the stage. He's a member of Israel's Palestinian Arab minority, a founding member of the Palestinian hip-hop group DAM — and he sings in Arabic.
At this concert last month in northern Israel, part of a multicultural gathering on the sidelines of the Haifa Film Festival, where Israeli musicians of Ethiopian and Indian descent are also performing, "I'm not political," he raps.
But Nafar is known for other lyrics that are political, like his song "Who's the Terrorist?" in which he says Israel "raped the Arab soul," leading to the birth to terrorism.
Those lyrics, which Nafar didn't sing at the Haifa concert, have offended some Israelis and prompted about two dozen protesters to push their way toward the stage here, yelling at Nafar and his fans and waving Israeli flags.
The controversy over this Arab rapper's lyrics is part of a bigger battle in Israel over the limits of artistic freedom. The Israeli Culture Ministry has sought to rein in acts it says could cause violence. And some Israeli musicians and playwrights are fighting back.
"I love my Arab friends. I love Arab music and art. But this is no art," says protester Edan Zadok, a Jewish Israeli of Indian descent, who says he sympathizes with ethnic minorities in Israel. "Listen, there should be absolute freedom for artists. But when the art becomes hate speech, there is no place for it."
Enlarge this image toggle caption Courtesy of Yohan Segev Courtesy of Yohan Segev
Backstage, Nafar tells NPR he has rapped about terrorism, saying it's sadly a relevant topic in Israel. But he doesn't endorse it, he insists. That would be illegal under Israeli law.
"[My lyrics] discuss sex, love, poetry — also women's rights, also gay rights, also the problem with the occupation," Nafar explains.
He's talking about the Israeli occupation of what he considers Palestinian land. It's an artist's job to bring up taboos and push the boundaries, he says.
Free speech or incitement?
But Israel's Culture Minister Miri Regev, a former military censor, disagrees.
One of her previous jobs in the Israeli army was to prevent sensitive information from being published in the media. She's a controversial figure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conservative Likud Party, infamous for having once called an Arab member of Israel's Knesset, or parliament, a traitor who should "Go back to Gaza!" (He was born in Israel). She called African migrant workers "a cancer in our body." She's also sought to halt public funding for Israeli artists who refuse to perform for Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Regev wrote a letter to Haifa authorities, who made it public, urging them to drop Nafar from this concert's lineup because he "opposes the idea of the State of Israel."
When the rapper spoke in September at the Ophir Awards — the Israeli equivalent of the Oscars — Regev got up and walked out of the auditorium. She objected, she later explained, to Nafar's reading aloud an excerpt of a famous poem by the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.
The poem, entitled "ID Card," contains this line: "I will eat my oppressor's flesh; Beware, beware of my starving; And my rage."
An Arabic-language film, Sand Storm, won the Ophir award for Best Picture for the first time in Israeli history. It will be Israel's entry in the Best Foreign Language Film category at next year's Oscars. But at the awards ceremony in Israel, the two lead actors, Arab women, refused to appear onstage with Regev because of her treatment of Nafar.
Regev's office declined NPR's requests for an interview. But in the past, she's raised the issue of state funding for events where artists are critical of the state.
"I won't be an ATM. I have responsibility for the public's money," Regev said in a statement earlier this year, arguing that state funding for any artwork should factor in allegiance to the state of Israel and respect for its symbols.
Pushing the boundaries
In the ancient Mediterranean port of Acre, the Muslim call to prayer mingles with a Beyonce song at the city's annual alternative theater festival, now in its 37th year. This is another place where artistic freedom is being tested.
The festival has long had a reputation for pushing the boundaries, with nudity and sex scenes onstage. But organizers say this is the first year in the history of the festival that Israel's Culture Ministry has demanded to review the contents of one of its plays.
"Yes, they wanted to review the play, but we didn't let them," says Einat Weitzman, the writer and director of the play in question, entitled Palestine Year Zero.
It's a satire, in Hebrew and Arabic, about the diminishing value of Palestinian homes as Israeli soldiers demolish them. By the end of the one-hour performance, the stage is a pile of rubble — a metaphor, Weitzman says, for the destruction of Palestinian society.
In a statement, the Culture Ministry said it received complaints the play contains messages of "incitement that undermine the state and insult its symbols."
Weitzman refused to hand over her script, and the publicly-funded Acre festival stood by her.
In the end, audiences got to watch her play. But Weitzman says she's worried other artists may think twice about addressing politics in their work.
"I think the problem these days is that artists censor themselves, because they're afraid," she says. "I received a lot of hate messages. People want to kill me. People spit on me in the street. So I know that other people — they don't want to take risks."
The play's lead, Palestinian actor Georges Ibrahim, ended up winning the best actor award at the Acre festival. The rapper Tamer Nafar is still performing, and the culture minister's crusade against him has catapulted him to a household name in Israel.
But Regev's campaign is also gaining notoriety, with her message that the state isn't obligated to subsidize material critical of the state, and that such performances can incite violence.There can’t be a discussion about best pitcher in Japan anymore without Shohei Otani’s name being mentioned. The young Hokkaido Nippon Ham star has been making that perfectly clear since the season began.
What he’s doing this year is amazing. It’s also reminiscent of how two other celebrated Japanese stars made the leap from great to elite.
Otani enters this week 9-1 with an NPB-best 1.47 ERA. Opponents are currently hitting just.154 off him.
Otani also has yet to allow a home run in 79⅔ innings, something no hurler with at least 44 innings pitched can claim. He leads Japan with 99 strikeouts and a 11.18 strikeout rate.
He’s one of three pitchers with an ERA under 2.00, the Orix Buffaloes’ Brandon Dickson (1.75) and the Yomiuri Giants’ Tomoyuki Sugano (1.93) being the others. Otani, however, has a far superior fielding independent pitching (FIP), a measure of the things a pitcher controls. Otani has a 1.54 FIP compared to Dickson’s 3.08 and Sugano’s 3.01.
Basically, Otani is dominating. If recent history is any indication, Japanese hitters will have to just get used to it.
At 20 years old, Otani is still getting better. That means he’s going to get a better feel for his fastball, with velocity that sits in the high 150s (kph, and he can dial it up to 160). That biting slider that had the Chiba Lotte Marines falling over themselves last week is also going to get better — ditto for the splitter. His control should also continue to improve.
Otani is doing all this in his third season, which coincidentally is when Yu Darvish and Masahiro Tanaka, the pitchers he’s compared with most, really emerged as elite stars.
Darvish’s third pro season, in 2007, was a tour de force. The Fighters ace went 15-5 that year with an 1.82 ERA, 2.54 FIP, and 210 strikeouts in 207⅔ innings. Darvish, who was 20 until Aug. 16 of that year, ended the season with an 0.83 WHIP, and opponents hitting.174 against him.
Tanaka was 15-6 in his third year, in 2009. “Ma-Kun” posted a 2.33 ERA, 3.00 FIP and 1.12 WHIP. He struck out 171 in his 189⅔ innings.
Otani is building toward that type of year, and is on a trajectory that might see him join Darvish and Tanaka in the majors one day. He’s already pitching in front of a crowd of scouts with nearly every appearance.
The two-way star is also handy with a bat, but most feel he projects higher as a pitcher.
Darvish, during a December TV special with Tanaka and former pitcher Kimiyasu Kudo, voiced that opinion as well.
“There are a lot of hitters in the majors who are stronger or faster,” Darvish said of Otani at the time. “There’s a better chance to be No. 1 as a pitcher.”
Darvish and Tanaka set the stage for the future in their third seasons and never looked back. Neither won fewer than 10 games in any of their remaining seasons in Japan — both stayed for four more years — and Tanaka’s 2.50 ERA in 2010 was the only time either ace finished a year above 2.00. From their respective third year on, they dominated NPB.
Now, it’s Otani’s time.
He’s beginning to put up the type of numbers those two NPB stars did, and the future looks absolutely blinding.by
In Japan in the good old days, Binyamin Netanyahu would by now have committed hara-kiri.
In England at that time, the monarch would have appointed him governor of the most remote little island in the Pacific Ocean.
In Israel, his popularity rating is bound to go up.
Because in our country, the old adage is getting a new twist: Nothing Succeeds Like Failure.
And what a failure! Wow!
He has practically declared war on the President of the United States, the Leader of the Free World, the Supreme Protector of the Jewish State.
Not so long ago, one would have thought this impossible. But nothing is impossible for Binyamin Netanyahu.
For anyone just arrived from the planet Mars, here is a brief summary of Israel’s dependence on the US: it gets from it the bulk of its heavy arms and does not have to pay for them, it can depend on it to veto all UN Security Council resolutions that condemn Israel’s deeds and misdeeds, it receives from it billions of dollars every year although the Israeli economy is flourishing.
There is another benefit which is often overlooked. Since the world believes that both houses of the US Congress are totally subservient to Israel, all countries pay Israel for access to Congress. One has to bribe the doorkeeper to get in.
For an Israeli prime minister to start a quarrel with the President of the US looks like sheer lunacy – as indeed it is.
Yet Netanyahu is not insane, though his actions suggest that. He is not even a fool.
So what the hell does he think he is doing?
There are several possible explanations I can think of.
One is pampering the Israeli public. Far from creating a New Jew as Zionism promised, the Old Jew dominates Israel. The Old Jew believes that the entire world is anti-Semitic, and any new evidence fills him with satisfaction. You see? The Goyim haven’t changed at all.
Netanyahu’s popularity ratings are bound to rise with every new manifestation of foreign hostility. If even the Americans, who for so long pretended to be the closest friends of Israel, sell us out to the anti-Semitic Iranians, we need a strong and steadfast leader. In short – a Netanyahu.
Another plausible explanation for Netanyahu’s behavior may be his genuine belief that no US senator or representative would ever dare to buck AIPAC’s orders, knowing that this would be the end of his (or her) political career. Like the worst of the anti-Semites, Netanyahu believes that the Jews rule the world, or at least the US Congress. At the crucial moment, Congress will vote for AIPAC, against the US president.
Another explanation may be, paradoxically, a blind belief in President Obama’s integrity. Netanyahu thinks that he can hit him on the head, spit in his eye, kick his behind, and still Obama will act coolly, rationally, and support Israel all the way, except on the Iranian deal. He will go on sending arms and dollars, vetoing Security Council resolutions, receiving phone calls from Israel in the middle of the night.
You know how these Americans are. Subservient. Especially black ones.
But there may be another explanation, that trumps all others.
Affronting the US president, his administration and his party, Netanyahu is gambling with our future. Which brings us to the emperor of the gambling world, the king of Las Vegas, the prince of Macao: Sheldon Adelson.
Adelson does not hide his support for Netanyahu the man, the family and the party. He spends huge sums of money on a Hebrew daily newspaper that is distributed gratis to Israelis, whether they want it or not. It is now the largest-circulation paper in Israel, and devoted personally to Netanyahu and his wife. It has no other purpose.
Yet Adelson seems to have no real interest in Israel. He does not live here, even part time. So what is he getting in return?
Adelson has bought Netanyahu for one single purpose: to place a stooge of his in the White House. It is an aim that any other multi-billionaire cannot even dream of.
To achieve this aim, Adelson needs to use the Republican Party as a ladder. He has to select its candidate for the presidency, derail Hillary Clinton and win the elections. To succeed in all these tasks, he has to mobilize the immense power of the pro-Israel lobby over the US Congress and destroy President Obama.
The first step in this long march is to defeat the Iranian deal. Netanyahu is just a cog in this grand design. But a very important cog.
Does this look like a caricature of Der Stürmer, the infamous anti-Semitic Nazi rag, or, worse, like a page out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious anti-Semitic forgery? It is the classical anti-Semitic picture: the ugly finance-Jew striving for world mastery.
For an Israeli, there is something revolting in this picture. The Zionist vision was born out of the total rejection of this caricature. Jews would cease dealing in stocks and shares and money-lending. Jews would till the land with the sweat of their brow, do productive manual work, reject all kinds of parasitic speculations. This was considered such a high ideal that it justified even the displacement of the indigenous Arab population.
And here we are, a state following the orders of an international casino mogul whose line of business is perhaps the most unproductive in the cosmos. Sad.
Is there a valiant opposition to this course in Israel? None. Literally none.
In all my long life in Israel I have never seen anything as close to a total absence of opposition as we have now.
A few voices in Haaretz, some solitary pronouncements on the extreme leftist fringe, and that’s that.
Apart from these (including Gush Shalom), nothing except thunderous applause for Netanyahu or the dreadful silence of the graveyard.
The treaty is “bad”. Not just bad, but “catastrophic”. Not just catastrophic, but “one of the most terrible disasters in the entire history of the Jewish people”. Something close to a “second Holocaust”. (I am not making this up.)
Netanyahu’s shallow arguments are accepted as sacred truths, like the utterances of the other great Jewish prophets. Nobody bothers to ask the relevant question: Why?
The sun rises in the morning. The rivers flow into the sea. Iran will build an atomic bomb and drop it on us, even though it will thereby bring upon itself a historic disaster. The mullahs are Nazis. The treaty is another Munich agreement. Obama is the new Neville Chamberlain, only black.
Nobody takes the trouble to argue for these assertions. Things are self-evident. Day is day and night is night.
I have seen many situations of a near unanimous public opinion in my life, especially in times of war. But in all of my life I have never experienced such a situation of total unanimity, of total absence of doubting and questioning, as now.
This situation is not without its absurdities. For example: the Iranian Supreme Leader is obviously faced with his own extremists, who accuse him of selling out to the American Satan. To appease them, he has to claim that the treaty is a tremendous victory for the Islamic Republic, that he has brought the US (and Israel) to their knees. The huge Netanyahu propaganda machine is taking up these quotes and selling them as gospel truths. Everyone knows that Iranians always lie, but this time they tell it as it is.
Yair Lapid, the leader of a shrunken “centrist” party now in opposition (the Orthodox did not allow Netanyahu to bring him into the government) denounces the treaty as a historic disaster for the Jewish people. This being so, he asks loudly, why is Netanyahu not compelled to resign after his failure to prevent it? The more so since there is a much more able leader ready to take his place and lead the fight, a man named Lapid.
There is indeed something of a paradox in Netanyahu’s situation: if the treaty is such a historic disaster, “one of the worst in Jewish history”, why is Netanyahu continuing in his job?
To throw out a prime minister, a country needs an opposition to take his place. Actually, that is the main job of the opposition.
Not here.
The Leader of the Opposition (an official title in Israel) condemns the treaty in as strong terms as Netanyahu himself. He has volunteered to go to the USA to help the fight against it. His competitor, Yair Lapid, the son of a far-out nationalist, is even more extreme than him. The leader of the third opposition party is Avigdor Lieberman, compared to whom Netanyahu is a leftist softy. There is, of course, a fourth opposition party – the joint Arab one – but who listens to them?
One would suppose that, faced with such a historic disaster, Israel would be alive with debates about the treaty. But how can one have a debate, if everybody agrees? I have heard not a single real discussion on TV, nor read one in the printed papers, nor on the internet. Here and there a small whisper of doubt, but a debate? Nowhere!
Indeed, one can live happily in Israel for days and hear no mention of this historic disaster at all. The price of cottage cheese evokes more emotion.
So we are happily moving towards disaster – unless one of Sheldon’s stooges, with the help of Bibi, enters the White House.FROZEN ROYALTY EXCLUSIVE: Retired Los Angeles Kings head athletic trainer Pete Demers has seen more than most after a 41-year career in professional hockey that includes 37 years in the Los Angeles Kings’ organization, three with their minor league affiliate in Springfield, and 34 with the Kings. During the vast majority of those years, Demers had to suffer, along with everyone else, from a lot of mediocre, or worse, hockey. But everything changed, almost overnight, on August 9, 1988, when Wayne Gretzky arrived in Los Angeles to stay. Part six of a series.
LOS ANGELES — During his career with the Los Angeles Kings, retired head athletic trainertoiled long hours, starting early in the morning, and often working into the wee hours of the following morning.
Demers spent 34 years with the franchise, and for the vast majority of his career, the team had little success.
“Over the years, it has been frustrating and disheartening, whatever you want to call it,” said Demers. “Every guy who walks though [the dressing room] door puts his heart and soul into it, and then it doesn’t happen, whether we just didn’t have the talent, some stuff was missing, who knows.”
“I probably had the record for seeing more bad hockey than anybody in the history of the league,” Demers joked.
But little did he, or anyone else, for that matter, know that a big, big change was coming in the summer of 1988.
Indeed, just months after Bruce McNall became the sole owner of the Kings on March 23, 1988, having purchased 100 percent of the franchise from Jerry Buss, who owned the Kings, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Forum in Inglewood (where both teams played until Staples Center opened in the Fall of 1999), the Kings’ fortunes changed overnight.
On August 9, 1988, McNall engineered a trade with the Edmonton Oilers that brought the greatest player ever to play the game, Wayne Gretzky, to the Kings.
The Kings sent forwards Jimmy Carson and Martin Gelinas, a first round pick in the 1991 National Hockey League Entry Draft, a first round pick in the 1993 draft and cash, estimated at $15 million, to the Oilers, in exchange for Gretzky, forward Mike Krushelnyski, and right wing/defenseman Marty McSorley.
After an emotional press conference in Edmonton earlier that day, Gretzky flew to Los Angeles, where he faced a huge throng of local print and broadcast media at another press conference.
Demers was there, too.
“I went to the hotel with [his wife], Marilyn, to see the press conference,” said Demers, who worked 2,632 consecutive games with the Kings before retiring in 2006.
What Demers witnessed that evening was the beginning of an entirely new era for the Kings, one that would move them out of darkness and into the brightest of bright lights.
To be sure, the Kings immediately became one of the most popular teams in the league. With Gretzky in the fold, their season ticket base skyrocketed almost overnight, and they immediately became the hottest ticket in town with every game a sellout, drawing celebrities and politicians, in addition to the hard core hockey fans they had always drawn.
A little over a month after the trade, the Kings opened their first training camp with The Great One on the roster.
“I remember when he came to training camp,” said Demers. “He came in with a slice on his finger. I put a band-aid on him, and I said, ‘that’s Wayne Gretzky, and I just put a band-aid on his finger.’ Who can say that?”
“That’s still a very emotional thing for me to think about, even after a 41-year career in pro hockey,” added Demers, who also worked three years with the Kings’ American Hockey League affiliate, the Springfield Kings, along with stints with the Rhode Island Reds of the AHL and the Columbus Checkers of the International Hockey League, prior to coming to Los Angeles.
“He’s only had a handful of trainers with different teams. He played here for eight years. I was very lucky to see him play.”
Gretzky was one of the first players to move away from the traditional wooden hockey sticks, switching to aluminum when he arrived in Los Angeles.
“He was just in the transition of using those new Easton aluminum sticks,” Demers reminisced. “Most players trying these sticks put the blades on themselves. But we did it for him. [Later], we got Easton to do that.”
“That was a big thing—he used four sticks every game,” said Demers. “I taped all his sticks, too. He taped his stick, but then we’d tape his stick also. He might tape his stick, but, in between, the tape might rip. We’d tape his stick and powder it.”
“He used black, sticky friction tape,” added Demers. “We call it Gordie Howe Tape in our game. It’s the old [cloth-type] electrical tape. Very sticky. It had a soft feeling to it, and Gretzky was very soft on the puck.”
One night, taking care of The Great One’s sticks almost caused serious injury.
“You had to heat the blade up to stick it into the shaft,” Demers explained. “One night, I had to go in and change his blade for him. The sticks he had, he didn’t like, and the game was going on. So I looked over to the other trainer and said, ‘watch for me, I’m going in.’”
“I went underneath the stands and back to the locker room,” Demers elaborated. “I heated up his stick, and then I put the torch down, and I’m putting the blade inside the shaft. My pants caught on fire.”
“The washer was going, so I grabbed a wet towel out of the washer. I had polyester pants, and they started to
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were known to be chasing Basel's Mohamed Salah, will also not be pleased that the Egyptian forward has appeared to have been pinched from under their noses by Chelsea. Although the Reds refuse to rule themselves out of the race for his signature despite Chelsea agreeing a deal.
Shinji Kagawa
Ferguson signed Kagawa for £12m from Borussia Dortmund in 2012 with the intention of adding a creative link between midfield and attack.
And despite a promising first season, the Japan international has yet to convince Moyes. It may be a case of the Scot seeking to stamp his own authority on the team with a number 10 of his choosing.
Mata's arrival could leave Kagawa on the bench, or worse, seeking an exit route in a World Cup year but that could play into the hands of Moyes, who may want to use the 24-year-old in exchange for reported targets at Borussia Dortmund - Marco Reus or Ilkay Gundogan.
Dortmund boss Jurgen Klopp is still a huge fan of Kagawa, even if Moyes is not.
United's width
Where Mata will play under Moyes has already become a hot topic for United fans.
If all players are fully fit, then it would be hard not to see the Scot continuing with Van Persie up front with Rooney tucked in behind him. The question then arrives about their fellow attackers. Januzaj has excelled this season, playing on the left and in the number 10 role in Rooney's absence.
So Mata could slot onto the right side of a front three behind Van Persie, but does that come at a cost? The Spaniard is left-footed so tends to come inside from the right when he plays there.
Under Ferguson, United were always a team that attacked with width, but with Antonio Valencia again unconvincing on the right this season, it could be a sacrifice Moyes is willing to make.
"Does he fit in with what I would call the typical philosophy of Manchester United? I would say no," former United full-back Gary Neville has said. "Maybe they have to change the philosophy and maybe that's what David Moyes is thinking. Maybe he wants to play narrow wide players and maybe a three in midfield."The club places great value in the support of its neighbours and, to underline this, will be making a number of tickets available to local residents, priced at just £10 each.
A total of 5,000 tickets will be available during the season, spread across 12 games, starting with the clash with Swansea City on the opening day of the campaign.
Eligibility is determined by postcode, with households in the SO14 0, SO14 1 and SO14 5 areas qualifying.
Interim Managing Director Toby Steele said: “St Mary’s is a vibrant community that we are proud to be a part of, and we hope this scheme will help show how much we value the support of those who live in the vicinity of the stadium.”
Residents who live in the above postcode areas will shortly be receiving leaflets with full information about the offer, as well as an email if they are already registered with us.
If you live in a qualifying household and already possess an account at tickets.saintsfc.co.uk, click here to ensure your details are up-to-date.
If you are a qualifying resident and would like to register for an account, please click here.
For more information, and to see a full list of terms and conditions, click here.Helen Branswell, The Canadian Press
TORONTO -- Cold temperatures kill more people than hot weather does, says a large international study that examined deaths in 13 countries, including Canada.
Interestingly, the research found that most weather-related deaths were not associated with times of temperature extremes -- polar vortexes or wilting heat waves -- but to moderately cold days.
In fact, extreme temperatures were responsible for less than one per cent of deaths in the countries studied while moderately poor temperature conditions were responsible for about seven per cent of deaths. And most of the deaths attributed to moderately poor temperatures were related to moderately cold conditions.
"What we're basically seeing in this study is that moderate days of cold or heat are producing more deaths than days of extremes," said Eric Lavigne, an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa and one of the authors of the paper.
"So when we're seeing these very extreme temperatures -- let's say in some cities in Canada it could be under -30 C, but the rest of the winter it could be between -10 C and -30 C -- well, this range of temperatures... is creating more mortality cases than the extreme."
The study, led by Antonio Gasparrini of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is published in the British medical journal the Lancet.
An international team of scientists analyzed data on more than 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries which represent a variety of climates. Countries studied included Australia, Thailand, China, Sweden and Spain. The deaths occurred over more than two decades, from 1985 to 2012.
The authors said periods of high heat often attract attention and concern.
"It's often assumed that extreme weather causes the majority of deaths, with most previous research focusing on the effects of extreme heat waves," Gasparrini said in a statement.
Lavigne, who teaches in the University of Ottawa's Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, said he and his co-authors wanted to put that assumption to the test.
"We wanted to have a clearer picture of the relationships between cold and heat on the health impacts," he said.
The research suggests about 7.7 per cent of deaths are caused by "non-optimal" temperatures, though that is an average across the countries studied.
The percentage is higher in some countries -- China came in at 11 per cent -- than others. Brazil, for instance, came in near the low end of the spectrum, with only 3.5 per cent of deaths attributable to less-than-ideal temperatures.
The study said five per cent of deaths in Canada were attributable to non-optimal temperatures.
"In the Canadian context I would say that cold weather kills nine times as many people as hot weather," Lavigne said.
"For (all) the countries we investigated, we are seeing that cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather."
The authors said public health officials should keep the impact of moderately cold weather in mind when devising policies aimed at lowering the health risks posed by weather.
A commentary accompanying the paper agrees that the findings may point to a need to rethink public health programs aimed at temperature risks.
"A focus on extreme weather (such as heat waves) might ignore the incremental risk of moderately unusual temperatures," wrote Keith Dear and Zhan Wang of the Global Health Research Center at Duke Kunshan University in Jiangsu, China.Bolles 16-year old Caeleb Dressel has broken the National Age Group Record in the men’s 100 free as another one of the glory age group days of the late 80’s/early 90’s goes by the wayside.
Dressel swam a 49.63 in prelims to break the 1990 record set by Cincinnati legend Joe Hudepohl that had been 50.24. This makes Dressel the youngest swimmer in U.S. history to swim into the 40’s in this race, and he’ll still finish out the summer as a 15-16.
His previous personal best was 50.85; that’s a huge drop, but won’t surprise many in the Bolles camp. We spoke with many around that group this week who were all-but-guaranteeing this record, saying that Dressel has been training really strongly.
Though he trains with Bolles, Dressel is one of the rare part of that club program that doesn’t also swim for the High School, as he attends nearby Clay High School. He trains directly under Jason Calanog. With open contact beginning for college coaches on July 1, the senior-to-be has left a brilliant final impression for coaches trying to identify the top targets headed into the fall.
Dressel previously broke Hudepohl’s yards record at Short Course Juniors in December.A mayoral election in Vermont that became a referendum on refugee resettlement ended Tuesday with the loss of the incumbent who pushed for up to 100 refugees to move into the small city.
Incumbent Rutland mayor Chris Louras lost to city alderman David Allaire by a little over 700 votes, The Rutland Herald reports. Louras reached out to refugee resettlement officials in late 2015 to propose resettling 100 Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the city of 17,000, all without consulting the Board of Aldermen.
“Rutland has been addressing our issues, and, having turned our community around, this is the next logical step — to embrace New Americans and enjoy the economic and cultural benefits that level of diversity will provide,” Louras told local publication Seven Days last June. “There’s not a successful, vibrant and growing community in the country that hasn’t embraced New Americans.”
His opponent, Allaire, maintains he’s not anti-refugee, and that his main qualm with Louras’ proposal is that he went behind the back of the local government. “It seems to be all cloak and dagger, behind the scenes,” the newly elected mayor told Seven Days.
The election largely came to be seen as a referendum on refugees, as local residents flooded town halls to support both sides, with opponents of the resettlement questioning whether the resettled refugees would bring disease and Sharia law.A 12-mile long chase in Madison County came to an end earlier this month when a Sergeant leaped onto a moving vehicle and brought it to a stop.
Video obtained by WOWT 6 News shows the chase come to an end on Highway 81 in Madison County. According to the Sergeant credited with bringing the big rig to a stop, the driver wasn't trying to evade arrest. It turns out the driver was having a diabetic attack.
The man's blood sugar had dropped to a severely low level. He didn't know that he was diabetic until the episode.
"It was just one of those things we had to get done," said Sgt. Volk, the man who ran across traffic and leaped onto the moving semi-truck moving an estimated 25 miles per hour.
Volk told WOWT 6 News that the Madison County Sheriff had dispatched a number of "follow" vehicles to clear the path of the truck. The truck was approaching the Karl Stefan Memorial Airport in Norfolk when Sgt. Volk made his split-second decision to board the moving vehicle.
A number of more populated areas were coming up, and Volk believed it was the last place he'd have a chance to stop the truck. When he got a look at the driver he appeared to be slumped over with little control of the truck.
"This was just a unique circumstance," said Sgt. Volk. "We needed to get that big rig."
The video shows Volk run across Highway 81 while a fellow deputy is driving alongside the runaway semi. Volk appears to leap onto the running board of the truck and work his way inside as he brings the truck to a stop. The video, though grainy, clearly shows Volk hanging on as the driver side door flaps open wildly as the semi comes to a stop.
The semi came to a stop near North Airport Road.
Volk told WOWT 6 News that the driver was given glucose and rushed to an area hospital. Volk hasn't had a chance to speak with the driver, but said he's been told that the man is expected to be fine.In the first three months of Donald Trump's presidency, a narrative has taken hold in the political punditry that owes more to wishful thinking than to empirical observation. Congressional Republicans, the narrative goes, are smart and savvy enough to realize Trump is an unhinged, incurious crank. They are only using him, the thinking goes, to pass their right-wing agenda. They don't really think of him as the legitimate head of their party.
"The relationship between President Donald Trump and his allies in Congress is rooted less in a simpatico bond than in a particularly ugly kind of transactional politics," Brian Beutler of the New Republic wrote on Thursday, in a typical example. "Republicans tolerate his racism, ignore his corruption, laugh off his erratic behavior, and in exchange he leaves the core of the party’s domestic agenda unmolested."
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But this week in politics should raise a troubling alternative possibility: Trump is not an outlier in his party, but is simply an inevitable outgrowth of years of Republicans wallowing in bigotry, replacing proper policy analysis with half-baked ideological posturing and promulgating hyper-partisan conspiracy theories. Trump's paranoia and proud ignorance have worked for him because those qualities have come to define the 21st-century Republican Party.
The first example is no doubt Rep. Devin Nunes' bizarre behavior this week, which was especially troubling in light of his position as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. As Salon's Heather Digby Parton explained:
In a nutshell, Nunes claimed that this unnamed source showed him some intelligence intercept from the transition period before Trump took office that indicated members of the Trump team were under surveillance. Inexplicably, the congressman thought it was appropriate to immediately inform the the subject of the investigation and tell the world that he did it. Under questioning in the two (!) press conferences that Nunes held on the matter, it became clear that he was talking about routine legal surveillance of foreign actors that caught some conversations with Trump transition officials.
One can spin out a million theories about Nunes' cartoonishly unctuous behavior, but perhaps the most likely explanation is also the simplest one: Nunes is sincere about being a Trump sycophant.
After all, Trump has managed to convince millions of Americans, mostly Republicans, to buy into his self-mythologizing about how he's a dealmaking genius businessman. Why shouldn't their congressional representatives be wowed by the same nonsense? It's not like being a right-wing nut presents any real obstacle to holding office in most Republican-leaning districts. If anything, as Trump's election proved, being a kook can actually endear you to the conspiracy-minded conservative masses, who can feel even more validated in their false beliefs by elevating one of their own to office.
Yes, Trump loves throwing out wild conspiracy theories. How does that make him different from congressional Republicans, who have spent the past few years suggesting, without a shred of evidence, that Hillary Clinton did something nefarious with regard to Benghazi, that Planned Parenthood is selling baby parts on the black market, and that climate scientists are engaging in a worldwide conspiracy to hoax the public about global warming?
The behavior of Republicans about Russiagate largely suggests a genuine enthusiasm for the clown in chief. The GOP strategy for Monday's intelligence committee hearings was mainly to run with Trump's impulsive accusations of wiretapping by Barack Obama. That, coupled with Nunes' puppylike eagerness to please Trump by twisting some faint and flimsy evidence to support those accusations, can probably be taken at face value: Most members of the Republican congressional delegation support Trump because they see a fellow traveler and they genuinely love Dear Leader.
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The second example from the week, of course, is the disastrous rollout of the American Health Care Act, the Republican bill meant to gut or replace Obamacare. The entire debacle has been an object lesson in why Trump's indifference to functional policy concerns reflects the attitude of the Republican Party more generally.
Speaker Paul Ryan has long been held out as the exemplary Republican policy wonk. With this bill, he's made it quite clear that he's far from the crafter of innovative solutions that he's supposed to be. Ryan had all these years that Obama was in office to work on a workable replacement for the Affordable Care Act, should the opportunity ever arise. What he's produced reads like what a high school student would come up after spending a weekend overdosing on Ayn Rand novels.
The slapped-together feeling of the Republican bill has only worsened since its initial unveiling, as Ryan and his fellow House Republicans have hastily rewritten the bill with a grab bag of provisions chosen to appease congressional holdouts, with little concern shown for whether these ideas will pass legal muster, much less work as policy. The result is that a vote will apparently be held — whenever it finally happens — on a bill that has less thought and care put into it than your average person's weeknight grocery shopping list.
In his first few months in office, Trump has been roundly criticized for issuing a bunch of ill-conceived executive orders, such as his Muslim travel ban or his order to build a wall along the Mexican border, that seem to have been thrown together on the fly so the president can pretend his impetuous campaign promises were actually sincere policy proposals. Which they were clearly not, as evidenced by the inability of anyone on his team to come up with anything resembling coherent policy.
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But really, is the Obamacare repeal any better? It seems to be born out of the same impulse as Trump's Mexican wall: Republicans liked promising they were going to repeal Obamacare because it was a popular applause line with right-wing audiences. Now, rather than admit that they were blowing smoke that whole time, they've coughed up a bunch of non-policy (and tax cuts) and are trying to pretend that was the plan all along. It's the same thing Trump is doing, except this time the blame can be spread out among the entire Republican congressional coalition.
Trump's BS act got him into office, but now that he's hitting the cold reality of governance, he's finding that he can't simply mug and shrug his way through the job. His approval ratings have been plummeting. But most other Republican politicians are running the same con as Trump, just with less flash and dazzle. Perhaps the multiple disasters of this week will help pundits — and the public — see that the empty-suit problem in the Republican Party extends far beyond its unlikely president.OK, couldn't hold out much more on this subject, and I am seeing it cropping up more and more online these days. Something fishy has been happening at Got A Ukulele Towers... All (yes all) of my ukuleles are now strung with fishing line. You know, the stuff for... erm... fishing... On a musical instrument...
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That is not actually as absurd as it sounds... read on.You see, the thing is, most modern fishing line is made of stuff called Fluorocarbon. Heard that word before? Yes, exactly the same stuff asukulele strings. So I started to do a bit of research and realised that, despite what people may believe, there are not many ukulele string factories around the world making this stuff. They are, in the main, buying their product from the makers of fishing lines. Why? Well, when fishing line makers are churning out this stuff inlengths, so they can justify whole factories to make it. Whilst the ukulele is popular, there just isn't enough string on every uke on the planet to match the amount that is dunked in the ocean by sea fishermen. In short - it makes sense to buy from the established factories who are already making the stuff and have the production facilities in place.So before I get into the details of my experience, some caveats which are really important.1. There is one brand that definitely makes it owns strings in itsfactory. That brand is Aquila. Simple as that. I'm not aware of any other dedicated ukulele string factory, but am happy to be proven wrong if there is, but Aquila actually make lengths of string. I don't believe other brands do. I therefore draw no comparisons between these and Aquila - very different things.2. I am conscious that I rarely give string recommendations to people, though that is not the intention of this post. I remain of the view that strings are a totally personal choice and I am writing this out of interest onlyas a means to say 'this is the ONLY way forward'. Your mileage may vary! It's just an experiment really.3. Likewise, this is not intended to be a post to suggest that the string brands are pulling some sort of huge conspiracy on ukulele players or trying to bash the brands. By buying lines and pre-packaging them, they are providing a hugely helpful service to people who buy strings and don't want to worry about the details like gauges or having to buy reels of the stuff at a higher lumps sum cost. As you read on you will see what I mean.4. I have used the term 'fishing line' here as a catch all term so you know what I am talking about. Technically these are fishing 'leaders' and not the main fishing lines.So back to the testing. I took some advice from a variety of sources, other players mainly but also read this wonderful piece from Kevin Wolfe and learned that a couple of luthiers I have the utmost respect for ( Rob Collins at Tinguitar and Mike DaSilva) use them - and decided to take the plunge. Whilst the concept of usingfluorocarbon fishing lines should work in the same way, I naturally started out with the benefit of experience of some other ukulele players who had tried some specific lines out. The brand I went with was a fishing line made by Seaguar, and in particular their'Blue Label' line of fishing leaders. Pure fluorocarbon, looks like ukulele string, smells like ukulele string.. yadda yadda.. you get the picture. Made in Japan for fisherman is as much as I know really!The first thing to note is this. Buying this stuff ischeap. For good reason it is not available in ukulele lengths, but in reels of 25 metres or more. As such we are talking buying in bulk here. (Hence why I say above that the string brands are providing a valid and valuable service in making up string packs in ukulele friendly lengths). It takes a deep breath to buy that much line, but I thought for the purposes of the blog it was worth it.Also, for me, I have quite a few ukuleles and I do change strings pretty regularly. I worked out that buying a set of five reels of string would be worth the outlay and would re-string all of my instruments several times over. As I DO spend (or have spent) a lot of money on packs of strings over the years, I thought it would pay off. I say that, what I mean is, itpay offthey worked out for me - it was an experiment after all. So, all in all, with import costs (sadly these are not readily available in the UK where I am) the bill came to about £140 in UK in money. It could have been cheaper but I bought more than four reels to give me some flexibility between soprano and concert scales. Either way, I have worked out that I now have about 30-40 sets of strings for my ukes that will cost me approximately £3 or less per set. Compared to the cost of strings on the general market (40 string packs would likely cost me about £300 or more), you are no doubt starting to see the savings. Why have that many sets in stock? Well, I figured that since starting with the ukulele I have probably bought that many over the years... Putting it another way, I could easily spend the amount I paid for these fishing lines on regular branded uke strings in a year.The second thing to be aware of is choosing the right gauges. Fishing lines, naturally, don't sell their lines labelled in string tunings just so daft ukulele players can easily select them. They are sold with test breaking strengths in weights. So, following research from a number of people, including Kevin Wolfes post as linked above and a comparison of Seaguar string diameters against the handy string gauge listings on the Worth string site, I settled on a first set of lines with test breaking strengths that matched what I thought I was looking for. What I found is that you can match breaking strengths levels that have gauges which are close (if not bang on) to the diameters of several major string brands, so I figured I would be good to go.I would point out at this juncture that these are just the ones I went with based on research. I am NOT telling you these are the ones that will work for you. Please don't take this as some sort of gospel! At the end of the day, ukulele strings in packs differ widely and you can get different tensions in a variety of products. The lines I bought were as close a match as I could make for a fairly standard set of fluorocarbon strings. For interest though, I have used some of the following breaking strengths and list below the corresponding string positions. Some others I mention above use these, some recommend other variations. All is good! Experiment!30lb - Soprano / Concert A string40lb - Soprano / Concert G string or Tenor A string50lb - Soprano / Concert E string or Tenor A or G string60lb - Soprano / Concert C string, Tenor E string80lb - Tenor C stringFor low G on a Tenor I have swapped the G string with 90lb test line. And before you ask, no, I have not gone into Baritone territory, but I think that would involve getting a 100-120lb line and then using 80, 60 and 50 for the others... Of course - one can experiment with the above but generally speaking these will give the rightof gauges and tension for the scale of uke in question. You really need to experiment though.So, with that out of the way, how have they worked out? Well, rather brilliantly I must say. For a while now I have been of the view that when it comes to fluorocarbon strings, whilst there may be differences, I think the differences are subtle. The uke and the player have far more impact on tone than whether you use on brand of fluorocarbon over another. I think that ( and no disrespect here) that a lot of it is snake oil and I would defy most people to tell the difference between most fluorocarbon strings in asound test. And here's the thing. My ears cannot distinguish between these fishing lines and Worth Clear strings at all. Honestly. They sound clear, ring nice and bright, have good sustain - heck, they just work. The only difference I have noted is these don't have a totally glossy feel on the fingers. I am not saying they are as rough on the finish as say, original Aquila Nylguts, but they are just not quite as smooth as Worth Clears. No matter, I actually like the feel to them, and they create no extraneous finger noise, so I am not worried.In fact, I am staggered with how satisfied I am with them. Some have been on for a couple of months now and have had regular play, yet none have gone dull or snapped. I've played at band practice with them over and over and never once thought 'what are these things'. They feel like ukulele strings! In short they make GREAT strings.(Putting it another way, I won't have any need to buy ukulele strings for some time!)Sound wise, I have shared this video before, but here we have a side by side comparison of some brand name strings and the same Seaguar fishing leaders - can you say one sounds worse than the other?As a final word - I didn't write this to suggest it isto buy brand name strings - as I say above, they offer a valuable service in packaging up strings without people needing to buy reels and reels of the stuff. It was interesting to experiment though and am certainly pleased! It does give some food for thought thought I think.How they sound on my Kanile'a Tenor uke:And finally - a side by sound comparison with Worth Brown strings on a concert ukuleleSTOP PRESS - it worries me that I may get some people trying this and claiming they have damaged their instruments. I cannot see why, and have put them on my highest end instruments, but do take care with gauges, and don't put too much tension on your instruments. I think the gauges above are safe - but you go into this at your own risk!STOP PRESS V2 - for anyone who questions why I have changed opinions - this may explain - http://www.gotaukulele.com/2015/05/changing-tastes-and-time-sensitivity.html STOP PRESS V3 - I have seen a few comments about these saying 'ah yes, but I bet they don't last as well as others'. I have seen less signs of wear with them than many other strings and have kept these on several ukuleles far longer than I normally would. My report is, that nearly six months down the line, they stand up extremely well - still sound clear and resonant!OH - and one of the most asked questions I get on this topic - where do you buy the lines. Well fishing stores (naturally) but they are also available on Amazon by CLICKING HERE or below!When Alexander Iverson, 20, was in first or second grade, he learned about subtraction and the order of operations. Though his answers in class and on homework assignments were almost always correct, the teacher consistently failed him.
The reason? His more efficient method of calculation — essentially inventing the concept of negative numbers (something Iverson’s class had yet to learn) and then rearranging the order of operations to fit his method — went against the teacher’s instructions.
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Iverson, now a rising senior studying computer science at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSMT) and a recent competitor in the collegiate “Olympics of computer programming,” recalled that experience last week in a phone interview.
“It was awful,” he said. “Essentially, I invented a piece of math that accomplished a task better than the one I was taught and I was penalized for improving something.”
That experience, Iverson said, sticks in his mind as a perfect example of the problem with math and computer science education in America, a problem perhaps never more evident than on May 24, when Rapid City, South Dakota, hosted the 41st annual International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals.
From about 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. that day, nearly 400 of the world’s finest young computer programmers — composed of 133 three-person teams from 44 countries — competed to answer as many of the 12 computer programming problem sets as they could. Each team in attendance had already passed through regional competitions, besting 46,381 students across 103 countries in 530 different regional locations.
At around 5 p.m., the results came in.
The first-place prize went to a Russian team from the St. Petersburg National Research University for Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, solving 10 problems in the shortest time period. Just one problem, organizers and coaches explained, would take typical computer science students an entire semester to solve. It was the Russian school’s fourth win since 2012.
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Four other teams from the University of Warsaw, Seoul National University, St. Petersburg State University and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology also answered 10 problems. Overall, Russian and Chinese teams took nine of the top 14 spots, with the University of Central Florida (13th place, seven problems) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (20th place, six problems) taking the top spots for American schools.
Iverson and his teammates on the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology team, who received an honorable mention with two correct answers (the school’s enrollment is less than 3,000), seemed unsurprised by the results.
"We [the United States] don’t care enough about it,” Iverson said. “Money is a unit of caring and apparently we care more about keeping people in prison than we do about teaching them.”
Iverson added that one of the main reasons he has excelled in an area where other American students haven’t is because of his self-instruction outside of school.
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“It was mostly my own exploration,” Iverson said of his early years.
Matthew Schallenkamp, 20, a rising junior computer science major at SDSMT and Iverson’s teammate, said his first exposure to computer programming occurred when he stumbled across a coding textbook in the library of his South Dakota high school.
“We didn’t really have amazing computer science courses,” Schallenkamp said. “It was really just a math teacher who offered to teach them.”
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Both men agreed that the main cause of the Russian and Chinese success was simple: they start learning about the concepts behind computer programming much earlier than Americans.
Larry Pyeatt, an associate professor of mathematics and computer science at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and the coach of the SDSMT team, said that wasn’t always the case.
“A lot of those programs have been cut because of funding, whereas back in the ’80s I had computer programming in high school for two years and it was a huge advantage when I went into college,” said Pyeatt, who placed third in the 1989 ICPC World Finals for Texas Tech. “Very few students get that these days.”
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Earlier this year, Pyeatt traveled to Russia with Schallenkamp and five other students for a training camp in preparation for the competition. The difference in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education was clear.
“By the time people get out of K through 12 in Russia, it’s very likely that they’ve already taken calculus and already been programming,” Pyeatt said. “They start about four years earlier preparing them for STEM fields. Until recently every student in Russia had to have calculus just to get a high school degree, so they push the mathematics and science much more heavily than our schools do.”
As news stories continue to unfold detailing the hacking efforts and meddling of the Russian government in foreign elections, ICPC Executive Director William Poucher said regular searches of his competitors database had yet to ever find a former competitor related to such events.
“I never find their names,” he said. “Our kids are out here building the tools that actually protect you from people who simply exploit the historical faults and problems that exist. The challenge with the hackers is they don’t have anything to do worth doing, and there’s something wrong with that.”
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Jeff Donahoo, deputy executive director for ICPC, agreed.
“The key for the future is opportunity and the way that we’re going to provide opportunity so that people have a chance to do things that are creative rather than destructive is to come together in strength as a community.”
As for improving the education system, Poucher said the answer was simple.
“All you need to do to do a little bit better is more investment,” he said. “Anybody who ever tells you that the problem is not money… give me a break. The most important thing that we ever do is invest in community. Invest in kids. Invest in parents.”
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To Iverson, education is like a hot pan for politicians: they touch it once, get burnt, and learn never to touch it again. In his mind, a change in teaching philosophy could produce positive results at a time when increased investment seems unlikely.
“We have poor incentives that encourage teachers and schools to optimize for things other than the actual learning and skills of students,” Iverson said, pointing to the way in which standardized tests dictate curriculums and define success for schools, teachers and students.
Recalling his first run-in with the American math education system, Iverson said he learned a great lesson, even if it wasn’t the one the teacher had intended.
“That’s the type of exploration — finding an interesting new way to do this, figuring out how to use it more efficiently and then applying it in a useful way — that’s extremely discouraged,” he said. “I think if that were encouraged and rewarded a lot more, students would enjoy learning.”Logitech first started producing solar wireless keyboards for PCs earlier this year but didn’t make a Mac version until a few months ago. The PC version got incredibly solid reviews at Amazon so I thought this would be a good pick up for my Mac workstation when it was released. As a veteran of Apple’s original Wireless Keyboard, I was sick of dealing with battery and connectivity issues plus I wanted the full layout with numeric keypad, extra function keys extra and full arrows. I’ve been using it almost exclusively for the past three months.
First, I’ll say that the solar panels make the footprint about 25% bigger than a standard full Apple keyboard. That can be a hassle if you are cramped for space at your desk. On the other hand, the keyboard feels a bit more solid, perhaps because of the increased size and weight. Keystrokes are very similar feel to Apple’s standard keyboards and spacing and layout are all but identical. Logitech adds a power switch and battery tester at the top right.
I got the piano black version because it matches my monitor and my Logitech Mouse (which also works with this USB dongle) but there are 5 colors to choose from. I imagine the standard “silver” will be the most popular.
As far as the solar is concerned, I never had a single problem with charging or connection. I have a florescent lit basement office and a workspace with natural light from a shaded back yard and both kept the keyboard charged at all times. The keyboard usually sits in front of a large 30″ monitor, so that probably helps. But from reviews I’ve read, almost no one has a problem keeping this charged with normal office lighting so I don’t think this is a concern.
There are some tradeoffs for having solar, however…
One nitpick is that there is no caps lock light (do we even need a caps lock anymore? – I’d prefer a search button like a Chromebook). Saves power I guess. Since there is no way to tell it is depressed, I just turned it off in Prefs/Keyboard/Modifier keys. Others use this to modify function keys. Also, it doesn’t use my Mac’s built in Bluetooth. It requires a microscopic proprietary USB dongle with its own wireless band taking up a valuable USB port. That’s both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it allows me to keep my Bluetooth off (or in the case of my Hackintosh, I didn’t have to buy a Bluetooth card) and doesn’t require the few seconds to connect that Bluetooth often does. I’m hoping as more Macs have power efficient/quicker Bluetooth 4.0, Logitech moves over there (also it would be nice to use on iOS devices). But, the dongle works 100% of the time. As I mentioned above, I’d have some connectivity issues with Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard taking a few seconds to kick in, falling off or giving me repeated “r” keys. The “incline feet” on the back feel a bit flimsy. While they didn’t give way in three months of heavy use, I feel like they could have at some point if the keyboard was dropped or something heavy was dropped on it. I’d have preferred a built in incline on the keyboard as Apple does but this methods allows two different angles for those who care. Speaking of not caring, I don’t use a wrist rest and thankfully, this keyboard doesn’t have one.
That being said, I am overall extremely happy with
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it in Redefining Realness.
The term in question is “fish”.
What does “fish” mean?
Urban dictionary defines the term in several ways. For this discussion I’ll cover definitions number seven and four from that site.
Definition number seven of the term from the Urban Dictionary:
fish: The scent of females who wash their vagina’s [sic] infrequently.
example: Man your grandma reaks [sic] like the fish.
It was a common joke for me growing up to hear men talking about the “smelly tuna” or “fish tacos” of the women in their lives. Our culture finds women’s bodies to be repulsive and most of the words available to describe our anatomy are meant to degrade and shame us. The term ‘fish” is no exception; it is, in fact, hateful misogyny.
Moving on to definition number seven of the term from Urban Dictionary:
fish: term for biological women used primarily by gay men, either in a positive or derogatory way. also used by gay men to complement female looking drag queens or transgender women that appear ‘real’ or too convincing to be men. see also ‘fishstick’ examples:”Ugh! Why are there so many fish in the club tonight?” “Hey girl, look at you! You’re looking fish tonight!”
The term “fish” to refer to a “passing” transwoman or drag queen is used in reference to definition number seven.
*To be clear, the idea is that “fishy” transwomen are transwomen who look like the “real thing”, where the “real thing” is a being who possesses a smelly orifice*.
Please think for a moment how you would feel if the GOP (or the Tories, etc) referred to your biological parts based on their alleged stench. Women would not stand for such treatment. But it appears that gay men, transwomen, and drag queens have no problem degrading women’s bodies in this way. That’s exactly what Janet Mock does on nine occasions in this book. The original memoir title was Fish Food, but it was changed. Mock never recognizes that the word is a slur.
Here are some instances where Mock uses “fish” in the book:
“Mary, you feeling fish now, huh?” Wendi laughed, “we gotta get your more [estrogen], girl.” (p 135)
When I caught up with the girls, a few were quick to call me out for ‘acting fish’. “That bitch thinks she’s too fish for us,” one of the girls said loudly enough that I could hear. (p 157)
Heather was one of the fishiest girls on the island with a Barbie body that she stealthily flaunted at a famous strip club in Waikiki. (p 170)
The use of this slur is exceptionally misogynist. It is designed to degrade women’s bodies. Mock doesn’t seem to mean that these individuals who are “fish” look like the women we interact with in our daily lives— our mothers, our sisters, our cashiers, or our doctors. Mock seems to mean that these individuals look like a pornified media pin up version of womanhood (such as Heather, the stripper). Mock and others are approximating a hateful caricature of womanhood and calling it “redefining realness”— all while using a slur to refer to our supposed smelly genitals. I found this to be one of the most offensive portions of the book.
Janet Mock on Childhood Hormone Blockers
Mock holds that children who believe they are transgender should be given puberty blockers, and states that situations where parents dose these children with puberty-blockers are “best-case scenarios” (p 118-119).
Radical feminists know that diagnoses of gender identity disorder in children frequently resolve upon adulthood, with the child growing up to be a gay or lesbian individual. In fact, (excuse the wiki quote):
“Gender identity disorder in children is more heavily linked with adult homosexuality than adult transsexualism.”
Given the fact that most instances of “gender identity disorder” in children will result in these children becoming lesbian or gay, it is clear that permanently altering and potentially sterilizing childrens’ bodies prior to the age of consent is abusive and an erasure of lesbian and gay individuals. As Sheila Jeffreys states:
Treatment with puberty delaying drugs leads to sterilisation when followed by the administration of cross-sex hormones at 16 years old. As a result, semen and ova do not come to maturation. The long term effects of these treatments are unknown. Decades after the sterilisation of the unfit was mostly abandoned, a similar practice is increasingly being carried out on children who are considered to be innately “transgender” because they are disobeying culturally acceptable gender roles. As happened with eugenic practices of the past, many progressive people including many feminists, feel that transgendering children is a reasonable practice and have not yet begun to criticise it.
Mock never mentions the growing number of individuals who experience trans regret or who take steps to undo the transitioning process late in life. For more information on detransitioning, click here, here, here, here here, here, here, here, here, or here.
Radical feminists are not in agreement with Mock that we should give puberty blockers to children and then start them on a course of dangerous hormones.
Mock’s book frequently implies that adult decisions such as whether to take permanent drugs to alter one’s body or enter the sex industry can be made by underage individuals.
Janet Mock on the Sex Industry
Mock has stated that the sex industry provided an “underground railroad” of opportunity for young and underage transwomen. Mock says within the industry there was:
“A sense of community, sisterhood, resiliency, resources, strength. It was like our underground railroad of resources to navigate a system not built for us. And for me that’s what sex work gave me. youtube clip source
Mock states in the book that the sex industry involved transwomen acting as “surviving outlaws” who “took control of their bodies” (p 171). Mock even describes a yearning to be as “sexy and powerful” as an exploited woman on the street *warning- upsetting description*:
“Her choreography was undeniable as she invited him to make a proposal for the night. Her long legs ready to wrap around his slender shoulders. I yearned to be that sexy and powerful.” (p 134)
Given these quotes, I was surprised to find Mock’s descriptions of experiences within the sex industry to be so bleak. As radical feminists, we object to the idea that johns and pimps should be able to use women’s or transwomen’s bodies for their own pleasure. We use an analysis of power within patriarchy to understand the limits of choice and the racist, colonialist, and misogynist nature of prostitution.
There are many quotes within Mock’s work to point towards the radical feminist position on prostitution.
Mock states:
My experience with sex work is not that of a trafficked young girl or the fierce sex-positive woman who proudly chooses sex work as her occupation. My experience mirrors that of the vulnerable girl with few resources who was groomed from childhood, who was told this is the only way, who wasn’t comfortable enough in her body to gain any sort of pleasure from it, who rented pieces of herself: mouth, hands, ass, breasts, penis. I knew, even at 16, that I did what I had to because no one was going to do it for me.” (p 177)
and
“Systemic oppression creates circumstances that push many women to choose sex work as a means of survival.” (p 199)
and
“The woman I am today has sensory triggers that transport me back to late 2001. The smell of latex never fails to place me naked in the passenger seat of men’s cars.” (p 212)
Mock describes a feeling of being “grossed out” by experiences in prostitution (p 207), having to compartmentalize aspects of life (Rachel Moran calls this “splitting”) (p 209), being threatened with a knife (p 216) and even recognizes that sexual abuse is a common precursor to being in the sex industry, stating:
“I later learned that sexual abuse is a common pathway for many women in sex trade and sex work, with an estimated 66 to 90 percent of teen and adult women reporting that they were sexually abused prior to engaging in sex work.” (p 212-213)
Given these traumatic experiences, it’s a wonder that Mock is able to also consider such an industry to be “sexy and powerful”, involve any real amount of “control”, or be considered “work” (p 199). I appreciate Mock’s honesty about experiences within the sex industry, and I am saddened yet unsurprised to hear about these experiences. But I wish Mock would come out and publicly condemn those in power (men) who exploit vulnerable young girls, women, and transwomen within the sex industry. The book lacks an analysis of power and uses individualized rather than political solutions.
Conclusions
Janet Mock has written a memoir that is both contradictory and anti-feminist.
Despite Mock’s description of younger self as “all limp wrists and swaying hips” (p 71), Mock insists on reducing the experience of growing up to a parody of girlhood, as stated here:
“My most prized possession was my lanyard of Lip Smackers… I tore it out of the confines of the paper package, which read “all the flavor of being a girl.”.. In the car, I draped the black lanyard around my neck with a single green plastic balm dangling. I proudly dangled my girlhood in all its fruitiness. It cost only $2.99.”
This is a parody of what girlhood is for women, and as such is an anti-feminist portrayal.
Despite a purported hatred of slurs, Mock insists on using the degrading anti-woman term”fish” and originally planned to use it in the memoir title.
Despite a stated concern for children, Mock believes that underage children should be given dangerous, untested hormone drugs prior to the age of consent.
Despite Mock’s negative experiences in the sex industry, Mock insists on presenting the industry publicly as a positive, liberating experience.
I find Mock’s book to be anti-woman propaganda.
*
Endnote 1: It is possible that Mock means to say that *as a youth* these were the beliefs held about assault and “being a girl”, but that growing up realized this is not so. However, Mock does not make this clear.
AdvertisementsThe Drudge Report, the website owned and operated by conservative gossipmonger Matt Drudge, has linked to RT.com -- the website for the news service owned by the Russian government -- at least 67 times in 2016. According to an analysis by Media Matters for America, The Drudge Report also repeatedly linked to stories from other Russian-owned news sites, Sputnik News (22 times), and TASS (twice).
RT (previously known as Russia Today) broadcasts via satellite in Russian, English, and Spanish around the world and hosts its official website at RT.com. Russian President Vladimir Putin described the network as an attempt to introduce “another strong player on the world’s scene, a player that wouldn’t just provide an unbiased coverage of the events in Russia but also... try to break the Anglo-Saxon monopoly on the global information streams.”
Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, reporter and former Moscow-based correspondent Julia Ioffe described RT as “the Kremlin’s propaganda outlet” that has at times sought to “stick it to the U.S. from behind the façade of legitimate newsgathering.”
In recent months, controversy has grown about apparent attempts by the Russian government to interfere in or influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
According to The New York Times, U.S. intelligence agencies have reportedly told the White House that they have “high confidence” that the Russian government was “behind the theft of emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee.” The Washington Post has reported that U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies are currently investigating “what they see as a broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential election and in U.S. political institutions.”
Drudge has repeatedly used his site to promote stories that idolize Putin, while also painting America, its government, and figures like President Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton in a negative light.
Over the last year, the Drudge Report has linked to several RT stories in this same vein. These include:
A story headlined “Russia to reveal location of US military satellites...” (paired with another story claiming the Kremlin is working on a “teleportation” program).
A claim from the Russian government alleging that a U.S. Navy destroyer was “dangerously close” to a Russian boat. Yet in other reporting, U.S. officials said the Russian ship was demonstrating “unsafe and unprofessional” maneuvers.
A “vow” from Putin to “neutralize” what RT described as a “US missile shield threat.”
A column claiming “Satan Worship Rises In USA.”
Drudge also linked to the Sputnik News service 22 times over the last year. Foreign Policy described Sputnik as “another compliant outlet to trumpet the Kremlin line” that depicts “the United States as an ailing imperial power bent on holding on to its domains.”
Sputnik stories linked by Drudge include:
A story accusing Google of “Hillary Search Manipulation.”
An article headlined “Robots Wage War On Humanity 2055.”
A report with the headline “WIKILEAKS Assange: GOOGLEClinton Deal...”
Drudge also linked to stories from TASS, the official Russian news agency, twice over the last year.A Texas man who was convicted of a series of weapons charges while a law student in Massachusetts is taking aim at the state’s gun licensing demands in a Hail Mary appeal that the Supreme Judicial Court has agreed to hear.
“I’m swinging for the fences, but I think what Massachusetts did to me was outrageous,” said John Cassidy, who is representing himself in the pitch to the state’s highest court. “I’m not an attorney, but it has always been my plan to fight this.”
Cassidy, who lives outside Houston, was arrested in 2011 for possessing two firearms, including an AK-47, five firearm magazines and roughly 150 rounds of ammunition in his apartment. He had recently moved to Massachusetts to attend UMass Law School at Dartmouth, and a spat with his then-roommate led the police to his apartment.
He had purchased the weapons legally in Texas, but had not yet gotten necessary permits in Massachusetts, according to court documents. After a winding legal saga, a jury found Cassidy guilty in March 2015 of seven firearms-related felonies, and he spent 26 months in state prison.
Now, Cassidy wants his convictions erased so that he can go back to law school and purchase guns again. He argues in his pitch to the SJC that the state’s licensing demands infringe on his Second Amendment rights.
“Massachusetts has stripped his Second Amendment right for simple in-home possessory offenses,” Cassidy wrote to the high court. “These unconstitutional violations are ongoing and continue to violate his natural rights.”
Last week, the SJC agreed to hear Cassidy’s case. He said he plans to come back to the Bay State and fight state prosecutors without a lawyer by his side. If he loses, he says he will take the fight to federal court.
“I’m going to go it alone. I have yet to find a Massachusetts lawyer that passionately believes in gun rights,” he said. “People don’t understand the idea of owning a gun simply because it’s your right.”
Brent Carlton, co-founder of Commonwealth Second Amendment, a nonprofit promoting the interests of Bay State gun owners, certainly gets that. But he’s concerned about the SJC’s decision to take Cassidy’s case. He says the high court picks cases that will allow it to restrict Second Amendment rights through precedent.
“They have a history of picking bad cases that are ripe for bad case law,” Carlton said. “The fact that they have accepted this case is setting off alarm bells for me.”
Meanwhile, Cassidy is researching gun laws and corresponding with the court from his family’s auto repair shop in the Lone Star State. And he says he can beat the odds.
“I think I have a shot,” he said. “I just want to be able to own guns and to go back to law school.”HALIFAX, Nova Scotia -- The line combinations for the Home Hardware CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game have been set here at the Metro Centre.
As expected, the local favorites from the Halifax Mooseheads, forwards Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin and goalie Zachary Fucale, will start the game.
Team Orr - Coach Mike McPhee
Adam Erne - Laurent Dauphin - Nick Sorensen
Max Domi - Bo Horvat - Justin Bailey
Anthony Duclair - Nicolas Petan - Oliver Bjorkstrand
Kerby Rychel - Sean Monahan - Curtis Lazar
Chris Bigras - Seth Jones
Shea Theodore - Jan Kostalek
Nikita Zadorov - Madison Bowey
Spencer Martin
Team Cherry - Coach Don Cherry
Jonathan Drouin - Nathan MacKinnon - Ryan Hartman
Anthony Mantha - Jason Dickinson - Stephen Harper
Ryan Kujawinski - Cole Cassels - Zach Nastasiuk
Morgan Klimchuk - Frederik Gauthier - Valentin Zykov
Darnell Nurse - Jordan Subban
Josh Morrissey - Mirco Mueller
Eric Roy - Samuel Morin
Zachary Fucale
Follow Mike Morreale on Twitter: @mikemorrealeNHLThese men are enemy combatants. They should never be allowed to return. They joined a group that is at war with the countries to which they’re returning. Would the UK have allowed back a large number of British Nazis in 1943? This is absurd to the point of suicidal.
“30 Percent Of European-Born ISIS Fighters Are Returning To Their Homes, US Believes,” by Saagar Enjeti, Daily Caller, July 19, 2017 (thanks to Lookmann):
Nearly 30 percent of European foreign fighters for the Islamic State have returned to the continent, the U.S. Department of State annual country report on terrorism reveals. Experts fear that some of the returning foreign fighters will pursue domestic terror plots in their home countries, or even use their passports to travel elsewhere in the West. The State Department, however, noted that “the overall number of departed foreign terrorist fighters originating from Western European and Balkan countries declined significantly in 2016 from the previous year.” The number of European fighters who traveled to fight for ISIS is unknown, but estimates range in the thousands. U.S. based security intelligence advisory firm The Soufan Group (TSG) estimated that approximately 5,000 Western European fighters traveled to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS in 2015 alone. TSG also noted that 4,700 fighters were estimated to come from the former Soviet republics. EU countries are scrambling to track foreign fighters upon their return, but they also must track domestic terror subjects, which are large enough in number they are already overwhelming security services. The return of the fighters coincides with the large loss of territory suffered by the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria. The Europe based International Center for Counter-Terrorism noted in April 2016 that, while some foreign fighters returning to Europe may be disillusioned with the terrorist group, “others may return with the aim of carrying out terrorist attacks, with reports suggesting that IS may systematically export terror cells to Europe.”….
The Truth Must be Told Your contribution supports independent journalism Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more. Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible. Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too. Please contribute to our ground-breaking work here.
Make a monthly commitment to support The Geller Report – choose the option that suits you best. Contribute Monthly - Choose One Subscriber : $18.00 USD - monthly Contributor : $36.00 USD - monthly Patron : $50.00 USD - monthly Silver member : $100.00 USD - monthly Gold member : $250.00 USD - monthly Platinum member : $500.00 USD - monthlyOTTAWA, ON—During a Canadian Medical Association conference afterparty at the Hunk Hut last month, Health Minister Jane Philpott received a wild, 71-minute lap dance from total manpanther Johnny "Big Boy" Brock, a service that cost Canadian taxpayers $738 and infuriated the opposition. The news immediately follows this week's earlier revelation that Philpott spent nearly $7,000 of taxpayer money on a luxury car service.
Conservative health critic Colin Carrie said the epic lap dance was an abuse of the public purse, and called on Minister Philpott to pay it back immediately.
"It's totally reasonable to enjoy a lapper at the rippers after a long day of seminars and meetings," Carrie said. "But you stop after one song, two tops, and if you're going to let a sweaty Adonis like Big Boy bump and grind up on you for over an hour, don't expect Canadians to foot the bill."
NDP MP Charlie Angus was equally critical of the minister.
"No one is asking Dr. Philpott to sit back in the club without treating herself to some hunk straddling her like a wild bronco," Angus said. "But did she really have to spring for the most chiseled beefcake in there?"
Angus added that Philpott would have easily saved taxpayers hundreds of dollars if she'd chosen one of the homelier, less expensive dancers instead of a rock-hard stud like "Big Boy."
In a statement issued Wednesday morning, Philpott apologized for the expense and promised to pay it back.
"Like most politicians, I can get a little carried away when I'm seven vodka sodas deep and surrounded by so much premium ass," Philpott said, admitting that she finds it near-impossible to resist the siren call of a sweaty hunk in a glittering G-string. "But that's my cross to bear, and Canadians shouldn't have to pay for it."
Don't miss anything from CBC Comedy - like us on Facebook.If you own Bitcoin, October has been good to you.
The value of one bitcoin climbed over $6,000 for the first time on Friday less than two weeks after it pushed past $5,000.
Bitcoin reached as high as $6,063 on Friday, according to the research site CoinDesk, and was valued at around $6,034 at the time of this writing.
The highest-valued cryotpcurrency on the planet wasn't a thing 10 years ago, but the continued rise of its value shows that perhaps the greater world should start paying attention sooner rather than later.
It's unclear why Bitcoin has risen at this rate in October. Observers have thrown out a few guesses, including that perhaps a shortage of physical money in Zimbabwe is driving up Bitcoin's value.
Right now doesn't look like a good time to buy, but, who knows, in a few months or years it may turn out to be a great decision.Mumbai, Feb 9 (IANS) Actor Harshvardhan Rane, who has ventured into Bollywood with "Sanam Teri Kasam", is trying to draw people's attention towards the condition of abused elephants, which are used for tourist joyrides.
In Harshvardhan's new campaign for animal rights organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India, he stands bare-chested in chains next to the tagline, "It's Not Just a Ride. It's Their Life. Elephants Used for Rides Are Beaten, Chained, Broken".
"Elephant rides are not at all joyful for the animals. I don't think it is cool at all to apply force and make someone do something which they are not willing to," Harshvardhan, who has also starred in Telugu films, said in a statement.
A PETA-commissioned investigation of elephant training in Nepal and of elephants used for rides in Jaipur revealed that the tuskers are physically and emotionally abused at every juncture.
Often when they are just two years old, elephants are torn away from the tender care of their mothers and are either tied up between trees with heavy chains and ropes, which cause painful burns, or confined to a tiny wooden enclosure, read the PETA statement.
Trainers then beat the young elephants with sticks and jab them with 'ankuses' until they lose all hope and begin to obey commands, a process that sometimes lasts for months.
These iron prods are also used to pierce their sensitive ears, yank on them and force them to walk in a certain fashion or direction.
Trainers then continue to thrash the elephants on their heads and other parts of their bodies when they don't obey, leaving many injured. They are often forced to give rides with untreated open wounds.
About Gopi Adusumilli Gopi Adusumilli is a Programmer. He is the editor of SocialNews.XYZ and President of AGK Fire Inc. He enjoys designing websites, developing mobile applications and publishing news articles on current events from various authenticated news sources. When it comes to writing he likes to write about current world politics and Indian Movies. His future plans include developing SocialNews.XYZ into a News website that has no bias or judgment towards any. He can be reached at [email protected]
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Like this: Like Loading...Robert Downey Jr: a man, an actor and apparently a warrior, two.
There was a time not too long ago when movie star Robert Downey Jr. ventured way too far down the rabbit hole of drugs and addiction, until he miraculously bounced back to be all funny and serious and sexy (Tropic Thunder, Iron Man, Sherlock Holmes). There once was a time when native New Yorker Vinnie Marino took that trip as well, but climbed has way back up to become one of LA’s most beloved yoga teachers. Then there was that other time when the New York Times was causing a yoga “wreck”us and crowning Yoga Kings. Remember when?
Downey Jr is the latest celebriyogi to talk about his yoga and have photos printed of his practice. This time via Mens Fitness and the following quote from TIME Mag:
He’s fit, mellow and reflective after a morning of power-flow yoga with his teacher Vinnie Marino, part of what could be called Team New Downey, a large coterie that includes yogis, massage therapists, martial-arts instructors and people who know about herbs. “I need a lot of support,” Downey says, “like Lance Armstrong. Life is really hard, and I don’t see some active benevolent force out there. I see it as basically a really cool survival game. You get on the right side of the tracks, and you now are actually working with what some people would call magic. It’s not. It’s just you’re not in the f___ing dark anymore, so you know how to get along a little better, you know?”
Oh we know. We go to magic class a few times a week. Come into the light, Robert! (ps. nice form.)
Thanks to MindBodyGreen for the heads up.
More info on yoga and addictions: Addiction, Recovery and Yoga: A Film Everyone Should See
——
Earlier…The average “fully loaded” Kodi box sells for about $150 USD. But why buy from a dealer if you can make one yourself? If you have a decent thumb drive, you already have all the equipment you need to convert any computer into a DIY Kodi box.
Disclaimer: This guide is intended to help readers access content they already have purchased the rights to access, but are for whatever reason unable to access either temporarily, or permanently. Flixed.io does not support piracy and bears no responsibility for what you decide to do with the information provided in this article. Furthermore, please note that Flixed.io in no way hosts, develops, or produces any of the software mentioned within this article. We also do not support the use, distribution or purchase of fully-loaded Kodi boxes or other pirate streaming devices. For more information, please see our full disclaimer here.
Kodi Based Operating Systems Are Super Fast
Mac OS, Windows and other heavy duty operating systems are notorious resource hogs. The more you use your operating system, the more it tends to slow down and fill up with files you don’t need.
If you make a bootable USB stick using KodiBuntu or OpenElec, you’ll enjoy speedy, lag-free performance again. All you need to do is plug in your thumb drive and restart your computer. Best of all, you don’t even have to delete your main operating system.
Can I boot my Kodi live USB via my TV’s USB port?
No. You might be able to see the files that you stored to your USB stick, but you won’t be able to boot directly into KodiBuntu or OpenElec using a smart TV.
So then, why bother?
As mentioned above, Kodi operating systems are super fast. If you’re a performance fiend, it’s worth it to boot directly into a Kodi OS when you want to watch TV for free. Plus, if you install directly to a Kodi live USB you can carry your Kodi entertainment system around with you wherever you go.
KodiBuntu vs. OpenElec
There are two main Kodi based operating systems: KodiBuntu and OpenElec. Here are a few facts you should know about them.
They are both pretty much the same. Both KodiBuntu and OpenElec are totally free and equally easy to set up. Also, they are both based on linux– a free open source operating system. OpenElec is slightly faster. Both KodiBuntu and OpenElec are quick. However, the OpenElec operating system is built for speed from the ground up. The creators of OpenElec specifically designed the operating system to consume the minimum amount of resources necessary to run Kodi. KodiBuntu is easier to modify and tweak. OpenElec runs Kodi and Kodi addons… and that’s about it. But with KodiBuntu, you can close Kodi and access a bare bones linux desktop. From there you can open up the terminal and use the apt-get command to install additional linux programs if you want.
The Live USB option
A live USB stick is a USB flash drive that contains a complete operating system. Both KodiBuntu and OpenElec are small enough to fit on an USB thumb drive. If you install to USB, you can pop in your USB when you want to use your Kodi operating system and pop it out when you want to use Windows or Mac OS.
Modern USB 3.0 compatible thumb drives are super cheap and just as fast as hard drives. But before you run out and buy a USB 3.0 compatible thumb drive, be sure that your computer has a USB 3.0 port.
Pros
You don’t have to configure dual booting or delete any files if you install to a USB.
Performance will be just as fast or even faster compared to a hard drive installation if you’ve got a USB 3.0 port and a USB 3.0 thumb drive.
Cons
If your computer doesn’t have a USB 3.0 port, performance will be very slow.
Download the ISO file
The first thing you need to do if you want to install Kodibuntu or OpenElec is download the most recent ISO file for whichever OS you want to install.
An ISO image is a digital copy of a DVD or CD. If you have an ISO file and an ISO player, you can install an operating system without having to mess around with DVDs or CDs.
32 bit vs 64 bit operating systems
Both KodiBuntu and OpenElec come in 64 bit and 32 bit flavors. The 64 bit versions run a bit faster, but you’ll need to have 64 bit compatible hardware to run them. If your computer was built before 2010, it may or may not be 64 bit compatible. But if your computer is less than 5 years old, get the 64 bit version.
Nothing bad will happen if you try to install a 64 bit Kodi OS on a 32 bit machine– you just won’t be able to complete the installation. But to avoid wasting time, Google your computer’s model number to find out if it can handle 64 bit operating systems first before you proceed.
Click here to get the latest KodiBuntu ISO and here to get the newest edition of OpenElec.
How to create a KodiBuntu live USB stick
Windows
If you’ve got Windows, creating a bootable KodiBuntu USB stick is easy. All you need to do is download the KodiBuntu ISO and Linux Live USB Creator.
The first few minutes of the excellent video below shows you what KodiBuntu looks like. The second half (starting around 2:38) walks you through each step of the installation process.
Mac OS
The video below shows you how to use Mac Linux USB loader, which is the Mac OS version of Linux Live USB Creator.
How to create an OpenElec live USB stick
Windows
Check out the video below to find out how to use Win32 Disk Imager to create an OpenElec live USB stick.
Mac OS
Because OpenElec and KodiBuntu are both linux operating systems, the steps you need to follow to create a live USB stick on mac are virtually identical. The best tool for the job is Mac Linux USB loader.
Direct-to-hard-drive installation
If you’ve got no particular reason to keep your operating system because all you plan to do with your computer is play media files, you might as well delete it and replace it with KodiBuntu or OpenElec. The whole process only takes a few minutes if you’ve already made a live USB stick. Just opt to install KodiBuntu or OpenElec instead of boot up the OS when you turn on your computer.
Remember to back up your files
Once you wipe out your main operating system, all the files on your computer will be gone. If there’s nothing on your old computer that you need, then you don’t have anything to worry about. But if it does contain files that you may use later, you may want to move them over to a spare USB hard drive first before you proceed. Alternatively, you can use a cloud based file storage service like Google Drive to do a quick backup if the files you want don’t take up much space.
How to Make a Portable Kodi USB Drive
If you like the idea of taking Kodi with you wherever you go but you don’t want to be able to switch to an all-purpose OS, you can use Windows to make a portable Kodi installation. Just open up the Kodi installer and change the installation drive to your thumb drive.
Once the Kodi shortcut appears on your desktop, open up the shortcut’s settings and enter “P:\Kodi\kodi.exe -p” in the target field. The “-p” flag tells Kodi to install all addon files to your USB instead of elsewhere on your computer.
For more information on how to create a portable version of Kodi on Windows, check out the official instructions.Introduction
I’ve decided to set aside blogging about the financial state of the game to return to my roots of blogging about the economics within the game. The crafting system in Star Wars: The Old Republic has seen a number of changes in the last six months, but this will be the first in a series of posts outlining ideas for additional changes that I think would benefit the crafting system and the economy as a whole. The goal for each post will be to highlight an idea that I think would be a positive improvement to the current crafting system by working within the existing framework with a focus on attempting to maintain plausibility.
A number of core beliefs will become apparent in the crafting system improvements, including the need for well designed credit sinks to balance credit generation rates and the need for interesting complexity that’s incentive-based and non-arbitrary. I’ll be very interested in feedback and discussion as well to separate the good ideas from the crazy ones!
The Idea
Let me begin by saying that I was a very vocal proponent of the introduction of intermediate crafting components in the 4.0 crafting update and still maintain that view. It introduced an additional layer of complexity that was lacking in earlier generations of crafting in the game, but I also see a significant opportunity for improvement that has been left untapped. The crafting system would benefit from refinement schematics that would allow Cell Grafts, Bonded Attachments, and Assembly Components to be converted between grades. The Conquest crafting system already places a relative scale to the grade levels because the recipes for the same War Supply require 4 of each component of Grade 6 through Grade 9, but increases to 6 and 8 of each component respectively for Grade 4 through Grade 5 and Grade 2 through Grade 3. The Grade 1 components are currently not included in the Conquest crafting recipes.
Rather than simply utilizing those relative rates though, we also need to balance for critical rates with maximum Influence companions and their roughly 40% critical chance as well as ensuring that the system does not provide incentives to refine the same stack of components back and forth between grades to somehow generate components infinitely. The system could either be one directional, only allowing components to be refined into higher grades, or it could be balanced by always down converting to a lower grade at a 1:1 ratio while up converting at a less than 1:1 ratio. Regardless of the down converting solution, the conversion up one grade level could have a schematic input ratio of 6:4, meaning that 6 lower grade inputs would be refined into 4 output components one grade level higher. A critical success would result in 6 output components, which seems to balance the expected return fairly well.
Finally, the schematic would also include, in the same quantity as the input components, the Prototype (Blue) materials from the relevant Mission Skill for each Crew Skill. The game needs more uses for the Prototype (Blue) materials from Mission Skills in general and this is a logical addition to require some additional investment in the refinement process. It might also make sense to include the same quantity of the relevant grey crafting material as another input cost, but other than providing a credit sink it serves little purpose and therefore may not warrant inclusion.
The Benefits
The primary benefit is that the crafting system becomes more dynamic by allowing the refinement of components among the various grade levels. By connecting the lower grade materials to the end-game economy, where the vast majority of the volume and profits tend to reside, players can make more interesting choices regarding material gathering and crafting. The game
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of grades 10 and 11 were removed.[1]
In 1972, exams were once again removed from the remaining grades and course work was worth 100% of the course mark.[1]
From 1976 onward there was criticism that students were not being challenged and were not prepared for tertiary education. In 1983, the ministry responded to this criticism and final exams, now called "Diploma Exams", were reinstated and were now worth 50% of course mark. The remaining 50% of the course mark was determined by course work.[1][5]
In October 2009, Alberta Education decided to eliminate the written response (Part A) for Biology 30, Chemistry 30, Pure Mathematics 30, Applied Mathematics 30, Physics 30, and Science 30. This saved the Alberta government 1.7 million dollars in producing the exams and paying teachers to mark them in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta. The written response (Part A) remains for Social Studies 30-1 and 30-2 as well as English 30-1 and 30-2. For humanities subjects, Part A written response will take place up to two weeks before Part B multiple choice.
In 2010, eleven students were found to be cheating on the Pure Mathematics 30 exam as the exam had been leaked by a student who was writing the exam abroad and under the supervision of a relative. This prompted Alberta Education to amend its policies regarding administering diploma examinations abroad.[6][7]
In 2015, the ministry reduced the Diploma exams weighting to make up 30% of course mark for 2015/2016 school year.[8][9]
Starting Fall 2017, students will have double the time to write all provincial standardized tests. This can go up to six hours for Grade 12 Diplomas and 4 hours for Grade 6 and 9 PAT's.[10][11]
As of September 1, 2018, the written response component to mathematics exams will be reinstated.
Purpose [ edit ]
The official Ministry of Education purpose of standardized testing is to:
"Determine if students are learning what they are expected to learn.
Report to Albertans how well students have achieved provincial standards at given points in their schooling.
Assist schools, authorities, and the province in monitoring and improving student learning.
to ensure that province-wide standards of achievement are maintained.
to report individual and group results."[12][13]
Subjects [ edit ]
Grade twelve subjects for which there are diploma exams are:[14]
English Language Arts 30-1 (Part A Written and Part B Multiple Choice)
English Language Arts 30-2 (Part A Written and Part B Multiple Choice)
Social Studies 30-1 (Part A Written and Part B Multiple Choice)
Social Studies 30-2 (Part A Written and Part B Multiple Choice)
Mathematics 30-1 (Multiple Choice and Numerical Response only) - 28 Multiple Choice and 12 Numerical Response
Mathematics 30-2 (Multiple Choice and Numerical Response only) - 28 Multiple Choice and 12 Numerical Response
Biology 30 (Multiple Choice and Numerical Response only) - 48 Multiple Choice and 12 Numerical Response
Chemistry 30 (Multiple Choice and Numerical Response only) - 44 Multiple Choice and 16 Numerical Response
Physics 30 (Multiple Choice and Numerical Response only) - 36 Multiple Choice and 14 Numerical Response
Science 30 (Multiple Choice and Numerical Response only) - 39 Multiple Choice and 16 Numerical Response
Français 30-1 (Part A Written and Part B Multiple Choice)
French Language Arts 30-1 (Part A Written and Part B Multiple Choice)
See also [ edit ]Who has the world’s best new skyscraper? Apparently, that’s us!
The 2015 Emporis Skyscraper Award, “the world’s most renowned architecture prize for skyscrapers,” was recently awarded to our very own Shanghai Tower. The jury was understandably impressed by the 632-meter-tall building’s unique spiral design and “extraordinary energy efficiency.” It also doesn’t hurt that the $2.4 billion structure contains the world’s fastest elevator, able to take you to the 119th floor in 55 seconds.
The result of six years of construction, the Shanghai Tower was finally crowned the world’s second tallest building earlier this year. In case you want to see how it all happened, check out this incredible timelapse video of the construction process.
Here are the nine other buildings that the Shanghai Tower beat out for this year’s top prize.
1) Shanghai Tower (China)
2) Evolution Tower (Russia)
3) Il Dritto (Italy)
4) Jiangxi Nanchang Greenland Central Plaza (China)
5) ABODE 318 (Australia)
6) Icon Bay (U.S.A.)
7) D1 Tower (United Arab Emirates)
8) 432 Park Avenue (U.S.A.)
9) Citygate (Austria)
10) ÏCE II (Canada)
In fact, this is the second year in a row that a skyscraper in China has taken home the award. Last year, it was the Wangjing SOHO in Beijing at the top of the list.
The Emporis Skyscraper Award has been around since 2000. Other winners of note include Shanghai’s Plaza 66 (3rd in 2001), Hong Kong’s Highcliff (2nd in 2003), Taiwan’s Taipei 101 (1st in 2004) and the Shanghai World Financial Center (3rd in 2008).
Eat with ShanghaiistIstanbul, Turkey - Former Noble Peace Prize nominee Ragip Zarakolu says he's been charged with crimes against the state more than 70 times in his life. But those experiences didn't prepare the Turkish publisher and journalist for his latest stint behind bars.
Zarakolu spent six months last year in a Turkish high-security prison on terrorism-related charges before being released pending trial in April. If convicted, he could spend up to 15 years in jail.
"There was no [physical] torture but without [a real] reason to be arrested, it was torture to be treated like a terrorist. Everyone is looking at you like you're a monster," Zarakolu told Al Jazeera from a café near his home in Istanbul.
Zarakolu was among hundreds of others across Turkey - including lawyers, politicians, students, activists and other journalists - accused of belonging to, or aiding, an illegal organisation: the Union of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK), which the Turkish government views as the urban branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
"This was the first time I went to a civilian prison and an anti-terror prison. It was a shock for me. It's unjust and there is no reason. My arrest was state terror," the 65-year-old said.
The Stream - Turkey's Kurdish question
Zarakolu founded the Belge publishing house in 1977. Since then, he has published books by Kurdish and Armenian authors on issues that remain largely taboo in Turkey, including the Armenian genocide and the country's treatment of its Kurdish citizens. He has also authored countless articles on these topics.
"It's something like a mission: to give examples of the alternative history, a counter-history and the criticism of official ideology because Turkey is partly a totalitarian country in its political structures," he said.
"They [arrested] me as another kind of threat: the intellectuals who are interested in discussing the solution to the Kurdish question. [It was] also to isolate Kurds from Turkish intellectuals. There was a fear atmosphere at that time. Many people were waiting to be arrested."
Widespread arrests, detention condemned
Zarakolu was one of many journalists the Turkish authorities arrested in a crackdown on members of the media over the past few years. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) recently reported that Turkey jailed the most journalists in 2012 - ahead of Iran and China.
"Authorities have imprisoned journalists on a mass scale on terrorism or anti-state charges, launched thousands of other criminal prosecutions on charges such as denigrating Turkishness or influencing court proceedings, and used pressure tactics to sow self-censorship," the CPJ said in a report titled "Turkey's Press Freedom Crisis".
As of August 1, 2012, some 76 Turkish journalists were in jail, and at least 61 of those were imprisoned as a direct result of their work, CPJ stated. Many of the arrested reporters were Kurdish citizens of the state, or were affiliated with or working on contentious issues, including attempted overthrows of the government, Kurdish and Armenian rights, and more.
The Turkish government did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
Responding to CPJ's findings, however, the Turkish ambassador to the United States, Namik Tan, stated: "A great majority of the persons referred to as 'journalists in prison' have been charged with serious crimes - such as being a member of, or supporting an illegal or armed terrorist organisation - that concern the security and integrity of our country, and that are not related to their work as journalists or members of media organisations."
Turkish Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin also responded to the CPJ allegations, calling them "exaggerated" and part of an attempt to use criticism of press freedom in Turkey as a political tool against the government.
"We, as the government, would not want any single person, whether a journalist or not, to be victimised because of their thoughts or expressions," Ergin wrote. "Turkey is making an effort to strike the right balance between preventing the praising of violence and terrorist propaganda, and the need to expand freedom of speech."
Laws limiting freedom of press
Despite these assurances, many point to articles in Turkey's penal code as the primary factor allowing state authorities to arrest and detain journalists. Turkey's anti-terrorism legislation has been criticised for being too broad and easily applied.
The Turkish government amended its anti-terror laws in 2005, at a peak in violence between state forces and the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Turkey, the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist organisation.
Under the law's definition, journalists writing about the PKK, or Kurdish rights in general, can be charged with making "terrorist propaganda" and imprisoned. In 2012, many of the journalists imprisoned in Turkey were either Kurdish or working for Kurdish media outlets.
Journalists in Turkey also have difficulties reporting on court cases, as the state can easily charge reporters with "attempting to influence a trial" (Article 288 of the penal code) or violating confidentiality (Article 285).
Article 301 of the Turkish penal code also makes "insulting Turkishness" a criminal offense, though what this law really means, or how it is applied, remains subjective at best.
Combined with high media concentration - most outlets are owned by large conglomerates - and the government's willingness to publicly turn against the press, these laws have "a chilling effect and limits freedom of expression in practice, while making self-censorship a common phenomenon in the Turkish media", according to the European Commission's 2012 progress report on Turkey's European Union accession.
Turkey's blurring of the line between "the incitement to violence and the expression of non-violent ideas" leads to abuses of freedom of expression and the media, the report also found.
Social media as hopeful tool
"We are teaching journalism students to go after the truth, investigate, be brave. But they quickly see that there is too much price to pay." - Asli Tunc, Istanbul-Bilgi University
According to Asli Tunc, head of the media department at Istanbul-Bilgi University, repression of journalists is not a new phenomenon for Turkey. Describing Turkish media as "deceptively free", Asli said the issue is related to a lack of democratic reforms in the country.
"Every journalist has a reflex to seek the truth and do actual reporting. Turkish media has lost that passion. We are teaching journalism students to go after the truth, investigate, be brave; but they quickly see that there is too much price to pay," Tunc said. "There is self-censorship. Everyone is afraid of being fired. People know their limits and don't step over the red line."
She added, however, that the Internet may provide the last refuge for journalistic freedoms.
Upset by what he saw as the Turkish mainstream media's silence on a widespread Kurdish hunger strike taking place in prisons across the country last year, 28-year-old Emrah Ucar took the matter into his own hands, launching a Facebook page providing news on the strike.
"The page was very dynamic. We had over 14,000 members in 28 days. The number of people talking about the page was about 80,000-90,000 people," said Ucar, who lives in Istanbul.
Ucar opened a Facebook and Twitter account to spread information about the hunger strike. When the strike ended in November, he opened a new account, called "Ötekilerin Postasi" ('The Other Post'), to continue disseminating marginalised voices.
Today, the group spreads information about court hearings, protests, arrests and other political events happening throughout Turkey that may not necessarily get mainstream coverage. The group's Facebook page has almost 22,000 "Likes" and its Twitter account has more than 5,550 followers.
"Those in power have always created their own media, their own embedded media," Ucar said. "We decided to have a page to talk about women, children, Kurds, all the people who have been made into 'The Other'. There's a need for alternative media here."
An uncertain future
Earlier this week, at least seven journalists and media professionals were released from jail pending trial in cases related to supporting and being members of the Union of Communities in Kurdistan, the same reason journalist Ragip Zarakolu was imprisoned last year.
"We hope that this is the first step on the road to ending the practice of holding journalists in pretrial detention," Committee to Protect Journalists deputy director Robert Mahoney said.
Still, major problems persist and Turkey recently ranked 154th out of 179 countries - behind Iraq, Afghanistan, and Russia - in the 2013 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders. The group also called Turkey "the world's biggest prison for journalists".
"There have been serious improvements but then it's like the Ottoman March: one step forward, two steps backwards," said Gokce Tuyluoglu, executive director of the Open Society Foundation-Turkey.
"We lose hope every night," she said. "But the next morning, we start from scratch, with the same high level of hope. We are going to continue striving for change, and I really think there is dynamism for change in Turkey."Photo
With shock and grief clutching Borough Park in Brooklyn, thousands of mourners and residents poured into a neighborhood courtyard Wednesday evening for the funeral of an 8-year-old Brooklyn boy who was abducted and killed this week as he walked home from camp.
The funeral for the boy swelled to capacity before its scheduled start time at 8:30, prompting many of the thousands who could not get in to gather behind police barricades, crowding neighborhood streets as they waited to pay their respects to the young boy, Leiby Kletzky, whose remains were discovered earlier in the day. Throngs of police officers and members of a local security patrol group, the shomrim, kept order as a steady stream of visitors poured into the courtyard, adjacent to a school between 16th and 17th Avenues, within two blocks of where the boy lived. One of the shomrim volunteers estimated close to 8,000 people were in attendance.
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“We need to separate like the Red Sea so the family can get through,” one officer announced.
Inside, a large gathering of mourners in Orthodox and traditional modest dress — men and women separated as per custom — clutched leather-bound prayer books and chanted, some in tears, others stoic. Two elderly women known for their charity work passed around tins for donations, or tzedakah. Bottles of water and boxes of tissues were passed through the audience. Upfront, the women in Leiby’s family sat together, their heads covered in scarves and their faces etched with grief.
The service began shortly before 10 p.m., and was marked by a speech from the boy’s father, whose voice shook as he stood before the crowd and addressed his dead son, saying in Yiddish that he was lucky to have had him, if only for nine years.
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“Thank God we had him,” he said, according to a translator.
And then, overcome by emotion, he went silent. A moment later the principal of Leiby’s school spoke.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
“He got lost, he got lost,” he said, according to the translator. “There’s nothing to say, he got lost. God wanted it.” Several rabbis also spoke in Yiddish through intermittent tears, repeatedly breaking down. They extolled the boy’s good qualities, and reminded the community to be careful, urging the adults to protect their children. At one point the rabbi of the synagogue that Leiby attended recalled the boy’s devotion to his studies.
Video
“He was such a good learner,” the rabbi said, according to a translation. “He used to pray all day. It was a pleasure to have him in the class. We’re not the boss. Everything is as God wanted it.”By Adam Taylor
The Avnet EVK (Embedded Vision Kit) API provided with the example code allows us to communicate with the camera receiver module within the Zynq and with the Python 1300C imaging device on the camera module. This API provides a number of functions.
You use the functions with “_CAM_” in the name to communicate with the camera receiver module. You use the functions with “_SPI_” in their name to communicate with the Python Camera Module:
void onsemi_vita_spi_reg_write( onsemi_vita_t *pContext, Xuint32 uRegOffset, Xuint32 uData )
void onsemi_vita_cam_reg_write( onsemi_vita_t *pContext, Xuint32 uRegOffset, Xuint32 uData )
As developers, we need to be careful to use the correct function for out intended task; they are pretty easy to confuse.
The first function we’ll look at in depth is the function that controls the camera receiver module. The camera receiver module has fewer registers and is not as well documented as the camera module itself, which is well documented via its datasheet.
Examining the VHDL for the camera receiver IP and adding a little code to our example application to read and display the contents of the register helped me to create the following memory map for the camera receiver module. Zynq SoC addressing is 32-bit addressing over the AXI interface so the register addresses increment by four for each address, as you would expect.
Example from the Camera Module Register Display
The complete memory map for the camera receiver can be seen in the pdf document attached at the end of this blog post.
Running the example code, which extracts the contents of all registers, should show alignment between the status that we read last week because they are both generated by the same module. It is also worth noting at this point that the camera receiver is designed to interface to different kinds of sensors, so not all registers may be populated or used.
We need to use the SPI interface to control the Python 1300C module. Through this interface, we can configure and control the settings to make the device exhibit the desired behavior. The SPI interface uses 16 bits of data plus address and command. Using the SPI read command to read the device ID from the Python 1300C sensor module results in the following response–which rather helpfully ties to the datasheet:
There are 279 register within the Python 1300C device on the camera module. These addresses increment by one between addresses and are fully detailed within the datasheet for the device.
It is over the SPI interface that we gain real control of the Python device. We can use this interface to configure the regions of interest/windows, change the digital and analog gain settings, and set all of the other device configurations.
Of course, before jumping in and changing the settings of the Python 1300C device, it is always a good idea to examine the current register contents.
In the next blog we will look a little closer at how we can use some of these advance features now that we understand how to communicate with the Python 1300C imager.BUCHAREST, Romania — Exactly one week after the largest protests in a quarter of a century rocked Romania, an estimated 70,000 demonstrators filled the square outside the main government building in Bucharest on Sunday evening, determined to show those in power that the crisis was far from over.
While significantly less than the half a million who took to the streets across the country the previous Sunday, the Bucharest demonstration was still a potent sign of the resilient unrest in the country and the loss of trust between the new government, only in office since the beginning of January, and a large sector of the population.
Sunday was the 13th night in a row that protesters occupied Piata Victoriei — Victory Square — in Bucharest, after the government passed an emergency ordinance on Jan. 31 that effectively decriminalized some low-level corruption offenses, including cases of official misconduct in which the financial damage was less than 200,000 lei, or about $47,000. Protests have also taken place in more than 50 towns and cities across the country.
In the face of the large-scale backlash, the emergency ordinance was repealed a week ago, but that has not stopped protesters from demonstrating their anger.Plot Summary
The location: Nazi occupied Rome. As Rome is classified an open city, most Romans can wander the streets without fear of the city being bombed or them being killed in the process. But life for Romans is still difficult with the Nazi occupation as there is a curfew, basic foods are rationed, and the Nazis are still searching for those working for the resistance and will go to any length to quash those in the resistance and anyone providing them with assistance. War worn widowed mother Pina is about to get married to her next door neighbor Francesco. Despite their situation - Pina being pregnant, and Francesco being an atheist - Pina and Francesco will be wed by Catholic priest Don Pietro Pelligrini. The day before the wedding, Francesco's friend, Giorgio Manfredi, who Pina has never met, comes looking for Francesco as he, working for the resistance, needs a place to hide out. For his latest mission, Giorgio also requests the assistance of Don Pietro, who is more than willing as he sees such work as being in the name of God. Don Pietro's position also provides him with access to where others are not able. Giorgio's girlfriend, Marina, a cabaret performer, doesn't even know where Giorgio is in hiding. Both Pina and Marina take measures to improve their lives under this difficult situation, those actions in combination which have tragic consequences. Written by Huggo Plot SummaryBrazil has announced its intention to hire up to 6,000 Cuban doctors to make up for a shortages of medics in the South American nation’s vast countryside.
The plan, which has drawn the ire of Brazilian doctors, is the latest cooperation between the two countries, and follows Cuba sending 30,000 doctors to Venezuela. The government intends for the doctors to work in areas where current provisions are poor or non-existent. Most Brazilians doctors are based in large cities and are reluctant to transfer to Brazil’s underdeveloped north-east and Amazon regions.
Brazil’s Foreign Minister, Antonio Patriota, has revealed negotiations are under way with the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) to allow the Cuban doctors to practice in Brazil.He told a press conference the plan would strengthen ties between Cuba and Brazil that have expanded since the left-wing Worker’s Party won the country’s presidency a decade ago.
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.
“Cuba is very proficient in the areas of medicine, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology and Brazil is considering receiving Cubans doctors in talks that involve PAHO,” he said.
The announcement follows negotiations that lasted more than year, after Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff visited Havana for talksin 2012.
But Brazilian medical associations have opposed the plan, arguing that the standard of medical training in Cuba is not equivalent to that given to doctors in Brazil. The Federal Medical Council said the proposals were “irresponsible” and “electioneering”.
The plans echo the agreement between Cuba and the late Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela to send 30,000 doctors to serve in poor areas of that country in exchange for cheap oil.
While Brazil’s government is much more centrist than Venezuela’s, the move will be seen as a further attempt to extend its influence in a continent long dominated by the US.
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 nowThese are some of the most popular search terms online for Alaska Governor and Republican vice presidential pick Sarah Palin since Friday.
Image: Wordle.net
John McCain's campaign team has often used Barack Obama's popularity and the world's interest in him as a tool to belittle his candidacy during the 2008 presidential campaign. The McCain camp has used videos such as "Celeb" and "Obama Love" to mock the Democrats' leading man.
But for now it turns out that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has more in common with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in internet-searchers' minds than Obama.
That's according to the audience measurement firm Hitwise, and search pattern statistics from Google.
Of course, since relatively few of the electorate knew who Palin was before last Friday, it makes sense that the top search term for Palin was simply the vice presidential candidate's name. But the second and third top searches, of the 1,323 unique search queries tracked over the past few weeks were "Vogue Magazine," and "Photos," according to Hitwise' general managing Bill Tancer in arecent article in* Time *and author of "Click: What Millions Do Online And Why It Matters."
Other popular searches among the "American public," he writes, are "hot photos," "Sarah Palin Bikini Photos," "Sarah Palin Nude," and "Sarah Palin Naked."
You might normally associate those terms with those other two women who are famous for being famous. Of course, in the short time that McCain announced his pick, Palin's already become supermarket tabloid fodder too.
The spike in interest in Palin was also noticed by Chicago writer Nate Silver. Silver noted in a blog post yesterday that searches for Palin blew way past the search terms "Britney Spears," "Paris Hilton," "Michael Phelps," and "Barack Obama," combined.
Could all this online searching, and Palin's good looks and relative youth at 44, translate into more of the online demographic learning about McCain's position on the issues and liking what they see?
Michael D. Hais (a Democrat) and co-author of "Millennial Makeover," with Morley Winograd, doesn't think so.
"The Millennial generation identify themselves as Democrats two to one, and they're the first generation in three or four generations where more people call themselves liberal than conservative," he said.
Moreover, Palin's confrontational style doesn't sit well with this emerging political generation, who were born between 1982 and 2003.
Millennials want to work out issues by working together through compromise, he said. And the demographic research shows that they're more concerned with civic duty than culture war issues such as abortion.
Palin's speech, at least as far as he could tell from last night, Hais said, emphasized partisan differences and a right and wrong, which is not how Millennials like to approach the solving of problems.
"It's: 'We're on one side of the issue, and the other side is wrong,' and that is not the way Millennials approach things," he said.
Rather, Obama's approach of reaching out for compromise, like the way he did in his nomination acceptance speech last week, is more in tune with these young voters, he said. Hais specifically cited Obama's comment on abortion.
Specifically, Obama had said: "We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country."
Hais cites a USA Today/Gallup pollthat re-inforces this hunch that Palin's speech isn't likely to have appealed to the Millennials to switch over. The poll, published Thursday, shows a decline in swing voters from 30 percent a week ago to 21 percent. He says that suggests that more voters have dug their heels in.A survey sent to PC Gamers on behalf of Electronic Arts asks many questions about what kinds of subscription models would appeal to them. It puts forward the idea of an "All You Can Play Video Game Subscription On PC". On the following pages various options are put forward and gamers asked which options they prefer and if any would appeal enough to prompt them to subscribe.
Many HEXUS readers probably already know about EA Access, available on the Xbox One. This is a service for Microsoft's console owners which gives subscribers access to 'The Vault', a growing EA library of games, plus early releases and discounts on buying EA games. (EA Access costs £3.99 pm in the UK.) Interestingly, the recent EA sponsored survey, questioning PC gamers, seems to go well beyond the scope of the games offered by the Xbox One service.
The survey lists publishers including EA, Activision, Bethesda, Take 2 and Ubisoft, and the top titles from these publishers, in trying to learn what would prompt a PC gamer to stump up for a subscription. Those surveyed were also asked their opinions on Indie games, the inclusion of DLC, discount rates on new titles, and the inclusion of trial/beta games where progress is taken over when the game is released.
Other important questions concern what delay, if any, is acceptable between a game launch and its availability to subscribers. Answers could vary between immediately and 12 months. PC gamers were asked how often new games should be added to the service to keep it attractive. Of course, that most important question of price was brought up by the survey. From the possible answers it looks like EA would price subscriptions between $4.99 and $14.99 per month, depending upon what is offered, when the possible upcoming service launches.
I've included a couple of images here in the article, showing pages and page excerpts from the survey. The full survey, as published by user Macho Madness on Neogaf, can be found on imgur.
The question is: if EA could pull together multiple publishers and their games libraries at the prices it suggests – could it create the fabled 'Netflix for PC games'?With the release of Wonderwall Music in November 1968, George Harrison was the first Beatle to step into the spotlight on his own. Recording sessions actually began a year earlier -- when the Beatles were recording their annual Christmas message -- with "India" and "Swordfencing," both working titles that would be changed before release.
In January 1968, Harrison traveled to EMI's studios in Bombay for a whirlwind five-day session. There, he employed various local musicians, wrapping up work on Jan. 12. With time left on the clock in Bombay, Harrison decided to use the facilities and musicians to record a handful of ragas for possible use on future Beatles records. Only one song, "The Inner Light," was used, with the rest of the group adding its parts back home at the Abbey Road studios in London in February.
According to Mark Lewisohn's The Beatles Recording Sessions, the music Harrison recorded in Bombay was brought to the Abbey Road studios, where he embellished them with some famous friends. Even though they're not officially listed on Wonderwall Music, Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr make appearances. Clapton, credited as Eddie Clayton, whips out some great lead guitar on "Ski-ing", while Starr (Richie Snare) plays drums. Also, Peter Tork of the Monkees plays banjo on the album. He and Harrison became friends when the Monkees visited the U.K.
Listen to George Harrison's 'Wonderwall to Be Here'
Not so surprisingly, the music on the LP, which doubled as a soundtrack to the little-seen movie Wonderwall, features a very strong Indian influence, consisting mostly of raga tunes. The music is, at times, hypnotic and dreamlike, with a vast selection of traditional Indian instruments -- including sitar, tabla, harmonium, sarod and shehnai -- setting the mood on songs like "Drilling a Home," "Red Lady Too," "Greasy Legs" and "Ski-ing."
Most of the 19 tracks are pretty short, but they feature plenty of different sounds. In addition to being the first solo Beatles album to be released, the LP is also notable for being the first album to come out on the group's Apple record label. It managed to climb into the Top 50 on the U.S. album chart. In 1995, Noel Gallagher borrowed its title for Oasis'Top 10 hit.Andrej Babis, the designated Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, said that his country doesn’t want refugees.
In an interview with newspaper Pravo, Babis replied to the European Union’s decision to sue countries who don’t accept migrants. He said:
“The (European) Commission can withdraw the charge at any moment. We have to negotiate on this and to offer different models, like guarding the borders or help to other countries. But we don’t want any refugees”
Babis added that by continuing the procedure (of forcing the country to take migrants), this could strengthen “extremist” parties in the Czech Republic.
Earlier this week it became clear that like Hungary, the Czech Republic wants to strengthen Europe’s borders and return illegal immigrants. Babis will represent his country at an EU summit about migration on 14 and 15 December.Dateline: WASHINGTON—At an unprecedented conference yesterday on relations between journalism and democratic government, Washington correspondents together with congressional leaders and the President reached an understanding about their public communications: from now on, the politician will deliver his or her talking points to an empty room.
At a subsequent press conference, House Speaker Boehner said that although talking points are useless if no one hears them, “no one takes talking points seriously anymore.” Politicians are “professionally and psychologically incapable of being candid in public,” he said, or of “listening carefully to a journalist’s questions and answering them to fulfill their side of the bargain in a genuine conversation.” But since “spinning issues in a stony-faced evasion of whatever the listener is saying” is part of a politician’s job description, the politician might as well deliver the spin without the intended listeners being in any way present.
The reader should be aware that because that press conference was the first of its kind and the House Speaker was therefore speaking to two hundred empty seats, the present RWUG reporter can only imagine that that was his rationale for agreeing to the conclusions reached at the conference. Political analyst Peter Beinart explains that not even robot-operated cameras will be allowed to record the events. That way, correspondents will be prevented from even indirectly paying any attention to the talking points. “The trick is to ignore them completely,” he said, “to retaliate against the politician’s ignoring of whatever the journalist is saying.”
According to this RWUG reporter’s imagining of what President Obama said in his later press conference to motivate this new era of American government-media relations, he said, “If you look carefully at how I handle questions at a press conference, you’ll see quite clearly that I just couldn’t care less about the actual content of those questions. Either way, I’m going to ram through my talking points. You could ask me about what’s happening in Timbuktu and I’d pivot to giving my multi-paragraph history lesson on how we reached the current American budget crisis, to frame that issue and make my policy seem the only responsible option. The same goes for every modern president before me.”
Questioned by a Washington correspondent—whom this RWUG reporter imagines might have spoken at Speaker Boehner’s press conference, had there been a single journalist in attendance—as to what political journalists should write about if they’re no longer transmitting the talking points, Speaker Boehner might have said, “They’ll just have to make stuff up. As it is, no one trusts the media either anymore.”
Senate Harry Reid might have said at this morning’s press conference, whose one-sided contents we’re all blissfully unaware of, that the government and the media are just finally clearing the air. “When I’m speaking in public, I just couldn’t give a rat’s behind what anyone else is saying,” he might have said. “My job is to get my talking points out, come hell or high water. So since this is a monologue, a one-way street, if you will, there’s no need for the reporters to be physically present.”
Had he been asked how politicians will henceforth get their message out to the American people, when no one will actually be listening any longer to what they’re saying, President Obama might have said, “Although as a politician I’m still obligated to speak in public as if I’m the only person in the room, whether anyone hears what I’m saying is irrelevant since politicians no longer need public support. Not only will we say what we’re going to say, regardless of what any listener might be saying, but we politicians are going to do what we want to do regardless of what the American people want done.”If you were a web developer prior to ActiveRecord, you probably remember rolling your own SQL and being specific about which fields you retrieved, writing multiple queries to handle “upserts” (update or insert), and getting frustrated with how difficult it was to generate SQL dynamically.
Then Ruby on Rails came along with its ActiveRecord API, and all of that pain seemed to melt away into distant memory. Now we no longer have to worry about which fields to retrieve, “upserts” can be handled with a single method, and scopes allow us to be as dynamic as we want.
Unfortunately, ActiveRecord introduced new pains: the “WHERE” clause (i.e. the predicate) only allows connecting conditions with “AND”s, and the only comparisons allowed are “=” and “in”. To get around this, we often concede ActiveRecord’s shortcomings and revert back to raw SQL. But in Rails 3.0, we were introduced to another way.
Arel
The Arel relational algebra library is an abstract syntax tree (AST) manager and has the goals of “1) Simplif[ying] the generation of complex SQL queries; and 2) Adapt to various RDBMSes”. It’s the “engine” ActiveRecord uses to change method calls into actual SQL. To be clear, Arel only generates SQL, it doesn’t access the database and retrieve
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We moved into our dream home, a small log cabin nestled in the woods on the side of a Georgia ridge in December of 2001, my husband and I. This period was one of the darkest days of our lives, and we were at a low point that still hurts to think about. It was a very tough and challenging time for me professionally, and our family was getting hit with multiple major crises.
I’ve never been a take a walk in the rain kind of gal, but for some reason, I always wanted to be. I guess because we all know about those rose colored glasses I can’t seem to break, even after almost 60 years on this earth. I am a romantic, among many other things.
Shortly after moving in to the cabin, my feelings about the rain started to change. I had always hated rainy days, but here in the woods on the steep side of the ridge, the rain sounds beautiful falling through the leaves, and it almost always brings fog that surrounds the cabin. The backside of the cabin faces the down slope and you can sit on the porch and be in the middle of the soft grey blue cloud. It’s one of the most peaceful experiences I have ever had.
The forest is so dense you can’t see the road, let alone a sunset, during the summer, unless you stand at the top of the driveway for just a glimpse. My husband and I used to bundle up that December and sit out on the porch to watch the spectacular sunsets, almost every night. We would be out at the store, and one of us would look at the time and we would rush home. If guests were over, we insisted they put their coats on to look at “our” sunset.
In a word, we took time to experience nature, rather than just live in it. To be fair, that’s mostly a description of me. My husband works outside and will never work in a building. He takes moments every day to enjoy sunrises and sunsets and eagles flying over the river. But even he probably didn’t much enjoy the fog.
Yesterday I had three of my grandchildren here. Conner, the two year old future mountain climber and already professional acrobat, had spent the night. His older brother and sister were very upset to be left at home, even though it wasn’t their turn. Their grandfather promised them a big surprise was waiting for them here.
When they arrived yesterday, in the middle of a terrible rainstorm, the first thing Sadie (5 going on 30) asked was where her surprise was. I tried to get her to play a guessing game, but she was relentless. She always is. So I took her to the door and showed her the new bigger swimming pool I had found for them on sale.
She was excited and crestfallen at the same time, seeing the new pool through the rain falling. She struggled for a few minutes, anxiously watching the pool through the downpour, her usually lively mood a little serious.
Not five minutes later, she came to me with the answer, as the child always, always does. Our Sadie is a top rate problem solver, and never stays down. She said “Pipi, we just have to ignore the rain.”
Then she made her pitch. Why should a little rain stop their fun in the water? What difference would it make? No reason at all to allow the weather to stop the fun and trap us all inside and ruin our day.
I smiled, because I had known that was what she would come back with. Pipi has let her play in the rain since she was barely old enough to stand and stick her chubby little foot out of the porch and feel the drops the first time.
But her earnest expression and her lively body language, arms out, palms up, literally willing me to believe, along with that one eloquent sentence, made me think about it all day.
We just have to ignore the rain.
I am not very good at ignoring the storms. Not the weather ones. Not the life ones. I am not very good at always looking for joy, even on the darkest days. I am not very good at thanking God for life’s storms. In the course of our lives here at the cabin, I lost my initial joy at the rain and fog and lost myself in fear of falling trees and lightning strikes.
Jesus emphasized to us, in word and deeds, to listen to the children, to emulate them. Mountains of books and commentaries have been written analyzing just exactly what he meant. I won’t try here, but I do think that keeping ourselves open to joy in the middle of the rain is probably one of the things he had in mind.
To reject joy is to reject the Father, from whom all joy comes. Happiness is fleeting and nice, but not joy. Joy is the supernova of human emotion, the bright and blinding flash that we can open ourselves to, but not really ever initiate. It is to be experienced, not created.
And if you can’t be open to joy in the rain and storms, you are probably going to miss most of the opportunities to experience it.
Oh yeah, and joy should be shared.
Thank you Sadie, for sharing the joy, and reminding me to work on my attitude about storms.
One last afterthought here. Those dark times we went through when we first moved here were made much more bearable by the joy we allowed ourselves to find here. And those dark times gave me some very important personal strengths and our family eventually came out a lot tougher.
And the sun shined brighter than ever one day.
If you are interested in some reading that might help you remember to thank God in the middle of life’s storms, I recommend Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence by Jean Baptist Saint-Jure.
AdvertisementsOKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma – In late June, the Oklahoma State Capitol monument of Ten Commandments was declared unconstitutional and would have to be removed. This came after several years of public controversy and pressure from numerous religious freedom groups. One of these groups is the The Satanic Temple, who has recently funded and completed a large statue of Baphomet specifically to sit alongside the Oklahoma Ten Commandments. Now that the monument has been ordered down, the question on everyone’s mind is, “What will The Satanic Temple (TST) do with Baphomet?”
Lucien Greaves, spokesperson for TST told The Wild Hunt:
Given the Court’s ruling, TST no longer has any interest in pursuing placement of the Baphomet monument on Oklahoma’s Capitol grounds.The entire point of our effort was to offer a monument that would complement and contrast the 10 Commandments, reaffirming that we live in a nation that respects plurality, a nation that refuses to allow a single viewpoint to co-opt the power and authority of government institutions. This is the very essence of our explicitly secular Constitution. Any one religious monument on public grounds is intolerable. However, once one is allowed, it is orders of magnitude better that many should be represented, rather than a single voice claim unique privilege.
Greaves also noted that his organization’s efforts to erect the “Baphomet’ monument alongside the 10 Commandments … was soon credited by many as being instrumental in the Court’s decision.” He said, “After all, it could not have been lost on the presiding judges that a ruling in favor of the 10 Commandments would necessitate their consideration of a suit in favor of Baphomet, and any rationale preserving the 10 Commandments could also be leveraged in TST’s favor.”
The court’s decision came on June 30 and stated that the Ten Commandments monument must be removed from the Capitol in Oklahoma City because it violates the state Constitution. In a 7-2 decision, the justices said the privately funded monument violated Article 2, Section 5 of the state’s Constitution.
No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary, or sectarian institution as such.
The Ten Commandments monument was funded by state lawmaker Mike Ritze (R) and was installed at the capitol in 2012. Then in 2014, it was destroyed by a man who crashed his car into the 6 ft high stone monument, saying “Satan told him to do it.” It was promptly replaced by Rep. Ritze.
However, by that point, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had already filed suit asking that the monument be removed on grounds that the “the monument stands alone, with no other monuments or memorials in the immediate vicinity.” The ACLU also objected to the specifically Judeo-Christian religious nature of the stone Ten Commandments tablet.
At the same time, TST started crowdfunding to create a 7ft high bronze statue of Baphomet to be placed at the state capitol next to the Ten Commandments monument. The organization said that adding the statue of Baphomet would show religious pluralism and address the ACLU’s concerns. As noted in the IndieGoGo campaign:
By accepting our offer, the good people of Oklahoma City will have the opportunity to show that they espouse the basic freedoms spelled out in the Constitution. We imagine that the ACLU will also embrace such a response. Allowing us to donate a monument would show that the Oklahoma City Council does not discriminate, and both the religious and non-religious should be happy with such an outcome. Our mission is to bring people together by finding common sentiments that create solutions that everyone can appreciate and enjoy.
The crowdfunding project attracted 1,041 donors and raised $28,180 in one month.
The Satanic Temple, a non-profit religious group headquartered in New York, has a history of working for religious pluralism, women’s reproductive rights, and ending child abuse.
In 2014, the organization unveiled a full size template of the proposed statue showing Baphomet sitting on a pentagram throne with two children looking up at him. TST planned to donate the completed statue to Oklahoma’s Capitol Preservation Commission for display upon Oklahoma City’s capitol grounds next to the Ten Commandments monument. However, the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission had placed a moratorium on any requests to donate art to the capitol pending the resolution of the ACLU lawsuit.
The finished statue “weighs one ton and [towers] nearly nine feet tall.” It is scheduled to be unveiled at Berts Warehouse Entertainment in Detroit, Michigan on July 25. Because the statue was destined for the Oklahoma state grounds, this unveiling event was considered to be “a call-to-arms from which [The Satanic Temple would] kick off [its] largest fight to date in the name of individual rights to free exercise against self-serving theocrats.”
Now that the court has ruled that the Ten Commandments must be removed, Baphomet’s future is uncertain. Greaves said, “Unfortunately, our insistence that Baphomet only be displayed to complement and contrast a pre-existing public monument of religious signification doesn’t limit our options nearly enough … there are plenty of areas in the United States crying out for a counter-balance to existing graven tributes to archaic Abrahamic barbarism. Arkansas is looking rather appealing.” Greaves is referring to a newly signed law allowing for the placement of a privately-funded Ten Commandments monument on the Arkansas’ state capitol grounds.
As for the Baphomet statue, it is now being protested by members of Detroit’s religious community ahead of the upcoming unveiling. Change Agent Consortium (CAC), a faith-based community organization whose mission is to engage “people in our democracy to improve food access, better job skills and the economic development of citizens,” is organizing these protests.
“I am horrified by The Satanic Temple’s decision to unveil their ‘Baphomet’ in Detroit. They are a satirical group that attempts to mock religion and destroy the fabric of sincere religious belief and the value of true religious expression,” said Change Agent Consortium leader David Bullock. The group says the statue is not good for Detroit and plans to host a prayer protest on the day the statue is presented to the public.
As for the Ten Commandments monument, Oklahoma lawmakers have said the battle isn’t yet over. They plan to amend the state constitution to remove the section of Article 2, Section V that prohibits the use of public property for religious purposes.
While the fight in Oklahoma is not completely over, Greaves said, “Hopefully, when all is said and done, TST will have helped to awaken within a generally lackadaisical public rightful disgust towards public officials — like Pruitt and Rapert — who so mindlessly and shamelessly pursue these infuriatingly unconstitutional undertakings at the expense of taxpayer dollars.The people of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and the world over, deserve better than to suffer politicians who fail to comprehend the very premise of their public duty: the duty to uphold an environment of viewpoint neutrality and plurality, where all people — whether Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, Muslim, Satanist, or any ‘other’ — can enjoy equal protection under the law, with preference for, and bigotry against, none.”There is no indication that the Justice Department will not pursue testimony for its leak prosecution against former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, and, as a result, fourteen Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists have come forward to declare their support for Risen in his fight against revealing information from his confidential sources.
The government has pursued testimony from Risen for well over six years. Prosecutors maintain Sterling provided Risen information on a classified program “intended to impede Iran’s efforts to acquire or develop nuclear weapons,” which he later published highlighted in his book, State of War.
Throughout this ordeal, Risen has never been held in contempt. However, with the Supreme Court’s decision in June to not hear his case over whether he had a reporter’s privilege to protect his confidential sources, he has exhausted his appeals.
President Barack Obama’s administration now has a clear path to subpoena and coerce him into testifying. The administration could threaten him with jail or even fine him in increments that increase each day until he is bankrupt.
The Freedom of the Press Foundation posted statements from journalists committed to showing solidarity with Risen.
“Enough is enough,” New York Times investigative reporter David Barstow declared. “The relentless and by all appearances vindictive effort by two administrations to force Jim Risen into betraying his sources has already done substantial and lasting damage to journalism in the United States.”
The Washington Post’s Dana Priest, the co-author of Top Secret America, stated if the US government is so concerned about information Risen revealed about a “now 14-year-old CIA operation against Iran” that went wrong” it would have “moved quickly to resolve this matter eight years ago when it was first published.”
“Instead, it seems obvious now that what officials really want is to hold a hammer over the head of a deeply sourced reporter, and others like him who try to hold the government accountable for what it does, even in secret,” Priest added.
She noted that over-classification of information by Obama and President George W. Bush had made the reporting of journalists like Risen increasingly critical to the public’s ability to “question whether a gigantic government in the shadows is really even a good idea.”
Both Jason Szep and Andrew R.C. Marshall, international reporters for Reuters, suggested it was “scandalous” Risen may face “jail time for doing what every good journalist working in the public interest does: protect confidential sources.”
“President Obama and Attorney General Holder should halt all legal action against James to demonstrate that their ‘war on leaks’ is not an assault on the First Amendment and freedom of the press,” Szep and Marshall added.
“Preservation of a free, unfettered press has a long history in our country, allowing ordinary citizens to learn what their government is up to and to question actions carried out in their name. The Pentagon Papers, Watergate Scandal, My Lai Massacre, warrantless wiretapping of American citizens and many other outrages would never have come to light in a country where reporters must fear imprisonment for doing their jobs. A big part of doing our jobs is giving our word to protect whistleblowers,” Mark Johnson of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel acknowledged.
“By threatening to send a journalist to prison for refusing to name his sources, the Obama Administration makes the whistleblowers more fearful to come forward, and it makes the journalists more hesitant to expose the failures of the government,” Eric Newhouse of Great Falls (MT) Tribune argued. He called what the administration was doing a “grave disservice.”
Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times quoted George Orwell, who said, “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
“America needs journalists to write the first draft of history without fear or favor, as my colleague James Risen has. It is deeply disturbing that the Obama Administration is pursuing Mr. Risen for doing his job.”
Over 125,000 have signed a petition initiated by the Center for Media and Democracy, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), The Nation, The Progressive and Roots Action, as well as the Freedom of the Press Foundation. It has been supported by multiple press freedom organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP).
The petition and its hundreds of thousands of signatures will be presented to the Justice Department at the National Press Club on August 14 during a press conference in which Phil Donahue and others representing multiple supporting organizations will speak.
For more background on his case, go here.The quarterback coach who helped Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers to one of his finest NFL seasons could be the man who helps turn Eli Manning back around.
Ben McAdoo, the Packers quarterbacks coach for the last two seasons, will interview for the Giants' vacant offensive coordinator job on Saturday, according to two NFL sources. The 36-year-old will be the third known candidate to meet with Tom Coughlin about the job, and when he arrives he'll be bringing a very powerful endorsement.
"I sent him a text," Rodgers said on his ESPN Wisconsin radio show on Tuesday. "I said, 'Make sure you put me down as a reference.'"
Rodgers actually said that the day before McAdoo met with the Cleveland Browns about their head coaching vacancy. And though he's a longshot there, he could be a hot commodity for offensive coordinator vacancies. He is believed to be the favorite to land the job in Miami, where the Dolphins are coached by his former Packers boss, Joe Philbin.
McAdoo was a tight ends coach before he was promoted to quarterbacks coach in 2012, and in his first season Rodgers led the NFL with a 108.0 passer rating – the second highest of his career, albeit a drop from his incredible 122.5 one year earlier. Rodgers raved about McAdoo's work ethic and his work.
"Any opportunities he gets, he deserves," Rodgers said. "He's a guy that works extremely hard. We had a long talk (Monday), and I just continued to echo the things that I felt about him and appreciate about him.
"Ultimately I have always needed a guy who gets me prepared every week, that can give me the opportunities to reach my potential," Rodgers added. "Ben did that every day the last two seasons for me and the other quarterbacks in the room … He's a guy who wants to learn and takes to heart the things I say or the things he hears from Tom (Clements, the Packers offensive coordinator) and tried to become a better quarterbacks coach every day. And he did."
The Giants have been searching for an offensive coordinator since last week when Kevin Gilbride announced his retirement, and Coughlin spent most of Wednesday interviewing his first two candidates. He met with former Titans offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains and former Giants quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan, who has widely been portrayed as the favorite.Now credits a book by a doctor with aiding her gradual recovery
Said: 'I don't want to offend anyone, but having cancer had less of an impact on my life than this did - and was quicker to treat'
Has been told she is lazy, depressed but has the support of her husband
Has forced her to quit work as a scientist and she is virtually housebound
Jenny Andrews, 42, has suffered from chronic fatigue for 10 years - and says it has destroyed her life far more than the bladder cancer she battled
A former cancer patient says she would rather still have the deadly disease than the chronic fatigue syndrome that has plagued the last decade of her life.
Jenny Andrews, 42, says the condition has made her life grind to a halt over the past 10 years - and she fears she may never recover.
Not only has it forced her to quit her job as a scientist and her beloved hobby of belly dancing, but at times has meant she can barely lift her head from the pillow.
'At my worst, I had dizziness when standing, sheer exhaustion so bad I couldn't even go out - never mind continue my scientific studies,' she told MailOnline.
'I hated smells, lights, and my brain felt continually foggy and couldn't read anymore or even concentrate on daytime TV.'
Ten years ago, Ms Andrews, from Nottinghamshire, was diagnosed with bladder cancer.
'But the chronic fatigue syndrome - or CFS as it is known - is so much worse than that,' she said.
'Chronic fatigue is not in the mind - it is a very physical condition not treated with the gravity it deserves.
'It's not one symptom, it's a collection of symptoms and it has robbed me of my life, my career and maybe even the opportunity to have children.'
She added: 'I was unlucky to get bladder cancer at 32, as it tends to strike older people. But I would honestly say CFS is worse.
'I don't want to offend anyone, but having cancer had less of an impact on my life than this did - and was quicker to treat.
'I was fortunate not to lose both my kidneys or need a hysterectomy.
'Surgery and cancer treatment are different - you do get over it. But with chronic fatigue, it just goes on and on.'
Chronic fatigue syndrome is also known as ME.
The condition affects between one and four million in the US and millions more worldwide - and the combination of symptoms can devastate a patient's life for decades.
Putting a definitive figure on the number of sufferers is difficult, because the condition can be difficult to diagnose.
Jose Montoya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and a leading expert in CFS, has described the condition as 'one of the greatest scientific and medical challenges of our time'.
He said:'Its symptoms often include not only overwhelming fatigue but also joint and muscle pain, incapacitating headaches, food intolerance, sore throat, enlargement of the lymph nodes, gastrointestinal problems, abnormal blood-pressure and heart-rate events, and hypersensitivity to light, noise or other sensations.'
Ms Andrews pictured as part of an awareness campaign about her condition. Not only has it forced her to quit her job as a scientist and her beloved hobby of belly dancing (left), but at times has meant she can barely lift her head from the pillow. 'Some people think I'm making it up and being lazy - it's horrendous,' she said. 'But I can tell you, taking 15 minutes just to climb the stairs is not fun'
Ms Andrews' problems began when she noticed blood clots in her urine - and tests revealed the devastating news that she had bladder cancer.
After surgery to remove the the tumour she underwent five years of immunotherapy treatment.
This involved injecting the TB vaccine into her bladder every few months to get rid of the cancer.
During this time, she also experienced a range of family bereavements and traumas that had an impact on her life and stress levels.
'My body just shut down, I was living on coffee and my adrenal glands gave up - they couldn't cope.
Chronic fatigue is like having horrendous nausea and then being thrown on a ship - and feeling sea sick - with bags of potatoes tied to each limb - and then someone asking you to run a marathon. And that is just to get to the toilet
'Everything started to mount up, and so my boyfriend Dan and I booked a trip of a lifetime to South Africa to get away from it all.
'I had all the necessary vaccines, including yellow fever and malaria and then went on holiday.
'But I found I was so exhausted I just couldn't really enjoy it.'
Ms Andrews' health continued to deteriorate.
But numerous visits to her doctor didn't help.
'He just kept putting everything down to the cancer I'd had and the treatment,' she said.
'Some of the advice I got was incredible,' she continued. 'I was once told to go and drink a glass of wine, given antidepressants and told to exercise.
'For five years, I was getting worse and worse then a bit better - as in a good day would be getting myself to the toilet by myself.
'I looked at myself in my dressing gown and realised I had no life. '
Ms Andrews with her husband Dan on their wedding day, which was fancy dress themed. Today, she credits her husband with keeping her alive. 'I would be stuck upstairs in bed and he would bring me a Thermos of soup before he left for work. He is a lovely man, supportive and I'm very lucky to have him,' she said
She describes the condition as having 'horrendous nausea and then being thrown on a ship - and feeling sea sick - with bags of potatoes tied to each limb - and then someone asking you to run a marathon.
'And that is just to get to the toilet. '
It was only after a friend recommended she visit an ME website that she realised what was wrong with her.
'I read everything and all the symptoms resonated with me: severe fatigue, lack of stamina, dizziness upon standing up, no concentration, no appetite.
'I burst into tears with the realisation it wasn't the cancer or my cancer treatment - it was the fact I suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome.'
WHAT IS CHRONIC FATIGUE/ME? Chronic fatigue syndrome is also known as or ME. The condition affects between one and four million in the US and millions more worldwide - and the combination of symptoms can devastate a patient's life for decades. Jose Montoya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and a leading expert in CFS, has described the condition as 'one of the greatest scientific and medical challenges of our time'. He said:'Its symptoms often include not only overwhelming fatigue but also: Joint and muscle pain Incapacitating headaches Food intolerance Sore throat/enlarged lymph nodes Gastrointestinal problems Abnormal blood-pressure and heart-rate events Hypersensitivity to light, noise or other sensations
The condition has long divided the medical world.
Sceptics say the condition is 'all in the mind' and write sufferers off as malingerers.
However research published in October last year revealed the brains of those diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome are distinctly different to those of healthy people.
The abnormalities identified in this study, published in the journal Radiology, will, it is hoped, go some way to helping resolve those ambiguities.
The team of researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine believe their findings could lead to more definitive diagnoses of the syndrome and better treatments.
The combination of symptoms can devastate a patient's life for decades.
Ms Andrews said: 'Over the years I have met people who tell me I am not ill.
'I also know people who are not as lucky as me, whose family say they are lazy and therefore lost contact with them.
'But it is medical people who have let me down the most.
'I've been told I'm not ill, to have a glass of wine and that I'm actually depressed. There comes a point where you start to doubt yourself and think "am I"?
She continued: 'However with depression, you have no motivation, feel like there is no point to anything and have no fun any more.
'I do have the motivation, drive and ambition to get up and do things - just not the physical strength.
'Some people think I'm making it up and being lazy - it's horrendous.
'But I can tell you, taking 15 minutes just to climb the stairs is not fun. Nor is waiting for an hour each morning before you can set foot out of bed because you feel so dizzy.
'At the moment, I'm lucky if I get out of the house once a week for a coffee.'
She says there were times she could not even swallow and needed a towel under her chin. And days when she had to force herself to sit up in bed.
A year into her illness, she and her boyfriend Dan, a freelance photographer, married. 'I was so exhausted I had to keep lying down at points in the day,' she recalled.
She attributes her gradual recovery to following protocals in a book recommended by a friend: Diagnosis & Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, by Dr Sarah Myhill. Ms Andrews said: 'Basically, if you keep pushing yourself and crashing, you'll be iller for longer. It's all about learning to manage it and getting enough sleep'
Today, she credits her husband with keeping her alive. 'I would be stuck upstairs in bed, unable to move, and he would bring me a Thermos of soup before he went to work.
'He is a lovely man, supportive, and I'm very lucky to have him,' she said.
She attributes her very gradual recovery to following protocals in a book recommended by a friend: Diagnosis & Treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, by Dr Sarah Myhill.
A scientist herself, Ms Andrews was keen to validate the claims being made.
But lacking the mental energy, she asked another friend with a science background to - who agreed the principles were worth trying.
'Dr Myhill was the first person who put things in black and white for me,' says Ms Andrews.
PEOPLE WITH CFS HAVE 'DIFFERENT BRAINS,' STUDY SHOWS The Stanford University research, published in October, revealed the brains of those diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome are distinctly different to those of healthy people. First, an MRI scan showed that overall white matter content of CFS patients' brains was reduced compared to that of healthy participants' brains. The term 'white matter' denotes the long, cable-like nerve tracts carrying signals and information through dispersed concentrations of 'grey matter' - which specialise in processing information. The researchers said while the first finding wasn't entirely unexpected, the second was. Using advanced imaging techniques, they identified a consistent abnormality in a particular part of a nerve tract in the right hemisphere of CFS patients' brains. The tract, which connects the frontal lobe with the temporal lobe, assumed an abnormal appearance in CFS patients. Furthermore, Dr Zeineh said the study identified a strong link between the degree of abnormality in the patient's tract and the severity of their CFS. The third finding highlighted a thickening of the grey matter in the frontal lobe and temporal lobe in CFS patients, compared with the control group.
'Basically, if you keep pushing yourself and crashing, you will be iller for longer.
'It's all about learning to manage it, getting enough sleep, etc.
'The great irony in the NHS is that hardly anyone understands the condition.
'I've been told that in order to have the best chance of recovery, you need to start getting treatment within the first six months.
'But many doctors say you have to have had symptoms for six months before you are diagnosed with CFS.
Having read the book, Ms Andrews began following principles in it.
'Dr Myhill’s treatment plan is based on five key elements,' she told MailOnline.
'These are rest and pacing, eating a Stone Age diet, taking various nutritional supplements, getting enough sleep and tests to see what chemicals are inside your body.'
And while she admits she is not yet fully well, she believes it has been a great help to her health.
'Dr Myhill and her book have been instrumental in helping me progress from lying in the dark unable to speak or swallow to someone who hopes to run her own business from home one day,' she said.
She added: 'It was a relief to find a medical professional who not only believes this illness exists and has a physical cause(s) - and who strives for the truth behind what causes it rather than hiding behind inadequate guidelines.
'I don't actually care whether ME is a physical or mental disorder, as I don't carry a stigma about mental illness.
'What I do care about is accurate research and information that leads to treatments that are effective and that work for everyone.
'If the psychological treatments worked then we'd all be doing them and getting better - but we're not.
Tony Britton, of the ME Association, told MailOnline: 'We are not surprised by Jenny saying having chronic fatigue syndrome feels worse than those awful days when she had bladder cancer.
'When people have cancer they can generally access speedy and effective treatment, research is rapidly moving forward to reduce the death toll, come up with individualised treatments, and providing a good quality of life as long as possible.
Stanford University research published in October last year revealed the brains of those diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome are distinctly different to those of healthy people
'The whole medical and nursing establishment can get behind you.'
He added that by contrast, CFS – which is also known as M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis) – is poorly understood.
'There are no universally recognised biomarkers, diagnosis can be a difficult and lengthy process and, although the situation is improving, many doctors are still very unsympathetic,' he explained.
'They've been spun the myth that there are psychological quick fixes to this illness and they've bought into that myth – prescribing antidepressants here, talking therapies there and maybe a bit of dodgy exercise therapy, which often makes patients feel worse.'
He added: 'Patients on the receiving end of this nonsense are pig sick and tired of it all.'
'We desperately need major investments in realistic research into the biomedical causes of this illness as we search for the cure.
'The vast majority of people with M.E. miss the lives they used to have and would love to become full, tax-paying members of society once again.'Illustrations Miss Lotion
An All-round Great City
British journalist Patrick Kingsley is the author of How To Be Danish, a book released in December 2012 that celebrates the world's happiest nation
It was the cyclists that did it for me. Everywhere you look in Copenhagen, there are people on bikes - gliding, sometimes two or three abreast, down the Danish capital's gorgeous rococo streets. But it's not just their sheer volume that's impressive - it's how stylish they look while doing it. Cyclists don't often wear lycra here and you won't see many mountain bikes. Instead, the lanes are jammed with skinny jeans and tight leather jackets, bright scarves and smart blazers. Copenhagen looks good.
I got to know the city quite well last year, while researching my new travel book, How To Be Danish - a short introduction to contemporary Denmark. At the time, Denmark was - and still is - the country of the moment. Recently named the happiest nation in the world, it's the motherland of TV thrillers The Killing, Borgen and The Bridge, and home to Noma (www.noma.dk), the world's best restaurant. I spent a month zigzagging across Denmark, stopping offat the country's kitchens, TV sets and even the happiest town in the world (Ringkøbing). But, above all, I fell in love with Copenhagen.
In many ways, the city is perfectly proportioned. Small enough to cross in 20 minutes - on a bike, of course! - it is still large enough to house half-a-dozen distinct districts, each with their own auras, from the tasteful city centre Indre By to refined Østerbro, with its dainty terraced cottages, and the hipster haven of Vesterbro, which has echoes of London's Shoreditch.
Aside from the social aspects that make the city great - this is a place where lawyers' salaries are less than twice those of binmen and university is free - Copenhagen is just a fun place to hang out. There's a beach within striking distance of the centre and a huge outdoor swimming pool in the middle of the harbour.
Then there's the food. Most famously, there's Noma - named the world's best restaurant three years in a row, it's known for live ants, eggs you fry yourself and vegetables served in a trough of earth. Noma's just one example of the New Nordic Kitchen that prioritises local ingredients and local techniques. One night in Vesterbro I found myself cutting up my own table with a Stanley knife at a pop-up restaurant called I'm A Kombo, another place making waves across the North Sea.
Architecturally, the city's a gem. In the older areas, strict planning laws mean there's rarely an ugly or tall building: the traditional streets are wide and lined with graceful rococo houses. But the city that spawned the starchitect of the moment, Bjarke Ingels, is not without modern architecture. Ingels himself had a hand in Ørestad, an extraordinary if controversial new suburb in the south-east that is spiked with blocks of flats that look like roller-coasters and tenements built like mountain-sides. But you'll need your bike to get there. And leave your lycra behind.
It's Got Big Events, Too
Copenhagen Fashion Week
Held in January/February and August, Copenhagen Fashion Week is Northern Europe's biggest fashion event and draws international stars as well as local luminaries such as designers Malene Birger and Henrik Vibskov.
www.copenhagenfashionweek.com
Roskilde Festival
The Roskilde Festival, held this year from 29 June to 7 July, is one of the six biggest in Europe, with Rihanna and Animal Collective already among those on the bill. It's not quite Copenhagen, but it's only 25 minutes by train.
www.roskilde-festival.dk
Copenhagen Pride
Held every August, Copenhagen Pride is one of Europe's top LGBT events, with up to 70,000 people packing into City Square for concerts, art shows and a parade in this gay-friendly city (it was the world's first to recognise gay civil unions, in 1989).
www.copenhagenpride.dk
A Thriving Bike Culture
Mikael Colville-Andersen is Copenhagen's Mr Bicycle. He coined the phrase "cycle chic" in 2007 with his now-famous Copenhagen Cycle Chic blog, and in 2009 formed Copenhagenize, a consultancy specialising in urban mobility
Copenhagen's long been ahead of the game when it comes to bikes. When I created the Copenhagen Cycle Chic blog in 2007, if you were in the US and said you were a cyclist, people pictured you in Spandex. The whole Copenhagen scene is the opposite of that. But even though there are now more than 200 cycle-chic blogs around the world, I don't think it's really about bicycle fashion - I don't think such a thing exists. People in Copenhagen look good while they're cycling because they just wear what's in their wardrobe.
We've done studies on why people ride bikes here and most say it's because it's the quickest way to get from A to B - it's
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trained to land the aircraft. There was never a risk to the passengers."
The nature of the "medical situation" is still not known. Passengers said the captain appeared to suffer some kind of panic attack, with one telling CNN the pilot asked to be restrained.
Update at 4:02 p.m. ET: The flight was "packed with burly men" heading to the 2012 International Security Conference in Las Vegas, the New York Daily News says.
Update at 3:54 p.m. ET: One passenger said a former prison security guard grabbed the captain by the neck and choked him until he collapsed, the Globe-News says. The New York Daily News reports that a retired NYPD sergeant subdued the captain.
Update at 3:35 p.m. ET: Flight 191, an Airbus A320, landed at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport at 10:11 a.m. CT (11:11 a.m. ET), JetBlue said.
Update at 3:25 p.m. ET: An off-duty captain on the flight took over the pilot's duties "once on the ground," JetBlue said in a statement without elaborating, AP reports.
Update at 3:12 p.m. ET: The pilot went into a toilet, then emerged "shouting, 'Iraq, al-Qaeda, terrorism, we're all going down.' It seemed like he went crazy," said Gabriel Schonzeit, of New York City, who was seated in the third row.
Passengers said six to 10 travelers jumped the pilot and pinned him to the floor. Schonzeit described him as "a very large man, bigger than me." Schonzeit is 6 feet, 3 inches and weighs 250 pounds.
The pilot has not been identified.
The flight was taking passengers to Las Vegas for a security convention, the Globe-News says.
Original posts by Douglas Stanglin:
Update at 3:03 p.m. ET: CNN quotes one passenger, Tom Murphy, as saying that the captain had come into the cabin and initially tried to break into a locked bathroom, then banged on the cockpit door.
At one point, Murphy tells CNN, the flight attendants tried to take the pilot to the back of the plane, but he broke free and ran to the front, threatening to blow up the plane and saying there was a bomb on board.
Original post: Flight 191 had 135 passengers and five crewmembers when it took off from John F. Kennedy Airport at about 10:45 a.m., JetBlue said, according to the airline.
The Globe-News quotes Josh Redick, 41, of New York, as saying the crew kicked the pilot out of the cockpit, and he turned unruly and tried to use the intercom system, which had been disabled.
Heidi Karg tells CNN that there was a lot of commotion and that she heard the man she thinks was the captain shout the word "bomb."
JetBlue and Transportation Security Administration officials described the pilot as having a medical condition.
The pilot, who has not been identified, was transported to Northwest Texas Hospital, officials said.
"Another captain, traveling off duty on Flight 191, entered the flight deck prior to landing at Amarillo, and took over the duties of the ill crewmember once on the ground," the company said in a statement. "The aircraft arrived Amarillo at 10:11 a.m., and the crewmember was removed from the aircraft and taken to a local medical facility. "
The newspaper quotes TSA spokesman Luis Casanova as saying it "seems to be more of a medical issue than a security issue at this point."
One passenger told Fox 5 News the pilot was in the cabin trying to storm the cockpit.
"I saw a guy wearing a pilot's uniform run down the aisle screaming and yelling and banging on the cockpit door to let him in," the witness said.
The witness, Fox 5 News reports, said the man was screaming, "Say your prayers! Say your prayers!"We’re back and better than ever with the 100 subscriber compilation! Thank you all for sticking with us, here’s to a hundred more!
SOLLUX AT THE STORE
Original comic by miraculoustang.
Sollux - DagwoodDeluxe
Clerk - Buryman.
CRITICAL MISS
Original comic by Benito Cereno and Kristin Kemper
Eridan - DagwoodDeluxe
Vriska - skogsbrynet.
MARYAM VISIT
Original comic by takaratime.
Karkat, Kankri, Signless - DagwoodDeluxe
Kanaya, Porrim, Dolorosa - skogsbrynet.
DAMARA YES
Original comic by shubbabang. (Ask Dem Homestucks)
Damara - skogsbrynet.
Rufioh - DagwoodDeluxe.
THE FELT
Original comic by ohyeahaskthefelt.
All voices - DagwoodDeluxe.
IN YO BUTT
Original comic by electrapendulum.
Dave and John - DagwoodDeluxe
SPICE TROLLS
Original comic by tissuepirate.
Rose - yxlnightstar.
Dave and Eridan - DagwoodDeluxe.
Terezi - the-mischievous-fox.
Feferi - sonicspeedhallie101.
Nepeta and Kanaya - skogsbrynet.
Karkat - Lonely.A MUSLIM organisation used its annual peace symposium in Halesowen to call for a united front against extremism.
Around 250 people of different faiths gathered at the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association’s Long Lane mosque on Sunday.
Civic dignitaries, politicians, faith leaders, charity workers and neighbours were among those who attended.
Several speakers spoke of the importance of co-operation amongst communities to defeat extremism and praised efforts by Ahmadi Muslims in leading the cause.
Keynote speaker, Imam Rashed, who had travelled from the London Mosque, highlighted peaceful teachings of Islam.
Local president Dr Masood Majoka said: “We are delighted that so many people from so many backgrounds turned up to show their support for a common cause. The community spirit was at its best.”
The association also donated £600 shared equally between Sandwell Women’s Aid, the Hope Centre, Halesowen, Save the Children and Action Heart.Pyongyang, North Korea (CNN) In April, news of a spectacular defection rippled through the media.
Most of the serving staff of a North Korean restaurant in Ningbo, China, had defected en masse
Twelve young North Korean women who worked at the restaurant and a male restaurant manager arrived in the South Korean capital.
For Seoul, it was a propaganda bonanza; for Pyongyang, a huge embarrassment.
The North Korean Red Cross was quick to challenge South Korea's version of events, calling the defections instead "a mass abduction."
A highly orchestrated event
On the CNN crew's last day in Pyongyang after covering the recent Workers' Party congress, authorities here brought family members of three restaurant employees who went to Seoul in front of the network's cameras.
It was a highly orchestrated event.
We were told once arriving in North Korea that "special exclusive coverage" was planned for us, but there was no hint about what it would be until two hours before the interview.
North Korean authorities have told the families that their daughters and sisters are being kept in solitary confinement and have been cut off from outside information.
The young women have purportedly become sick after a hunger strike demanding they be returned home, but Pyongyang hasn't disclosed how it acquired such reports.
South Korea's Ministry of Unification told CNN that allegations that the girls are in solitary confinement or conducting a hunger strike are "completely untrue."
It said the girls will stay in government custody for several months while adjusting to life in South Korea
But Ri Bun sobbed as she told us how she believes her sister is being treated.
JUST WATCHED Parades mark close of North Korea congress Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Parades mark close of North Korea congress 01:34
"Even now my sister is suffering in the accursed South Korea, starving and unconscious. When I think of that I lie awake frightened and cannot sleep.
"Those South Korean puppet criminals, I want to tear them to pieces!"
These families cannot comprehend how someone they know so well could run away to the hated South.
They said they believe the women were duped into going, told they were being relocated to another government-run North Korean restaurant in Malaysia.
"I curse and condemn the South Korean puppet forces who allured and abducted our daughters," said Ri Gun Suk, the mother of the youngest of the defecting waitresses.
"To say that our daughter, who was so kind and had so much respect for her father, I could never believe such nonsense."
Mother: 'This is an abduction, not a free act'
JUST WATCHED North Korean defectors struggle to fit in Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH North Korean defectors struggle to fit in 02:18
The North Korean Red Cross has demanded that the families be allowed to meet their daughters at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas -- something to which South Korea has said it will not agree.
"This is an abduction, not a free act. It's a kidnapping," said another mother, Kim Hae Sun.
"But even if she really went of her own accord, all of us mothers want to meet their daughters to know if they are alive. Why do they lock them up and not let us meet if they went (of) their own free will?"
The emotions are real, whatever coaching or instructions these people may have received and whatever unseen levels of organization went on behind the interview.
These families are hurting, mystified by what happened and grieving for the absence of the young women.Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh said that he's sad that the NFL is being hijacked by the left in order to stamp out masculinity and patriotism.
Here's the segment from Hannity with Rush Limbaugh:
Watch the latest video at <a href="http://video.foxnews.com">video.foxnews.com</a>
Why does Rush say the left is attacking the NFL?
"I do believe that the left wants to cause great damage to the NFL," he told Sean Hannity. "What does the NFL stand for? Masculinity. Strength. Toughness."
"So what are they doing to it?" he asked. "You go to college campuses now and you find classes on how to take masculinity out of men. It's actually happening — there are studies and courses in college to do this."
"It's patriotic," he explained, "you've got the flag, you've got the anthem, you got military uniformed personnel. All the things that the left wants to erase from this country. They don't like displays of patriotism, strength, rugged individualism. And that's why the players are being used here."
"They think it's about police brutality," he continued, "they think it's about righting social wrongs and so forth. This is an attack on the NFL as an institution or shaking it down, lowering its profile and impact on American culture."
"I don’t think they understand what’s happening to them. I don’t think they understand what’s going on," Limbaugh added later in the interview. "They think they’re relating to the majority of their fan base, they’re not! They’re driving them away.
"And I hate it," Limbaugh said. "I don’t want the NFL to get smaller. I don’t want it to become insignificant. I don’t want it to be taken over by a bunch of wusses. I don’t want it to be taken over by left-wing social justice causes."Use it to wipe fingerprints off your BlackBerry!
“What, like with a cloth or something?” is how Hillary Clinton answered Fox News’s Ed Henry’s question about wiping her email server. People used BleachBit, a software that strips away files and makes it unable to recover any data.
Now BleachBit is selling cloths with Hillary on it:
The website says:
After you have smashed your BlackBerry, don’t forget to wipe the fingerprints from your email server with this non-abrasive, soft microfiber Cloth or Something.
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Unfortunately, BleachBit founder Andrew Ziem has sold out of the product, but the company promises more is on the way:
“Sales have come in waves. There was a boost after the second presidential debate and a bigger wave after FBI Director James Comey reopened the investigation on Friday,” Ziem said. “A few days ago I had just reordered the cloths from the printer and was mostly keeping up with signing them, but yesterday sales went through the roof. I panicked as I saw them selling out so fast because I do not like back orders, and I don’t know how I am going to sign them all,” he said.
He told Fox News it started as a joke, but when he made the design to sell them he thought why not? But the popularity has actually caused him to delay his actual job at BleachBit:
‘The Cloth or Something’ project has been fun, but it has also been a distraction from the software development needed to get out the next release of the BleachBit software application,” he said.
As soon as he makes more available I will buy some and let you know how well they work!The Nazi Mass Hysteria of 2017
Chad Felix Greene Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 22, 2017
This week, over 5,000 Leftists, liberal writers and other verified accounts, and apparently Chelsea Clinton, became absolutely convinced that I, a gay Jew, am a Nazi.
It all began with CUNY professor Angus Johnston going on a rant about why it is not only ok, but morally just, to physically assault various groups of people engaging in what he considers ‘hate.’ Start here and scroll down. His argument is that if someone wears a swastika in public they are essentially engaging in street harassment or violence and it is morally justified to physically assault them. Naturally, as a Constitutional conservative, I disagreed.
I objected to the notion that being a minority made me helpless and weak in his eyes to the point that others would need to rescue me from bigoted people saying mean things through physical force. I also highly objected to the notion that assault is considered a solution to speech you do not like.
On my own timeline I stated shortly after:
Writer and teacher, Clint Smith saw this tweet and commented below:
To which Chelsea Clinton retweeted. Thanks Chelsea.
In a few hours my twitter was inundated with extremely outraged liberals declaring me a Nazi, a Nazi sympathizer and spewing their general incomprehensibly vile hatred at me, including several hundred verified accounts. Twitchy’s Sam J. summarized the event beautifully in The TRIGGERING! Horde of frothy-mouthed SJWs attack gay Conservative over free speech tweet.
“Allow us to explain what Chad was saying — he wants to live in a world where people who may absolutely despise one another can live together without having to silence or harm one another.
That’s it.
He didn’t advocate for Nazis, or shill for Swastikas … or compare minorities or LGBTQ to anything.”
But a fascinating phenomena happened. The hysteria around Nazis in America, Trump and Charlottesville surrounded my twitter like a hurricane, and just as Nancy Pelosi discovered when she was shouted down by the very people she believed she was championing for, I realized the mob cannot be reasoned with.
Generally, whenever liberals encounter one of my tweets they don’t like and announce in my mentions that I am just another ignorant/privileged white man, I respond by informing them I am actually Jewish. A concept I discussed in depth in My Race, Ethnicity and Culture. More than ‘White.’ The assumption being that my skin color determines my value and opinion in their eyes and they are free to dismiss me without countering my argument.
Usually this either shuts them down completely or they launch into some ‘self-loathing’ nonsense to validate their original prejudice. But in this case no one even batted an eye. The assumption was that I was a white Trump supporter either comparing gays and black people to Nazis or I was arguing I wanted to live in a world with swastikas. Naturally, it would seem, this second notion should have been easily dismissed upon learning that I am Jewish, making such a statement irrational.
Instead, the Left, abandoning its traditional view that minorities are immune from criticism in all cases, collectively shrugged and said ‘You’re still a Nazi!’
The criticism also came from the ‘rainbow’ part of my tweet in which people decided I must also hate gay people or wish them harm. Confirming that I am gay resulted in the same response. People have accused me of being racist before because I am a conservative, despite my ethnicity and sexuality (and complete lack of racism), but I am generally not accused of being or supporting Nazis. In truth, accusing a Jewish person of such a thing would normally be considered hate speech by the Left.
And yet, liberal after liberal crashed into my timeline spewing remarkably hostile and violent (to the point of requiring twitter to intervene) rhetoric, antisemitic and homophobic stereotypes and slander and declarations of my new status as the worst human being on the planet.
The more reasonable ones, who did more than simply shout profanities at me, repeated Mr. Smith’s assertion that I was indeed, if not openly celebrating Nazism, at least compared gays and black people to Nazis. I originally responded by saying ‘No, I simply argued for freedom of expression without violence.’ but after the 100th or so time of repeating that same sentence and seeing absolutely no impact on perception I realized reason was impossible.
Scott Adams describes this experience perfectly in his brilliant article titled, How To Know You’re In a Mass Hysteria Bubble.
“If you’re in the mass hysteria, recognizing you have all the symptoms of hysteria won’t help you be aware you are in it. That’s not how hallucinations work. Instead, your hallucination will automatically rewrite itself to expel any new data that conflicts with its illusions.”
…
“2. The Ridiculousness of it
One sign of a good mass hysteria is that it sounds bonkers to anyone who is not experiencing it. Imagine your neighbor telling you he thinks the other neighbor is a witch. Or imagine someone saying the local daycare provider is a satanic temple in disguise. Or imagine someone telling you tulip bulbs are more valuable than gold. Crazy stuff.”
…
“5. The Insult without supporting argument
When people have actual reasons for disagreeing with you, they offer those reasons without hesitation. Strangers on social media will cheerfully check your facts, your logic, and your assumptions. But when you start seeing ad hominem attacks that offer no reasons at all, that might be a sign that people in the mass hysteria bubble don’t understand what is wrong with your point of view except that it sounds more sensible than their own.
For the past two days I have been disavowing Nazis on Twitter. The most common response from the people who agree with me is that my comic strip sucks and I am ugly.”
Since Trump announced, the Left has become increasingly preoccupied with white supremacy and now, Nazism. For several months absolutely everyone the President considered a close confidant or put into a position of power in the administration was a white supremacist. His Attorney General, a highly celebrated Civil Rights hero, was labeled a white supremacist. His supporters were labeled white supremacists.
The confirmation bias that fueled this belief came from actual white supremacists who praised or supported Trump. Sometimes absurdly declaring all of their ambitions would be fulfilled by him (mostly talking about the wall.) The Left frantically tweeted out these confessions as proof Trump himself was a white supremacist.
Just as many on the Right became fixated on Islam and a Muslim take-over of America after 9/11 and the election of Barack Obama, those on the Left have become absolutely convinced Nazis are literally in control of the White House.
After Charlottesville, the language shifted from ‘white supremacist’ to ‘Nazi.’ Leftist activists began celebrating ‘punch a Nazi’ as an act of ‘resistance.’ And before we knew it, anyone supporting the 2nd Amendment, national security, building a wall, deporting illegal immigrants or immigration reform was declared a Nazi — implying physical violence against them would be justified. This quickly evolved into Republicans and conservatives being slapped with the same damning title.
The sheer force of hysteria increased exponentially after liberals saw the now iconic picture of a group of angry, shouting, white supremacists in polo shirts carrying tiki torches. The imagery invoked all of the fears liberals have been chanting since president Bush and validated their sense of urgency and warning.
So when liberals saw a post by what they assumed was a white male Trump supporter advocating for open display of swastikas, they were instantly triggered into what they believed to be self-defense. By the time they got to my timeline they had already lost all ability to reason and absolutely believed they were confronting an actual Nazi, just like in the picture.
As Adam’s post describes, since I am not part of the hysteria, it never occurred to me that support for Nazis was even a viable option for anyone. I have a dry sense of humor and in the moment I tweeted that I was picturing a cartoon version of a Nazi, a Black Lives Matter protester and a nonbinary LGBTer all shopping at Wal-Mart, whistling away without a hint of violent intention.
I was not implying Black Lives Matter supporters hate gay people or visa versa, I grabbed three distinct movements which invoked a sense of absurdity and demonstrated the diversity of strong and vocal opinions. I was commenting on the new push to challenge controversial speech with violence.
This is real life, by the way. Most people coexist without violence. There are about 4 Nazis in my area with various Nazi tattoos and I have run into them once or twice at Wal-Mart. On one occasion I was going into the store alongside a Muslim woman and her child wearing a hijab, me in my yarmulke and two Swastika-covered people walked right past us. We all looked at each other and continued on our way. It did not occur to me at the time to punch them. It didn’t even occur to me to feel threatened. The Muslim woman barely skipped a beat on her way to the shopping carts.
As Twitchy pointed out, I wasn’t comparing the three groups. I was demonstrating what liberals have always argued is tolerance. The primary feature of my argument was that everyone is required to be non-violent. Otherwise it truly does not matter what you believe, think or how you express yourself. We certainly would not permit an extremely devout Christian to physically assault a goth kid they believe to be a Satan worshiper. We expect everyone to mind their own business.
But the emotion behind the outrage was that I accepted Nazis should exist in the first place. Several people, including one of my favorite actors (Pam on True Blood), fervently declared their wish for a Nazi and/or swastika-free world. Naturally we all agree with them. I find racial identity-obsessed movements to be unimaginably destructive to society and to the individuals involved in them. Nothing good comes from them.
But the question was not one of morality or social justice, but one of rights. Like it or not, Nazis have just as much right to freedom of speech, expression, religion and assembly as the rest of us do. The only condition is they must be peaceful.
The second layer of cognitive dissonance is the absolute and omnipresent terror liberals experience at the very thought of a Nazi. I found, surprisingly, that not a single liberal responding to me could tell the difference between Nazi Germany and Neo-Nazis in America. Early on in the battle I argued what I typically argue in discussions of the Nazi threat which is that there just isn’t one. Although the Left has now condensed all white racial movements into the term ‘Nazi’, they are tiny in number.
The Daily Beast, a liberal website, even minimized their overall impact stating:
“Only hundreds showed up to the biggest “alt-right” meeting in the country. A single New York City subway car can hold around 200 people
…
… they estimate that the KKK counts between 5,000 and 8,000 members nationwide.
… That would make them less than 0.003 percent of the population, even on the higher end of the SPLC’s estimate. “It’s a small group of real bad people,”
Nazis have no influence, everyone hates them, they are disjointed and scattered across the country, meet twice a year at most and imagine they are making social progress by sharing a cartoon frog online in a continuous loop between themselves. White supremacist marches or rallies tend to be fairly uneventful as well. They do not riot, break windows, burn cars or go shooting up places as a group. They wear their silly costumes, march down the street to a rally point and chant nonsense for a few hours and then go home.
If it weren’t for the intense media coverage and the arrival of angry and often violent protesters, these events wouldn’t even be noticed by the majority of America.
Charlottesville, for example as described by the Washington Post, only became violent when counter-protesters directly confronted the white supremacist marchers. They began attacking each other in various melees. The rally had ended and the marchers had left by the time the lone and mentally disturbed James Fields ran his car into other cars, hitting protesters and killing Heather Heyer.
The current liberal argument is that the white supremacists instigated the violence by their very presence. But for most of march/demonstration history, it has been understood that regardless of the message, violence escalates into uncontrollable violence and most try to avoid it.
As is true for any controversial rally in today’s climate, the safest option is to simply not go. Unfortunately the ‘violence is resistance’ Left has decided the only acceptable method of combating hateful ideology is through physical force. They have been doing this with Black Lives Matter and Antifa protests across the country.
In my tweet, the marchers — free to assemble and express themselves, would have carried their silly tiki torches around the park, rallied around the statue and after a few hours of hateful nonsense, gone home. Counter-protesters would have been along the sidelines either with signs or, more effectively, gathered nearby and holding their own rally denouncing the ideology and/or celebrating peaceful coexistence and tolerance.
To the Left, this translates into their hallucination that I want there to be Nazis. And if I am ok with this kind of hate and, by definition, violence existing and having a platform, it must be because I support it or am actually one of them myself.
One of the Charlottesville chants was ‘The Jews will not replace us.’ There are about 16 million Jews in the world. These are not rational people. They quoted Confederate slogans like ‘Blood and Soil’ and ‘You will not replace us!’ which spoke to their views on immigration. Idiots in this movement have been obsessed with ‘white genocide’ for a while now and they were actually marching to protest the removal of a Confederate statue.
Oddly, hundreds of liberals in my feed demanded some version of ‘You want me to tolerate people who want to commit genocide/kill people who are different??!’ The ‘want to commit genocide’ is a reference to the actual Nazis of Germany. There really is no organized or even popular sloganeering that implies current white supremacists want to or are planning to commit genocide that I am aware of. They tend to fixate on 9/11 conspiracies, the Jews and online trolling.
When I argued it was absurd to imagine this small group could possibly commit genocide even if they wanted to, they demanded ‘people in Germany in 1930 didn’t think that either!’ The most dramatic argument was ‘What about Heather Heyer?’
I originally countered logically to the assertion that ‘Nazis killed her!’ with ‘No, a crazy person did.’ Because the notion of organized Nazism similar to 1939 Germany, rounding up Jews and so on, is absurd in this context. It is true that Nazis are not killing people in America, but Nazi ideology inspires crazy people to kill for its cause. I meant that in reference to the collective group similar to saying ‘Muslims are not killing people in America.’ However upon reviewing, the argument is fairly unimportant, easily misunderstood and simply escalates the fury around the idea I was minimizing the actual violence committed by white supremacists, even as individuals.
Heather Heyer was killed in a terrorist attack by James Fields. This in no way absolves the Nazi movement itself of the hateful rhetoric that this mentally ill man embraced. The rally was over, the marchers had left and Fields was in a line of cars when he spontaneously slammed his car into the other cars and into the crowd of people nearby. He will spend the rest of his life in prison or a mental institution. Others who participated in the rally should recognize that their actions, collective energy and escalation of rhetoric heightened the chance of someone acting out violently.
In truth, every example of an individual committing a hate crime or mass murder who has been discovered to be a white supremacist has also been mentally disturbed. See: Dylann Roof.
As a general rule, the Left is highly opposed to group blame. Individual Muslims have committed incredible acts of terrorism in America and around the world for over a decade but we are sternly warned never to associate them with other Muslims. Black Lives Matter supporters have killed police officers, and three kidnapped and tortured an autistic boy because he was white and filmed it for facebook. Black Lives Matter also riots violently on a routine basis. The Left consistently argues these individuals cannot represent Black Lives Matter as a whole.
The difference, of course, is that no one wants to defend the other Nazis or imply they are otherwise good people because they are not being violent. It is perfectly reasonable to shame all Nazis and assorted white supremacists and point out their mindless hatred inspires violent retribution.
If you repeatedly tell a group of people that other people want them dead, the government is targeting them, and powerful enemies are controlling the media and on and on, one or two crazy people among them will believe they alone can save the group and act violently. This has been seen in Islamic terrorism and Black Lives Matter terrorism as well.
Even transgender activists have begun physically attacking feminists who oppose transgender ideology. (TERF being a feminist who rejects transwomen as women).
There is a difference between direct calls for violence and hateful rhetoric that inspires violence. The latter is the responsibility of the person who committed the violence but the group should be held socially accountable for the hate they put out.
This is why I am not particularly afraid of Nazis as a group, but wary of individuals. I view them more as cos-players LARPing Call of Duty than anything else but am aware that crazy people exist and I have to be cautious.
Is Nazi propaganda dangerous?
I do not believe information or speech is dangerous. Speech does not cause violence. People choose to be violent. I do think that all extremist worldviews in which people are marinated in post-apocalyptic imagery and deeply fixated on an enemy population can dramatically influence someone who is already mentally ill. But to argue that a mentally ill person who reads posts on the internet about ‘The Jews’ and then takes it upon himself to shoot up a synagogue should hold the website itself responsible is ridiculous.
Just because we find a worldview abhorrent does not mean we are free to ban it. In truth, the most powerful argument against white supremacist ideology is to listen to them talk for five minutes.
I do believe that the media’s current obsession with white supremacy feeds into the paranoia and grandiose delusions of those who would act on their hatred violently. We always walk a very thin line between reporting relevant information and news events and glamorizing the evil making it far more appealing to that extremely tiny, but dangerous population.
In any event, this does not justify a removal of rights. They are still free to publish, read, think, say, believe and express whatever they wish. No one is obligated to host them, but they cannot be legally prevented from speaking either.
Strangely the Left views this as ‘defending’, ‘sympathizing’ or ‘collaborating’ with Nazis.
In truth, those of us on the Right recognize that if we allowed progressives to restrict the rights of this small population, they would quickly escalate their demands for more censorship until all of us were named and silenced. Associating a criminal status with speech opens up the door to absolute authoritarian tyranny and we lose our liberty.
Sadly, to the Left, all they want is for Nazis to cease to exist. They believe that the threat is in the existence itself. They also believe that if people hold Nazi ideology they will become violent and harm minorities.
The Right believes the best way to eradicate Nazi ideology is to shame it, mock it, allow its ugly idiocy to simply speak for itself and shun anyone who chooses to indulge it. We are already there. Again, no one embraces this ideology.
We have found ourselves on a strange ocean with uncontrollable waves trying to maintain some level of decency and reason. Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, was targeted as a white supremacist by protesters are Berkeley when he spoke there. There is no sanity left.
The Left always has a way of making the old battles new again, and even though the country has denounced and ostracized white supremacy for decades, they seem dedicated to convincing America there is real danger. This exists in the reporting of isolated lone wolf killers to the absurdity of imagining the President of the United States is a secret Nazi.
I honestly underestimated the fear response when I casually dismissed concerns over Nazi violence on my Twitter. I so rarely see actual white supremacists I forget they exist until some news story floats by. This is true of most people. But it seems the argument of ‘Nazis in groups are generally peaceful in America’ is very easily interpreted as ‘Nazis are good people’ or ‘The deaths of individuals killed by white supremacists don’t matter.’
Ironically the overwhelmingly hateful, hostile and violent tweets from the Left I received made absolutely no impact on those attempting to convince me to be afraid of Nazis. I would reason, ‘Individual Muslims have killed many times in America. 49 gay people were murdered by an Islamic terrorist in Florida. Should I be afraid of Muslims or demand to restrict their speech?’ The answer would instantly return to the go-to for this discussion of ‘not all Muslims’ and ‘Islam isn’t inherently hateful!’ The keyword was Nazi. That word alone sent them down a spiraling path of outrage, anxiety and fear they simply could not pull themselves up from.
It simply baffled me.
We are living in a world where half of the political spectrum is so incapable of rational observation and determination they do not blink to accuse a gay Jew of Nazi sympathy simply for advocating freedom of speech. The term ‘Nazi’ is becoming as meaningless as the word ‘racist’ before it due to the natural inclination of progressives to expand definitions to win arguments. The Left wants there to be a Nazi threat in America because they can control people through fear.
This season of American Horror Story is disturbingly accurate and seems to be moving in lock-step with unforeseen real-world events. Episode 3 featured a progressive lesbian finding herself the target of an angry mob collectively convinced she is a murderous racist, paralleling the helpless pleading of Nancy Pelosi to the surging crowd ‘Why won’t you listen?!’
It is truly frightening to see how deeply marinated the Left has become in hate that it sees itself as righteous for committing violence against all it views as evil. In truth, I as a gay Jewish conservative am more at risk for being physically assaulted by a crazed Leftist than I ever would be the victim of an Islamic attack or Nazi murder.
The more disturbing reality is that even when presented with this fact, the most reasonable of the Leftist mob simply mocked me, dismissed the notion and went on shouting their hallucination of what I said and meant. Nothing is more frightening than an irrational, righteous mob.How could a chemical used a century ago in explosives come to be used by bodybuilders to lose weight? The story of dinitrophenol illustrates the fatal allure of slimming drugs
Four deaths in the UK and up to 60 worldwide have recently been attributed to the substance 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP), an industrial chemical that has become popular among people wanting to lose weight, including bodybuilders and people with eating disorders.
The dangers of DNP were even raised in the House of Commons where David Cameron agreed to see what action could be taken to protect people. DNP is not, however, a new substance and its deadly effects have been known for nearly a century. Its history should convince anyone contemplating taking the drug that this is a very risky business.
DNP emerges as a weight-loss drug
DNP was first used on an industrial scale in French munitions factories during the first world war when it was mixed with picric acid to make explosives. The experiences of workers exposed to DNP highlighted both its potential and its risks. They lost weight, they felt fatigue, sweated excessively and exhibited elevated body temperature. Many deaths occurred before safety measures were introduced.
These observations led Maurice Tainter and Windsor Cutting at Stanford University to study the effects of DNP and in 1933 they reported that metabolism was stimulated by 50% in patients taking the chemical. Fat and carbohydrate stores were broken down leading to weight loss of up to 1.5kg per week without dietary restriction. Although they saw the potential of DNP treatment for weight loss, they warned of the unknown dangers of prolonged use and the potential for fatal overheating with high doses.
Losing weight without dieting is, however, the slimmer’s (and the physician’s) dream. Tainter and Cutting’s observations were embraced enthusiastically and within a year up to 20 wholesale drug firms were marketing DNP and as many as 100,000 people had taken DNP in the US alone. Many of the sales occurred through drug stores without prescription or supervision.
At first it seemed that the drug was relatively safe but as more patients took DNP and for longer periods, many side effects were reported including skin lesions and an epidemic of “dinitrophenol cataracts”. Some deaths occurred including one man who overdosed and “literally cooked to death” with a temperature of 43.3C. In 1938, DNP was designated as “extremely dangerous and not fit for human consumption” and its use ceased.
How does DNP work?
In 1948, Harvard biochemists W F Loomis and Fritz Lipmann showed that DNP disrupts energy generation in cells. Normally, the energy required for driving the multitude of processes that occur in cells comes from the oxidation of food (fat and carbohydrate). In the presence of DNP, fat and carbohydrate in food are broken down but production of useful energy for
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run for the Sea Eagles, who finished with the wooden spoon last year and limped into the finals in eighth place. But Manly can finally claim a NYC (National Youth Competition) title after finishing runners-up to Penrith in 2015. Sunday’s result marked the lowest-scoring grand final in Under-20s history but no-one among the Sea Eagles cared as they smothered Funa under a pile of players’ bodies when he raised the flags. He had also scored his side’s opening try. Halfback Cade Cust was awarded the Jack Gibson medal for man of the match, after he was involved in both Manly’s first half tries. He first threw a crucial pass before centre Funa crossed, before he kicked for Bilal Maarbani to get the ball down within centimetres of the deadball line on the halftime siren. Meanwhile Parramatta, coached by Luke Burt who was on the losing end of two NRL grand finals (2001, 2009) for the Eels, were left to rue a series of missed opportunities on Sunday. They finished the season fourth on the ladder but completed at just 60 per cent in the second half of the grand final as they threw away pre-match favouritism. Share
Storm monster to tame Taumalolo Size isn’t everything, according to Melbourne bench forward Nelson Asofa-Solomona. Then again, it is easy for him to say. Weighing in at 125kg and standing 201cm tall, the Storm battering ram is not only the NRL’s biggest player, he is the largest seen in almost 15 years. Former NRL hardman Mark Carroll has nominated Asofa-Solomona as the man to stop North Queensland wrecking ball Jason Taumalolo in Sunday’s NRL grand final at ANZ Stadium. But Asofa-Solomona insists the Cowboys’ smaller brigade such as pint sized hooker Jake Granville will cause him just as much grief in defence despite his hulking frame. “It doesn’t matter if they are short or tall, they are built strong, they have done a lot of work in the gym,” he told Fox Sports. “Whether you are tall or short you still have strengths especially the short guys — they are hard to get a hold of, as well as those tall guys.” According to Fox Sports Lab, Asofa-Solomona is the biggest NRL player since former South Sydney and Newcastle front-rower Matt Parsons (201cm, 120kg) who retired in 2004. Remarkably, 21-year-old Asofa-Solomona was even bigger last year, blowing out to almost 130kg. “My preparation is key. Whatever I eat whether it is healthy or not I still put on weight,” he said. “I went out to 128kg last year. I have really got to watch what I eat.” Asofa-Solomona — in his second full NRL season — is believed to be in New Zealand’s World Cup calculations after his rampaging 66th-minute try helped seal Melbourne’s 30-0 preliminary final win over Brisbane last weekend. “I come from a rugby background (in Wellington). It was a hard journey trying to convince my dad to turn over to rugby league. It took a few holes in the wall but we got there in the end,” Asofa-Solomona said. “I could have gone to rugby but I felt something leading me here. “I am pretty blessed to be in this position. We are not going to take it for granted. “I missed out on the grand final last year but I am really keen to rip in for the boys on Sunday.” — AAP ShareJustice Department to seek stay in immigration lawsuit
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is applauded as he arrives to the House Chamber to deliver his State of the State address to a joint session of the House and Senate, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015, in Austin, Texas. Abbott told lawmakers that roads, education and border security are the biggest issues facing Texans. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) less Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is applauded as he arrives to the House Chamber to deliver his State of the State address to a joint session of the House and Senate, Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2015, in Austin, Texas. Abbott told... more Photo: Eric Gay, Associated Press Photo: Eric Gay, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Justice Department to seek stay in immigration lawsuit 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
The U.S. Department of Justice will seek a stay of a Texas-based federal judge’s order to halt President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, the White House said Friday.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters the department plans to make the request by Monday. He called the effort “separate and apart” from the appeal the federal government has previously said it would file.
"We're going to continue to pursue this case through the legal system," Earnest said, reiterating the White House believes there was a "solid legal foundation" for Obama's move.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen of Brownsville issued a temporary injunction late Monday that puta hold on Obama’s action, which would shield from deportation up to 5 million illegal immigrants. The ruling resulted in the White House suspending the program related to the policy, which was due to go into effect Wednesday.
If granted, a stay would allow the program to proceed as originally planned.
Hanen is presiding over a lawsuit brought last year by then-Attorney General Greg Abbott, who has argued the action amounted to an unconstitutional bypass of Congress. Twenty-five states have since joined the Texas-led challenge. Obama has maintained the move was within his executive authority.
In a statements Friday, Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton issued defiant statements reacting to the White House's plan to seek a stay.
"A stay is typically granted to have the status quo maintained," Abbott said. "Here the status quo is the immigration law passed by Congress, not the executive action by the President that rewrites immigration law. The President's lawless trampling of the Constitution thwarts the status quo.How Broken Is The U.S. Health Care System? Let's Count The Ways
Just about everybody who's ever needed health care in this country has seen firsthand the problems that make our system inefficient, costly and often downright unsatisfying.
The nonpartisan Institute of Medicine just put out a 450-page report about the problems along with some ideas for improvements.
How bad are things? Well, nearly a third of spending on health care — or about $750 billion in 2009 — is wasted. There's lots of inefficiency, excess overhead and some outright fraud, too. But the biggest slice, as you can see in a chart from The Atlantic's Brian Fung, is unnecessary care — about 28 percent of the waste pie.
Money's not the only issue. Poor quality hurts patients. The report, called "Best Care at Lower Cost: The Path to Continuously Learning Health Care in America," says that about 75,000 deaths a year might be prevented if the type of medicine practiced in the best states was the standard nationwide.
The numbers and technical details in the report could really glaze your eyes in a hurry. So it was nice to see a passage in the introduction that boils down the problems into some analogies. I've boiled them down some more and offer them up to you for a vote. Which one does the best job of conveying the routine screw-ups in health care?
Now it's true the report offers some suggestions for improving our system of care. Better use of technology, such as widespread adoption of computerized medical records and mobile devices, would help a lot, it says.
Besides the analogies in the report, the IOM also put together a handy infographic that summarizes the problems and ideas for fixing them. Click on the excerpt below to see the whole thing.AAP's victory in Delhi Assembly elections will definitely catapult the fledgling party into the national center stage with non-Congress parties likely to woo it assiduously to take on the BJP both at the national and the state level. However, AAP’s real strength will be challenged soon in days to come. The BJP, smarting from the defeat, will try its best to wreck the AAP government on every front, which shouldn’t be too difficult given the glorified municipality status of the Delhi government.
The BJP government in Haryana will definitely up the ante and refuse to give water to Delhi on some pretext or the other. Delhi produces practically nothing except services and the notable exceptions of pollution and noise. It is dependent on other states for its supply of water, power, vegetables and just about everything needed in the humdrum of daily life.
Full statehood to Delhi is now certainly not on the cards because doing that under the AAP regime would be suicidal for the BJP. BJP is already being pilloried for committing several blunders, including not holding the Delhi polls while still flush from the Lok Sabha victory, and it is not likely to commit one more by offering a prize that would make the AAP preen with pride.
With the status of a rump government, AAP would find it extremely difficult to deliver on its manifesto. Law and order is a serious issue in Delhi but the AAP government would be practically fighting crime and disorder with its hands tied behind its back. It is not as if the BJP would actively connive with criminals and lumpen elements, but at the same time it will not make life easy for its incipient national arch rival AAP.
Instead, its will attempt to make the AAP stew in its own juices. Delhi will be kept under the vice-like grip of the Centre not only to spite AAP but ostensibly because the nation’s capital should be under the central government. There is considerable merit in that argument because a nation’s capital plays host to foreign dignitaries and guides foreign investments besides being the harbinger of happenings in other states.
Full statehood being granted to Delhi would be used by Kejriwal to embarrass the BJP government at the Centre especially in the eyes of foreign governments that are warming upto Modi. In short, BJP would not give Kejriwal the stick to beat it with. Instead it would do everything in its power to project the fledgling party in bad light so that AAP’s success in retrospect turns out to be a flash in the pan.
The question is also whether the AAP will be able to replicate its success in other places. The answer to this seminal question will depend on what the AAP does in the days ahead. It has to go for an image makeover. It is cast in a rebellious mould that endears itself to youth in particular, who carries no baggage and celebrates novelty.
But in the long run, it should have a positive agenda that goes beyond subsidies. Electricity tariff cannot be halved across the board unless the government is ready to empty its coffers. Who knows it might do the unthinkable by inviting FDI in retail, if only to rein in vegetable and food prices, what with foreign retail chains enjoying a formidable reputation in setting up cold storage and preventing wastage.
The AAP has a long way to go in a country where caste, parochialism and other considerations still rule the roost. Regional parties still hold sway. In Bihar, AAP would find it extremely difficult to dislodge caste-based parties and politics. Delhi may be inhabited by people from every corner of the nation but it is by no means a microcosm of India. Bihar would soon prove Delhi was a one off.
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.Image copyright AFP Image caption Mr Mueller has come under pressure from influential conservatives
President Donald Trump has questioned the neutrality of Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in last year's US election.
Mr Trump said Mr Mueller's friendship with James Comey, who had been heading the inquiry until sacked from his role as FBI chief, was "bothersome".
Asked on Fox News whether Mr Mueller should step down, Mr Trump said: "We're going to have to see."
However, Mr Trump did call Mr Mueller an "honourable man".
Mr Mueller was given the role of special counsel by the justice department to lead its investigation into alleged Russian interference after Mr Comey was sacked on 9 May.
Mr Mueller has not given any details of his investigation but US media have reported he is investigating Mr Trump for possible obstruction of justice, both in the firing of Mr Comey and whether Mr Trump tried to end an inquiry into sacked national security adviser Michael Flynn.
President Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion with Russia, calling it a "witch hunt".
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Russia probe is 'ridiculous' - Trump
He did so again in his interview with Fox & Friends on Friday, saying "there has been no obstruction. There has been no collusion."
He called the accusations of obstruction of justice "ridiculous".
Asked whether Mr Mueller should recuse himself from the inquiry because of his friendship with Mr Comey, Mr Trump said: "Well he's very, very good friends with Comey which is very bothersome. But he's also... we're going to have to see."
He also said that "the people that've been hired were all Hillary Clinton supporters".
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Trump's love-hate relationship with Comey over a tumultuous year
When Mr Mueller was appointed Mr Trump was said to be furious, but the special counsel won widespread initial praise from both Republicans and Democrats.
However, lately some influential conservatives have intensified their attacks, openly calling for Mr Mueller's dismissal.
Trump advocate Newt Gingrich urged the president to "rethink" Mr Mueller's position, saying: "Republicans are delusional if they think the special counsel is going to be fair."
The New York Times has reported that Mr Trump has considered firing Mr Mueller but has so far been talked out of it by aides.
Ten days ago, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: "While the president has every right to" fire Mr Mueller "he has no intention to do so".
On Friday, her colleague Sean Spicer repeated there was "no intention" to dismiss Mr Mueller.
And in his Fox interview, Mr Trump said: "Robert Mueller is an honourable man and hopefully he'll come up with an honourable conclusion."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Do Trump voters care about the Russia investigation?
Earlier this month, Mr Comey testified to Congress that Mr Trump had pressured him to drop the investigation into Mr Flynn.
Mr Flynn was sacked in February for failing to reveal the extent of his contacts with Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to Washington.
Mr Comey testified he was "sure" Mr Mueller was looking at whether Mr Trump had obstructed justice.
US media said Mr Mueller was also examining whether Mr Comey's sacking was an attempt by the president to alter the course of the investigation.
On 16 June, Mr Trump sent out a tweet appearing to accept he was under investigation, although later his aides suggested that was not the intention.
On Thursday, Mr Trump also made it clear that he had not made secret recordings of his conversations with Mr Comey, despite an earlier hint to the contrary.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Trump injects reality TV suspense into "Comey tapes" saga
His tweet came a day before he was required by Congress to hand over any such tapes.
Mr Trump had kick-started speculation of the recordings in a tweet he posted days after firing Mr Comey, saying: "James Comey better hope there are no 'tapes' of our conversations."
Allegations of collusion between the Trump team and Russian officials during the election have dogged the president's first five months in office.
US investigators are looking into whether Russian cyber hackers targeted US electoral systems in order to help Mr Trump win - something Moscow has strongly denied.
Separately on Friday, a Washington Post article said the Obama administration had been made aware by sources within the Moscow government last August of President Vladimir Putin's direct involvement in the cyber campaign to disrupt the election.
The article said the administration debated a response for months before expelling 35 diplomats and closing two Russian compounds. Mr Obama had also approved planting cyber weapons in the Russian infrastructure, the article said, but the measure was not put into action.Video: Armed robbers targeting Latinos in Richmond, crimes going unreported Copyright by KRON - All rights reserved Video
RICHMOND (KRON) -- Armed robbers are targeting Latinos in Richmond, and often, these crimes go unreported, according to police.
KRON4's Haaziq Madyun took a look at how merchants are teaming up with law enforcement to bridge the gap between police and victims of crimes.
Latinos with iPhones, backpacks, purses and jewelry is what armed robbers are looking for along the 23rd Street corridor in Richmond.
Rosa Lara and Diego Garcia are members of the 23rd Street Merchants Association. They said Latinos, who are often reluctant to trust law enforcement, are making a bad situation worse by not reporting that they have been robbed.
"They don't know what to expect," Garcia said. "They see the news, things going on like I.C.E coming in."
"I'm Hispanic so I understand the fear, here in Richmond we do not call immigration," Richmond police officer Yesenia Rogers said.
Rogers is leading an RPD effort working with the Latino community to bridge the gap between victims of robberies and police
And she said so far, there has been some pretty good results in terms of reducing robberies in the area.
"They've come down in this general area where the outreach has been conducted," Rogers said.
These fliers educate Latinos on how to be less of a target. They are also a part of the outreach effort.Israel reportedly provided the information to the U.S. that President Trump revealed to Russian officials last week in a conversation that has since attracted widespread scrutiny due to the sensitivity of the disclosure.
Israeli officials had previously warned their American counterparts to handle the intelligence in question with caution, the New York Times reported Tuesday. That intelligence was related to a specific Islamic State plot.
The White House has rejected reports that Trump improperly shared intelligence with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador, and said Trump never discussed the source of the intelligence and raised it only in the context of a conversation about fighting terrorism.
The Israeli ambassador to the U.S. said Israel would continue its intelligence-sharing relationship with the U.S. despite the episode.
"Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump," Ambassador Ron Dermer said.
Critics have accused Trump of putting the resources of a U.S. ally at risk by giving the Russian government enough information to identify its source. National security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters on Tuesday that Trump was not aware the information came to him by way of an ally when he received it in a briefing.I never got to play the Akira videogame that came out on the Nintendo Famicom console in 1988 – on account of my not being born for another six years – but I’ve been led to believe that there’s a reason nobody has tried to make an Akira game since: it was a stinker. However, I did get around to watching the movie that spawned it, and like thousands of others became enamored with its setting, art style and motifs of corporate inhumanity and youth revolt. Ruiner is the Akira game I always wanted, a bold and bloody stampede through a cyberpunk city that’s driven entirely by kineticism.
For more intriguing, low-budget wonders, check out the best indie games on PC.
But let’s start with the basics: Ruiner is an isometric action shooter where movement reigns supreme. You run around using the WASD keys, but apart from picking up weapons, using your shield and skimming through text, every other move and action is assigned to your mouse. That includes aiming, dashing, targeted dashing, shooting, melee, throwing grenades and switching between guns and melee. It’s an incredible amount of control to assign to such a tight physical space, but it’s essential to the pace of Ruiner’s intense arena battles that every control is easy to find and switch between with total precision.
Fights take place in confining arenas, where new foes enter the fray every few seconds, either running in from the sides as lone combatants or deploying from above in groups of three or four. You have to kill quickly to keep the number of enemies manageable, and to do that you have to dash around each arena like a ricocheting bullet in a Korn video. For short distances the standard right mouse button dash will suffice, letting you get close enough to brain nearby baddies with your trusty lead pipe or quickly escape an incoming shotgun blast. More complex scenarios require you to use targeted dashes, which let you slow down time in order to plot a sequenced course of dashes to make.
Here’s why those targeted dashes are important: imagine you’re in an arena with a boss and some henchmen and there’s an automatic shotgun on the floor that would let you turn them all into crimson gloop in a matter of seconds. Running up to it and grabbing it will get you killed – trust me, I tried. Likewise, dashing to pick it up and then dashing away to safety will leave you damaged and still facing five enemies, which is far from ideal. The correct course of action is a targeted dash, first to the closest henchman, then to the two standing next to each other, then to the automatic shotgun – don’t forget to tap E at just the right time to pick it up – and finally to the side of a shipping container you can quickly duck behind to avoid any incoming fire. En route to the first bad guy you’ll want to switch to your lead pipe with the mouse wheel, taking care to time your swing just right so that it falls between the miniscule window of opportunity before the second dash kicks in. Same goes for killing the second goon. Once the sequence is over you get to wrap a tidy bow around the whole set piece by charging out from behind the container and unloading every shell into the boss and his one remaining subordinate.
For context, all of that plays out in just over eight seconds. To carry out all of that, or to even think to activate the ability in the first place takes a certain presence of mind that only comes with dying to similar situations repeatedly. Ruiner is not an easy game. There’s a catch too: targeted dashes deplete your energy, so you can’t rely on them to see you through every encounter. Your enemies will dash as well should you try to distance yourselves from them, ensuring every fight stays as tense and fast-paced as possible – there is no escape in an arena, and Ruiner makes you feel that in your sweaty palms and quickened heart rate.
Those physical sensations are mirrored by some truly menacing sound design. The soundtrack itself is a brutish clash of heavily distorted electronica and moody synthwave that’s penetrated by audio glitches, blaring sirens and the echoed screams of those you slay. It’s an oppressive soundscape, but it’s a perfect accompaniment to the gameplay. The visuals are just as suffocating, every surface in sight a cold slab of stainless steel lit by searing flashes of red neon. Excised limbs and generous streaks of blood confirm that Ruiner isn’t shy about gore either, and the occasional digital overlays demanding you KILL BOSS do an excellent job of placing you firmly in the thick leather boots of the wired killer you’re controlling.
Of course this is only one side of Ruiner, and I’m assured by the Devolver Digital PR overseeing my demo that there’s much, much more to the game than combat. Indeed, developers Reikon Games have previously shown off wandering through city streets, talking to NPCs and buying upgrades from vendors in the city slums. Having only played the brash and bloody opening 20 minutes of Ruiner, the idea of switching gears so dramatically to area exploration and dialogue-driven gameplay is a slight concern. But the backgrounds of Reikon Games’ four co-founders – whose work includes the Witcher series, Dying Light, This War of Mine and Shadow Warrior – suggest they have expertise in both areas.
And this is a world that deserves a solid narrative, with so many facets already demanding explanation or fleshing out. I want to know more about the city of Rengkok, more about the cybernetic sociopath in leather and workman boots that I’ve been controlling, more about the HEAVEN corporation that watches over the cyber metropolis, and more about the hacker that’s invaded our nameless protagonist. I also want to know more about the LED visor he wears that displays messages and images at the whim of the hacker controlling him. Or, now that I think about it, whether I too could get away with wearing blue trousers with a single banana-yellow pinstripe running down each leg and a heavy biker jacket on top. Probably not, but you get the point: Ruiner oozes intrigue and cool.
I want more, and nowhere near enough games leave me feeling that way after such a short demo. The combat is hard as nails, but it’s also fun. Really, really fun. Zipping around miniscule arenas, switching between weapons and abilities without a moment to spare and constantly treading a fine line between mastery and total failure – Ruiner’s combat feels fiendishly good. Couple that with an accomplished aesthetic and a soundscape that could give Hotline Miami’s pulsing audio a run for its money and you’ve got a tantalising prospect on your hands. We’ll find out if its remaining elements come together as neatly when it releases later this year.
Looking forward to Ruiner? Let us know in the comments below.NPR's Past April Fools' Day Pranks
NPR has a tradition of sneaking in a fake story on April Fools' Day. Guest host Daniel Zwerdling speaks with longtime producers Art Silverman and Barry Gordemer about their favorites from past years.
DANIEL ZWERDLING, HOST:
And it's time now for our regular segment Words You'll Hear. This is where we try to understand stories we'll be hearing in the coming days by analyzing some of the specific words we'll undoubtedly hear in those stories. So what are two crucial words you're going to hear this week? Art, Barry, help us out.
ART SILVERMAN, BYLINE: April.
BARRY GORDEMER, BYLINE: Fools.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHISTLE)
ZWERDLING: Yes, thank you (laughter) April fools'. These are two of NPR's most senior producers, Art Silverman from ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, welcome.
SILVERMAN: Hey.
ZWERDLING: And Barry Gordemer from Morning Edition, welcome.
GORDEMER: Just means we're old, that's all.
ZWERDLING: And they've helped create an ancient tradition here at NPR. They create a story every year that's pure fiction - I mean, it's completely outrageous - and they slip it in with real stories on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED or Morning Edition. And it is up to you the listeners to catch it. And we hope some of you have actually been suckered in by these stories. Art, let's start with you. What are - what's one of your favorite ones?
SILVERMAN: Well - and not to take all the credit, I arrived here when colleagues already had been doing this, and many of them inspired me. And I decided - I think raise it to another level by making the parodies actually be criticisms of things that NPR was doing that we did too much.
And I think my favorite is a piece I did that mirrored and poked fun at a piece that Noah Adams and I did about maple sugar harvesting on this very program years ago. So my theory was what if these trees weren't being tapped? Wouldn't the pressure build up? And I created a piece about exploding maple trees and the injuries they cause and the harm this is doing to people in Vermont and New England areas.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ROBERT SIEGEL, BYLINE: An untapped tree is a time-bomb waiting to go off.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Oh, watch it - be careful there.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)
SIEGEL: Untapped maple trees can explode like gushers, causing injury and sometimes death. If untended, quiet stands of nature's sweeteners can turn into spindly demons of destruction.
ZWERDLING: (Laughter).
SILVERMAN: And part of it is - part of what I enjoy doing - the listener - some people got fooled - we try to keep it just at the level of being possible.
ZWERDLING: And Barry Gordemer, what's one of your favorites?
GORDEMER: Well, I have to say I can't take credit for the one which is my favorite. This was done by a group of great brains on Morning Edition. And this was an idea of - called 3-D eye surgery. So 3-D movies are really popular, but the worst part about them - you have to wear these big, bulky 3-D glasses.
ZWERDLING: Totally.
GORDEMER: They're uncomfortable, they're not a good fashion statement.
ZWERDLING: They're probably dirty, even though they say they're not.
GORDEMER: Right, right. So we had a story about a doctor who had come up with surgery so you would not need the 3-D glasses. You could just see them with your naked eye.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
RENITA JABLONSKI, BYLINE: (As Rebecca Stern) Seeing "Gnomeo and Juliet" without those horrible glasses was life-changing. There are no words to describe it.
LAURA KRANTZ: (As Jen Sands-Windsor) There are still some kinks to work out.
KEVIN BEESLEY, BYLINE: (As Dr. Sebastian Marsh) Some patients have complained of blurred vision when they are not looking at 3-D screens. So we're actually working now on some special corrective lenses that will allow our patients to see real life normally.
(LAUGHTER)
ZWERDLING: So maybe - so there have been other great stories. There was the one about how the Reagan administration had decided to sell Arizona to Canada. Some people believed that. A story about how Nixon had decided to run again in 1992. People were outraged. How could he run a third time? It's unconstitutional. What does it take for listeners to be completely gullible?
GORDEMER: In the case of the 3-D eye surgery, it was played completely straight. It sounded like a standard NPR report, nothing to clue us in. And we got so much angry email because people really bought it.
SILVERMAN: My theory is you should try start to slowly give it away. So by the end, the doubts arise until you reach a crescendo of absurdity in which the listener is no longer necessarily fooled.
GORDEMER: Yeah, and we may have - we may have not done that well. We did put a line at the end that this surgery would be more available on April 1, but I think it was probably too subtle.
ZWERDLING: So folks, don't say we didn't warn you. That was Morning Edition producer Barry Gordemer, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Art Silverman. Guys, thanks a lot.
SILVERMAN: Thank you.
ZWERDLING: And now an important alert. April is not just for practical jokes. It's also poetry month. So with that in mind, we are asking for your poems - not pranks, poems - rhyming couplets, sonnets, limericks, prose. We want to hear it all. So please tweet your poetry to @npratc. Use the hashtag #NPRPoetry. And each weekend, we'll read a few of the submissions on the air. Happy tweeting.
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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.It is established that glucose tolerance decreases from the morning to the evening, and that shift work is a risk factor for diabetes. However, the relative importance of the endogenous circadian system, the behavioral cycle (including the sleep/wake and fasting/feeding cycles), and circadian misalignment on glucose tolerance is unclear. We show that the magnitude of the effect of the endogenous circadian system on glucose tolerance and on pancreatic β-cell function was much larger than that of the behavioral cycle in causing the decrease in glucose tolerance from morning to evening. Also, independent from circadian phase and the behavioral cycle, circadian misalignment resulting from simulated night work lowered glucose tolerance—without diminishing effects upon repeated exposure—with direct relevance for shift workers.
Abstract
Glucose tolerance is lower in the evening and at night than in the morning. However, the relative contribution of the circadian system vs. the behavioral cycle (including the sleep/wake and fasting/feeding cycles) is unclear. Furthermore, although shift work is a diabetes risk factor, the separate impact on glucose tolerance of the behavioral cycle, circadian phase, and circadian disruption (i.e., misalignment between the central circadian pacemaker and the behavioral cycle) has not been systematically studied. Here we show—by using two 8-d laboratory protocols—in healthy adults that the circadian system and circadian misalignment have distinct influences on glucose tolerance, both separate from the behavioral cycle. First, postprandial glucose was 17% higher (i.e., lower glucose tolerance) in the biological evening (8:00 PM) than morning (8:00 AM; i.e., a circadian phase effect), independent of the behavioral cycle effect. Second, circadian misalignment itself (12-h behavioral cycle inversion) increased postprandial glucose by 6%. Third, these variations in glucose tolerance appeared to be explained, at least in part, by different mechanisms: during the biological evening by decreased pancreatic β-cell function (27% lower early-phase insulin) and during circadian misalignment presumably by decreased insulin sensitivity (elevated postprandial glucose despite 14% higher late-phase insulin) without change in early-phase insulin. We explored possible contributing factors, including changes in polysomnographic sleep and 24-h hormonal profiles. We demonstrate that the circadian system importantly contributes to the reduced glucose tolerance observed in the evening compared with the morning. Separately, circadian misalignment reduces glucose tolerance, providing a mechanism to help explain the increased diabetes risk in shift workers.Some of the best basement flooring options are cork floating floors.
There are significant differences between above and below grade flooring installations. Cement foundations below grade can have slight yet continuous water vapour (moisture) due to evaporation. This moisture can get trapped and accumulate under flooring causing mold and mildew to form and floors to fail.
Whether below, at, or above grade, proper moisture testing should be done prior to any flooring installation. All flooring professionals should offer this service with an installation package but many DIY homeowners or handyman may have little knowledge of these basic requirements. If problems arise, all warranties are void without proof of proper moisture tests before, during and after installation.
The adhesives required to install cork flooring are extremely sensitive to moisture – especially in a cement slab. Hydrostatic pressure must be less than 3lbs/1000sf in 24 hours. By industry standards, this is ranked as “very sensitive”. For the uninitiated, most other forms of glue-down or mortar-in-place floors can accept 5-8lbs/1000sf in 24 hours before special measures must be taken. “Unsealed” basements often sit between 5-10 lbs/1000sf in 24 hours. Even “sealed slabs” can still exhibit hydrostatic pressure above 3 lbs/1000sf in 24 hours..
It is for this reason a cork floating floor is the best flooring option for a basement. It is also hightly recommended to use a moisture/vapour resistant cork underlayment even when the concrete has a moisture barrier incorporated into the slab. A standard vapour barrier is 6mm polyethylene sheeting with 8” seam overlap, sealed with a moisture resistant tape, and the basement is ready to install a new floor. Moisture testing must still be obtained and documented after complete installation of vapour barrier and flooring.
Cork underlay is a solid, non-compressible material offering an excellent option for your flooring. It will increase the R-Value of the basement and offers an easy, affordable “floor raise” if the cork is going to butt up against another floor. Forna’s cork floor is just a little less than ½ inch in height whereas ceramic tiled floor for example can be up to 3/4″. Cork underlay is an easy way to add an extra 1/8 inch o1/4 inch of height so the cork floating flooring can be smoothly lined up with an existing floor.
When it comes to the best basement flooring, the simplest approach is sometimes the best. Some customers have tried installing a subfloor in order to use glue-down cork tiles instead of floating floor option without knowing a vapour barrier is still requred. This makes for a costly and time consuming process and may still not be warranty worthy. If a glue-down flooring product is exposed to excessive moisture from underneath is very likely to fail, in some cases in a matter of months. There is also the option of using click-together subfloor products but they are often composed of OSB board which is not recommended for glue-down flooring. Therefore, another subflooring product would be needed making another costly scenario considering it would also still need a moisture barrier underneath it all. The higher cost of materials and increased labour required for proper installation does not add up to value or product satisfaction.
Polyethylene sheeting is an adequate moisture barrier for as little as $0.06/sf at home renovation stores. Forna Cork Underlay is an ideal support product for any flooring product available in 3mm, or 6mm or even 12mm for special situations. Many colors and styles of Forna cork floating floors are available that range in price from cost effect Golden Beach to our high-end Logan. Even with the cost of proper moisture testing, this is arguably the most affordable approach to basement flooring installation.President Donald Trump has a weird way of shaking hands. His herky-jerky grappling style sometimes makes it look like he’s fighting with the other person, and maybe even trying to rip their arm out of its socket. But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared prepared for an uncomfortable greeting when he visited the White House on Monday.
A video of Trump welcoming Trudeau shows the prime minister quickly grasping the president’s shoulder with his left arm, seemingly bracing for a
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would be permitted to apply for refugee status.
The remaining 8 per cent of respondents said the current regulations are fine.
“For Canadians it’s not either a discussion about compassion or a discussion about security; it’s a discussion about rules,” said Darrell Bricker, CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs.
“Regardless of your views of immigration in general, there’s an overall perspective among Canadians that rules must make sense, and they must be followed.”
WATCH: Illegal border crossings will get more dangerous by spring, says Pallister
In that sense, these numbers aren’t about refugees or how Canadians feel about newcomers in general, Bricker added, but about fairness.
“Even if you’re a person who is pro (immigration), you want the system to be one that’s humane, and regulated … and one that everybody will follow,” he said.
“The problem is right now, all three things I just described don’t seem to be happening.”
The federal government has no immediate plans to suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement, but Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has expressed concern over migrants trying to make the journey to Canada in adverse conditions, like snowstorms or spring floods. The Liberals say they are monitoring the situation carefully.
Goodale’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bricker said that if Ottawa wants to align with public opinion on this issue, the government must “clarify the rules, make sure they’re applied appropriately, and be seen to be doing both.”
Regional differences
The poll found significant variation in opinion depending on where Canadians live, with residents of the Prairies more likely to express concern about border security and to take a hard line on immigration policy.
In Alberta, for instance, 20 per cent of respondents said all asylum seekers should be treated the same and sent back to the U.S. as soon as they arrive on Canadian soil.
READ MORE: Why refugees are choosing to cross over in Manitoba instead of Saskatchewan
Meanwhile, the number of respondents who agreed that “Canada’s border security is as strong as it needs to be to protect both our sovereignty and the personal safety of Canadians” was far lower in Alberta (33 per cent) and in Saskatchewan/Manitoba (44 per cent) compared to other regions. Everywhere else, the proportion of those agreeing was above 60 per cent.
“What will likely happen is those flash-points will be the places that you’ll see this issue move,” Bricker predicted.
Low levels of awareness
While asylum seekers crossing from the U.S. into Canada have dominated national headlines in recent weeks, the poll also revealed that many Canadians still don’t have a firm grasp of how the system deals with these people when they arrive.
Ipsos found that a little more than half of Canadians (55 per cent) say they are aware of the rules (21 per cent very aware and 34 per cent somewhat) governing who can, and cannot, make a refugee claim.
READ MORE: Are asylum seekers ‘queue jumping’ and other key questions
The other 45 per cent said they were not familiar with the rules, and nearly a quarter of respondents admitted they had no knowledge whatsoever of how the system works.
“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” Bricker said.
“Until this becomes front-page news and people really start to get into the details of it and it becomes the number one issue facing the country, the extent that people will pay attention to the letter of the law probably will not be that high.”
But this issue is climbing in terms of public concern, he added, and it’s likely that trend will continue as the temperature warms and more people make the journey north.
The number of people crossing into Canada by land and making asylum claims increased more than six-fold in Quebec for the month of February, as compared to the same month last year. The number quadrupled in the Prairies, and that was in the dead of winter.
“(If) we’re talking not a couple of people coming across, but busloads coming across, that’s when it really becomes problematic,” Bricker said.
“Because that’s when it looks like the rules are unclear, to the extent that they exist they’re being violated, and the government is out of control.”
This Ipsos poll was conducted between March 22 and March 23, 2017, on behalf of Global News. For this survey, a sample of 1,001 Canadians from Ipsos’ online panel was interviewed online. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within +/ – 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadian adults been polled.From the Field
A new paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology finds that two farm-based food safety practices – removal of non-crop vegetation in and around fields, and abandonment of composting – actually hurt farmers without making food safer.
“The practices are unnecessary,” said Danny Karp, lead author on the study. “Not only are they ineffective for their intended purpose, they damage growers by decreasing crop yields and pest control.”
Karp conducted this research as a NatureNet Science Fellow with The Nature Conservancy and the University of California at Berkeley. As part of his fellowship, Karp collaborated with senior Conservancy scientist Sasha Gennet and others to determine the efficacy of emerging farming practices for food safety.
Death, Disease and Organic Spinach
The impetus for food safety reform and the intense focus on how farm fields contribute to food safety began in earnest in 2006, after an E. coli outbreak killed three people and sickened hundreds in the United States. Though the source of the outbreak was eventually traced to organic bagged spinach harvested from a field on California’s Central Coast, no one could ever definitively say how the spinach had become infected in the first place.
In the end domestic animals and wildlife each took part of the blame. The result: in efforts to comply with new rules and industry pressure, farmers began fencing their fields, abandoning compost, and removing habitat across the Central Coast.
Unfortunately, there was little scientific basis for these actions and people were forced to make sweeping changes to farms and farming practices on the basis of assumption, supposition, and guess work. Yet, as a paper published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed, they were guessing wrong, at least when it came to habitat removal.
That study, also by Karp, Gennet and others, showed that removing habitat from farm fields didn’t make food safer. If anything, removing habitat was associated with a marginal increase in food borne pathogens
The bottomline, Karp said at the time, “is that removing habitat from farm fields does not mitigate pathogen risk and there’s no reason to continue it.”
Nature, Farms & Food Safety: What the Science Says
This latest study builds on that earlier work and looks at the question of nature’s effect on farms, farmers and food safety from another angle. If removing habitat from farm fields doesn’t improve food safety, are other practices equally as ineffective, or worse, potentially damaging?
To answer those questions, scientists wanted know if: (1) preserving non-crop vegetation (habitat) around farm fields provides a pest-control or yield benefit to growers, and (2) properly treated manure-based compost hurts or helps farmers and food safety.
Research was carried out over two growing seasons at 29 sites on certified organic farms on the Central Coast.
“The Central Coast is a global hotspot for biodiversity,” said Gennet. “The Nature Conservancy has been working on land and water conservation here in Monterey County for over 50 years—think of Elkhorn Slough, Monterey Bay, and the Big Sur Coast.
“After the E. coli outbreak, we started hearing about, and eventually were able to document, significant loss and degradation of riverside vegetation that provides exceptionally high value habitat for wildlife. This new paper takes the early studies much further, demonstrating that these practices are not only damaging to nature, but that consumers and growers are not benefitting either.”
What the Science Says: Habitat and Pest Control
Scientists found that fields surrounded by habitat had more diverse insect populations, including greater numbers of the beneficial insects – like syrphid flies – that prey on agricultural pests. Conventional farmers often seek to control so-called “bad bugs” (like aphids) with synthetic insecticides, which are both expensive and known to have negative human health consequences.
In terms of other ecosystem benefits from preserving habitat, the research showed that non-crop vegetation in and around farms didn’t seem to directly increase yield. However, controlling pests can help prevent loss of product due to insect predation that causes cosmetic damage to crops – like lettuce — and makes them unsaleable on the wider market.
What the Science Says: Compost, Crop Yield & Food Safety
Unlike habitat, the scientists observed no effect of compost on pest control, either by increasing populations of beneficial insects or decreasing populations of pests. However, compost increased crop yield significantly.
Additionally, said Karp, “Lettuce grown on compost grew bigger. We also surveyed for E. coli and found that properly treated compost was not introducing E. coli.”
Proper treatment is key because the treatment of the compost is what makes it safe for use on farm fields. It’s all about the heat. Manure-based compost that is regularly turned reaches internal temperatures that are high enough to kill pathogens like E. coli and Salmonella.
What Happens in California Doesn’t Stay in California
These studies showing nature’s value to agriculture matter because the Central Coast of California is the heart of production for much of the produce consumed in the United States — and also because the region is globally important for biodiversity.
What happens there – from research to improve crop yields to the development of rules and regulations to govern food safety – can and does have far-reaching effects on farms and agricultural practices across more than 4.5 million acres of produce fields in the U.S. alone.
“We will be continuing to work with the NatureNet Science Fellows program next year,” said Gennet, “focusing on the role that agricultural soil management can play in mitigating climate change and how those practices may affect natural communities. The collaboration with NatureNet is essential to addressing these critical and timely issues.”
NatureNet: Applied Science to Solve Real-World Problems
Meeting the world’s needs for energy, food, and water without exacerbating climate change or degrading natural systems is the unprecedented challenge of the 21st century. The Nature Conservancy and some of the world’s premier universities are helping meet this challenge through the NatureNet Science Fellowship program — creating a new generation of interdisciplinary conservation leaders who marry the rigor of academic science and analysis to real-world application in the field.
Karp’s work as a Fellow was part of a larger, ongoing effort around sustainable agriculture that is resilient to climate change. If the world is going to feed a projected population of 9 billion people by 2050, we need to find ways to intensify agricultural production without destroying the ecosystem services – like pest control and fertilization – that nature provides.
Danny Karp completed his two-year NatureNet Science Fellowship in 2015. He is currently a Killam Fellow at the University of British Columbia and in January 2017, will take up a position as an assistant professor at the University of California at Davis.What's this? A bonus round of app sales... on a Thursday? Still your beating hearts, dear readers of mine, because while I have more apps for you today, I've decided to take a different approach. Due to the volume of yesterday's post and the amount of questionable applications in it, I am trying something new today.
Here's how this should work: I am still going to post all of the free/on-sale apps that I find so that those of you who want to look at everything can. However, they will be placed in their own section — essentially, the apps placed there look questionable or just plain weird, but if you want them, there they are. I understand that this is a strongly subjective thing (in most cases), but at least they're here in the post for those of you who care for such things.
From here on, I will denote the apps that I recommend (if any appear) by bolding them. Also, be sure to leave your feedback or suggestions in the comments.
Free
Apps
Games
Icon packs & customization
Sale
Apps
Games
Icon packs & customization
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Apps
GamesAugur Reputation tokens (REP) will be released to ICO participants tomorrow, after a year of development. Eventually REP tokens will be used with the Augur platform, which is the first decentralized prediction market built on the Ethereum blockchain. Exchanges such as Poloniex and Kraken have already announced that trading and deposits will be enabled for REP tokens on their exchange.
The Augur team is building the tech but wont be directly in control of the platform. The community will create its own markets and participants will be able to place bets on each market. After each predicition event is finished, the REP token holders will report the results, creating a free market system.
Prediction Markets
Augur will give people the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is, for things like the presidential election, e-sports, baseball, football, hockey, golf, the UFC, and many others. The Augur team is working on creating a fair market with each bet weighted according to volume and the number of participants.
For example, if a person wanted to place a bet on the market above, betting against the popular choice Conor McGregor, a bet would cost $0.31 a share. After the bet was placed, the odds would shift because the new bet added more weight to Eddie Alvarez winning the fight. If Eddie Alvarez were to win the fight, then the bettor would earn $1 for every share that the he/she bought.
Market makers will have to pay a fee to start a market and in return they will receive half of the trading fees from the market that they created. REP token holders receive the other half of the fees from every market, which is distributed equally between all participating tokens in exchange for reporting the results of events honestly. Many people will report on each market and if someone submits dishonest results they can lose up to 20% of their reputation tokens.
Restrictions
The current state of gambling and betting in the US is heavily restricted. Since the Augur platform is decentralized, it will be difficult to limit or shut down.
Augur may offer people a platform to start trading and betting where they couldn’t before. Sports betting is a huge industry, research shows the US is estimated to have nearly 100 Billion dollars of expected betting in 2016, 96% of it being illegal.
The Augur platform is expected to release in Q4 of 2016 and it should attract a lot of new users to the cryptocurrency community.Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout.
In a shift away from his predecessor, Gov. Greg Abbott has informed the U.S. Department of Justice that Texas plans to comply as much as possible with a federal law that aims to prevent prison rape. Yet Abbott's notice was not enough for the department, which said Friday it did not count as a formal assurance under the law.
Last year, former Gov. Rick Perry said Texas would not follow some requirements of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, calling it a "counterproductive and unnecessarily cumbersome and costly regulatory mess." But in a recent letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Abbott sounded far less critical, making clear the state is now working to put in place every part of the law that it can.
"I cannot yet certify that the state is in full compliance with Prison Rape Elimination Act ("PREA"), because our PREA audits are still ongoing," Abbott wrote. "But every facility that has completed the PREA audit process has been certified as fully compliant. And I can assure you that we will fully implement DOJ's PREA standards wherever feasible."
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Abbott's letter to Lynch was dated May 15 the last day governors had to tell the Justice Department whether their state was in compliance with the law or working to bring it up to speed. Under the PREA, governors also have to guarantee they will use at least five percent of justice department grant money in their efforts to fully meet the law's requirements — something Abbott did not do.
"The letter we received from Texas makes no such representation and therefore it cannot be considered to be an assurance under PREA," Justice Department spokeswoman Dena W. Iverson said in a statement.
Abbott spokeswoman Amelia Chasse responded Friday that the governor's letter "explained Texas' current efforts to comply and our plans to improve our compliance in the future." She also pointed back to Abbott's statement in the letter that he cannot yet guarantee Texas is in full compliance with the law because the audits are still underway.
It was not immediately clear what consequences Texas would face for effectively missing the deadline. The state faced a fine after Perry's missive last year.
Prior to the deadline, the gay rights group Lambda Legal had petitioned Abbott to do more to combat prison rape. Texas perennially ranks among the worst states for sexual violence against inmates. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender inmates are disproportionately victims of sexual violence, according to advocates.
"Gov. Abbott has taken a necessary first step to stop sexual violence in Texas prisons and jails," Jael Humphrey, a Lambda Legal staff attorney, said in a statement Thursday. "It is only the first step, however, and sustained commitment is needed from all levels of the Texas criminal justice system to make clear that rape is not an acceptable part of any sentence, for any crime."
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Welcome to a galaxy of epic conquest, interstellar trade, and political intrigue. Twilight Imperium is an exciting board game in which 3-6 players seek to build a galactic empire by the cunning use of strategy, diplomacy, and resource management.
By taking on the role of a great interstellar race, players will seek the ultimate goal: to claim the Imperial Throne on Mecatol Rex and lead the galaxy to a new age of glory.
But the road to the Imperial Throne is long and the galaxy holds many dangers. Do you have what it takes to lead your race out of the troubled Twilight Age? Do you have the determination to move your race forward using a balance of diplomacy, careful planning, and the use of force? Are you ready to direct the scientific development, military might, and economic growth for an entire interstellar civilization?
If so, your time has come!The nation's wealthiest Americans would get a hefty tax cut from the Senate health care bill.
Those in the top 0.1%, earning $5 million or more, would receive an average tax cut of nearly $250,000 in 2026, according to a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center. Those in the top 1%, who earn $875,000 and up, would see an average tax savings of $45,500 a year.
Republicans' efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare have been widely criticized as shifting money from the poor to the rich. The House and Senate bills would repeal the taxes Obamacare levied on the wealthy, while making drastic cuts to Medicaid and reducing federal assistance that helps low- and moderate-income Americans afford coverage.
Some 22 million fewer Americans would have health insurance under the Senate legislation, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis released Monday. That includes 15 million fewer people covered under Medicaid, the nation's safety net program for the poor.
Related: 22 million fewer Americans insured under Senate GOP bill
The GOP would also repeal taxes that Obamacare levied on insurers, drug makers and others. All told, this would reduce federal revenue by $700 billion over the next decade. Nearly 45% of that benefit would go to the top 1%, the Tax Policy Center found.
Since 2013, single taxpayers with incomes above $200,000 and couples making more than $250,000 annually have had to pay an additional 0.9% Medicare payroll tax on the amount they earn above these thresholds. These taxpayers may also be hit with a tax surcharge of 3.8% on investment income above those thresholds.
Former President Obama, who has stayed largely on the sidelines since President Trump took office, last week slammed the effort to repeal his landmark health reform law.
Related: CBO report puts health care bill in jeopardy
"The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill," he wrote in a Facebook post Thursday. "It's a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America. It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else."Computer security systems may one day get a boost from quantum physics, as a result of recent research from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Computer scientist Yi-Kai Liu has devised a way to make a security device that has proved notoriously difficult to build—a "one-shot" memory unit, whose contents can be read only a single time.
The research, which Liu is presenting at this week's Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science conference,* shows in theory how the laws of quantum physics could allow for the construction of such memory devices. One-shot memories would have a wide range of possible applications such as protecting the transfer of large sums of money electronically. A one-shot memory might contain two authorization codes: one that credits the recipient's bank account and one that credits the sender's bank account, in case the transfer is canceled. Crucially, the memory could only be read once, so only one of the codes can be retrieved, and hence, only one of the two actions can be performed—not both.
"When an adversary has physical control of a device—such as a stolen cell phone—software defenses alone aren't enough; we need to use tamper-resistant hardware to provide security," Liu says. "Moreover, to protect critical systems, we don't want to rely too much on complex defenses that might still get hacked. It's better if we can rely on fundamental laws of nature, which are unassailable."
Unfortunately, there is no fundamental solution to the problem of building tamper-resistant chips, at least not using classical physics alone. So scientists have tried involving quantum mechanics as well, because information that is encoded into a quantum system behaves differently from a classical system.
Liu is exploring one approach, which stores data using quantum bits, or "qubits," which use quantum properties such as magnetic spin to represent digital information. Using a technique called "conjugate coding," two secret messages—such as separate authorization codes—can be encoded into the same string of qubits, so that a user can retrieve either one of the two messages. But as the qubits can only be read once, the user cannot retrieve both.
The risk in this approach stems from a more subtle quantum phenomenon: "entanglement," where two particles can affect each other even when separated by great distances. If an adversary is able to use entanglement, he can retrieve both messages at once, breaking the security of the scheme.
However, Liu has observed that in certain kinds of physical systems, it is very difficult to create and use entanglement, and shows in his paper that this obstacle turns out to be an advantage: Liu presents a mathematical proof that if an adversary is unable to use entanglement in his attack, that adversary will never be able to retrieve both messages from the qubits. Hence, if the right physical systems are used, the conjugate coding method is secure after all.
"It's fascinating how entanglement—and the lack thereof—is the key to making this work," Liu says. "From a practical point of view, these quantum devices would be more expensive to fabricate, but they would provide a higher level of security. Right now, this is still basic research. But there's been a lot of progress in this area, so I'm optimistic that this will lead to useful technologies in the real world."In the course of my training in Logotherapy, I have been asked to define my perception of the difference between an experience of true conscience and superego-type pressures. First, let us define the two things according to their respective models.
Frankl’s notion of conscience is a spiritual mechanism possessed by every human being for detecting the transcendent meaning that comes from beyond him or herself and his or her situation, that enables him or her to make the one right choice in that moment. Note that several assumptions are implicit in this idea. One, that there exists an objective meaning that transcends the subjective context in which an individual finds him or herself. Two, that there is a realm called “beyond”. Three, that there can be one right meaning, decision, task or exercise of responsibility in a given moment.
Of course, Frankl’s use of the term “spiritual” accords with a more secular understanding of that term that the more specific manner in which a religious person understands it, and I am personally wrestling with the question as to whether it can be adapted to accomodate the Torah’s definition of spiritual. At present, I have concluded that Frankl’s spirituality is a step down from religious spirituality, but his model can be stepped up, or a new dimension added to it based on Torah.
Freud’s superego is the third character in his structural model of the personality, the others being the ego and the id. The id is the conglomerate of all the raw drives that demand satisfaction in a human being, whereas the superego is its opponent, an internalized policeman or a father figure, that subdues this id through guilt and allows the person to thus function normally within the context of society, according to that which is deemed acceptable behavior in society. The superego is fueled by the didactic instruction we have received in many forms, whether through parental discipline, religious training, school, etc. Although the superego has two divisions, the ego ideal and the conscience, we will focus here on the conscience.
Clearly, Freud’s model does not allow for there being an objective meaning (read: morality), but rather, what is right and wrong depends on the cultural or societal context in which the individual is. In addition, a person’s ability to manifest right or good is essentially only a function of the repression of their animal-like id drives. This is how Freud defined conscience. For this reason, we might view a criminal as being unable to make moral decisions because of his impaired–or absent–superego.
Frankl would disagree. A criminal is no different from any other human being in his or her ability to tune into meaning and hear the demands that meaning makes upon him or her! Hence, Frankl’s emphasis on the uncovering of responsibility in the client. Freud’s client, by contrast, can plead insanity. There was a notable incident in Frankl’s life when he spoke to a group of prisoners who were slated for execution, and he prefaced his remarks by telling them, in no uncertain terms, that they were all guilty of their crimes. Here, Frankl was demonstrating his idea that becoming guilty is one of the prerogatives of man, and therefore functions as a result, not of his being disadvantaged, but of his freedom to choose. The inmates indicated that they had never felt so understood by any of the psychological professionals who had addressed them previously.
But then, the question, which appears in my mentor Dr. Teria Shantall’s book The Quest for Destiny (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2003) is: how do you differentiate between an experience of true conscience (i.e. according to Frankl’s model) and superego-type pressures? In other words, how do you know that you are not simply acting out of guilt or because of demands, but are responding to a call to meaning where your desire to do what is right is authentic?
It seems to me that if we are to be able to answer this question, we would have to subvert some basic paradigm assumptions that we customarily make about life. Also, the difficulty in answering this question on highlights just how deeply embedded Freud’s model is in the subconscious of the average Westerner.
AdvertisementsDemocratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders and strategist Mark Longabaugh. (Photo: John Locher/AP-Chris Maddaloni/Roll Call/Getty Images)
DES MOINES, Iowa — The fireworks actually began flying a few hours before Saturday night’s Democratic presidential primary debate at Drake University.
A top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., one of the three candidates, got into a lengthy dispute with executives from CBS, the network hosting the debate, during a conference call on Saturday morning. A staffer for one of the other campaigns who was also on the call described the exchange to Yahoo News as “heated” and even “bizarre,” and a second source on the call confirmed the nature of the exchange.
The dispute centered on CBS’s decision to increase the emphasis on terrorism, foreign policy, and national security in the wake of the attacks that left more than 100 people dead in Paris on Friday night. According to the rival staffer, Sanders strategist Mark Longabaugh lit into CBS vice president and Washington bureau chief Christopher Isham when the changes to the debate were detailed on the call.
“It was a little bit of a bizarre scene. The Sanders representative, you know, really laid into CBS and basically … kind of threw, like, a little bit of a fit and said, ‘You are trying to turn this into a foreign policy debate. That’s not what any of us agreed to. How can you change the terms of the debate, you know, on the day of the debate. That’s not right,’” the staffer recounted.
Another person who was on the call confirmed to Yahoo News that Longabaugh had a lengthy dispute about the changed plans for the debate format during the call with CBS. The Sanders campaign declined to comment.
The rival staffer said the CBS representatives on the call argued they were not completely switching the focus for the debate.
“The CBS folks were like, ‘Look, we’re not turning this into a foreign policy debate. We’re going to reorder the questions so that we’re leading off with a foreign policy focus based on what happened last night,’” the rival staffer said.
According to the staffer, representatives for the two other candidates, Hillary Clinton and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, chimed in to say, “We completely agree with CBS.” The staffer said Longabaugh was “hot” and had his voice “raised.” The staffer said Longabaugh described the changes as “not right” and noted that CBS originally offered the candidates an opening that was more “open-ended,” where they “could talk about the basis for our campaign.”
“He got very hot, and there was, like, a five- or seven-minute back-and-forth, and he just wouldn’t let it go,” the staffer said, adding, “The CBS guy got annoyed enough to the point where he said, ‘Look, you know, what you’re saying makes no sense. There was a terrorist attack in Paris, and of course we have to change the way the debate is structured, and we’re not, you know, making this a foreign policy debate.’”
Despite the objections from the Sanders campaign, the rival staffer said the debate will move forward with the emphasis on the attacks.
“There’s going to be a one-minute or so opening, basically open-ended statement from each of the candidates so they can address Paris,” the staffer said. “Then they’re going to have the first 20-minute segment be foreign-policy focused because of what happened in Paris, and then they’re going to go back to the debate as it was normally structured.”Here are your Tuesday morning New York Giants news & notes, including some news you probably don't want to read regarding star wide receiver Hakeem Nicks.
Nicks has bone bruise in his knee, could miss Monday night
The good news is there is no structural damage in Hakeem Nicks’ knee.
The bad news?
He has a bone bruise, according to a source familiar with the results of his tests. His status for Monday night is unknown.
As if the Giants could afford another injury, especially to the one player on offense who looked good yesterday. Nicks caught seven passes for 122 yards, providing the only real spark for a Giants’ attack that continues to look out of sync.
The receiver underwent the MRI after his knee swelled today.
Give Antrel Rolle some credit. Sunday night Rolle insisted there was no helmet-to-helmet contact on the fourth-quarter play on which he was given a 15-yard penalty. After watching the film on Monday, Rolle admitted the call was "legit."
"After looking at the film I think it was definitely a legit call. I thought it was a legit call. My angle initially was to aim for his back and he began to alligator roll. Once he rolled, my momentum and our heads did collide. It's a legit call. In the heat of the battle you're just trying to help and get over there and get the guy down," Rolle said. "At no certain point in time was I going for an obvious head to head contact, but after reviewing the film I think it definitely did happen. It was a legit call. But I can learn from that. Next time just make sure I go over there and try to, I guess, push him down as hard as I can. Just make sure he doesn’t get that extra yard."
The penalty was costly, since it turned a Washington fourth down into a first down and allowed the Redskins to drive for their final touchdown. Props to Rolle, though, for at least owning up to the mistake.
Travis Beckum missed Sunday's game with hamstring issues and said Monday he is not sure he will be able to practice Wednesday when the Giants hold their first full practice in preparation for next Monday night's game against the St. Louis Rams. Discouragingly, Beckum admitted that the hamstring has been an issue his entire three-year Giants career.
"I had a hamstring injury my senior year at Wisconsin and it seems like it has been lingering ever since," Beckum said.
Quarterback Eli Manning was asked to explain why the team struggled offensively against Washington.
"There’s not one thing. We just have to play better football. That’s what it comes down to," Manning said.
The Giants ran the ball well in the first half Sunday, but used only six running plays after falling behind early in the third quarter. Manning dispute the notion that the Giants had abandoned the run.
"I don’t think that’s the case. We’re always a team that we’re going to try to run the ball, we’re going to try to do play action," Manning said. "You’re taking sacks, you get bad in down and distance and you can get off your rhythm and routine that you want to be in."
The Giants were only 1-for-10 converting third downs, and Manning said the problem was not necessarily on third down itself.
"I think four of those were third and 15-plus. That’s not really a third down problem, that’s a first and second down problem," Manning said. "We had the big play, we had a drop, then you had two third-and-ones where you have to run it and pound it and get those. We have to get some of those, but we have to be better down and distance."
Tuck '50-50' to play in Week 2 vs. Rams | New York Daily News
Justin Tuck already missed the season opening-loss to the Redskins, and he doesn't want to miss another game.
But there's no guarantee that Justin Tuck will be ready to play in Week 2 against the Rams. Tuck did an interview on WFAN on Monday afternoon, and when asked about the status of his injured neck for next week, he said he was likely "50-50."
"I would say I'm 50-50 right now," he said. "Just because it hasn't gotten any better since yesterday."
Steven Jackson Injury: Jackson Likely Out for Week Two, Bartell May Be Out for the Season - Turf Show Times
The St. Louis Rams might be without Steven Jackson next week, but that might not be the worst of the injury news. Which players could be out for much longer?
Giants sign Monmouth wide receiver Chris Hogan to practice squad | NJ.com
The Giants are cornering the market on local wide receivers on their practice sqaud.
Less than a week after signing Verona's Dan DePalma, the team added Monmouth's Chris Hogan to the practice squad.
The 6-2, 220-pound Hogan, who ran a 4.47-second 40-yard dash at his pro day and has been timed below 4.4 seconds, was with the 49ers in camp but was hampered by an ankle injury. He impressed the Giants during a workout before this year's draft and must have done so again when he worked out for the team last week.
I have just one question. Can the guy play cornerback?The U.S. Navy announced Wednesday it has grounded all T-45 Goshawk jet training flights for three days, after Fox News reported that up to 100 instructor pilots were refusing to fly the aircraft citing problems with its oxygen system.
“We take the concerns of our aircrew seriously and have directed a... safety pause for the T-45 community to allow time for Naval Aviation leadership to engage with the pilots, hear their concerns and discuss the risk mitigations as well as the efforts that are ongoing to correct this issue,” Navy spokeswoman Cmdr. Jeannie Groeneveld said in an email to Fox News Wednesday.
As Fox News reported Tuesday, the boycott started late last week and had effectively grounded hundreds of training flights already.
The head of U.S. Navy flight training, Rear Adm. Dell Bull, was supposed to visit pilots at Naval Air Station in Meridian, Miss., Wednesday, but cancelled that visit abruptly to brief senior Naval officers on a video teleconference from Pensacola, multiple Navy officials told Fox News.
Naval aviation leaders are planning to visit all three bases where T-45s are flown to meet with the pilots and hear their concerns.
“The pilots don’t feel safe flying this aircraft,” one instructor pilot told Fox News.
Among the hundreds of student pilots affected is Marine 1st Lt. Michael Pence, son of Vice President Pence – a factor that could put added pressure on the Pentagon to resolve the dispute.
Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker, head of naval aviation, told Fox News in an exclusive interview that the training jet issue is the “number one safety priority” across naval aviation right now.
In the last five years, physiological episodes, caused in part by problems with the oxygen system, have nearly quadrupled on the T-45 training jet, according to Capitol Hill testimony last week by senior naval aviators.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in a statement that the Navy “must address these safety concerns swiftly and decisively.”
“I am disappointed the situation has devolved to the point some instructor pilots, who feel strongly that their concerns are not being addressed, have removed themselves from what they love most--flying Navy aircraft,” McCain added.
Fox News interviewed multiple Navy flight instructors who say incidents of oxygen poisoning in the 30-year old T-45 Goshawk have “skyrocketed.”
“Histotoxic hypoxia” is the medical term associated with the disorientating disorder which can put pilots’ lives
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lieutenant to then leader David Duke, but after a power play at the top of the organization he managed to elbow Duke aside.
'People came to understand that Mr Duke was not serious to the cause, he had ulterior motives and that's when we splintered off,' he said.
'I didn't think of doing it, hordes of people had asked me to because they wanted to get away from him.
'He saw this happening in the background and I knew he wanted some money and I agreed to buy his membership. 'To be honest I did it to further alienate him and had the transaction video-taped.'
Duke's departure propelled Wilkinson in to the top seat and he dedicated all his time to the Klan, travelling across America to address white supremacist rallies in a private Klan-owned four-seater plane.
Yet today Wilkinson denies he hates or even dislikes black people.
When asked if he has changed, he would only say: 'I'm still a segregationist, in the facts that I don't believe that schools should be integrated and I don't believe people should inter-marry.
'Even when I was Imperial Wizard, I was a contractor and I had black sub-contractors that I hired routinely.'
Asked about the violence he perpetrated during his Klan days and statements he made about a 'race war', Wilkinson said: 'We believed in being prepared, we believed in having our weapons for self-defense.
Resort: This is the property owned and managed by Wilkinson, which is valued at $3 million
Relaxed: Bill Wilkinson says he likes the lifestyle in Belize, where he was recommended to go in 1984 as the oil economy in Louisiana suffered. His flight led to rumors he had turned FBI informant, which he denies
Known: The town authorities in San Pedro were aware of Bill Wilkinson and granted him a license
'There was a point when we thought one [a race war] might happen and we wanted to prepare, but let me tell you, people say that we were the most violent and dangerous, but there was never Klansmen in my organization that were convicted of any violent crime against anybody.'
At rallies Wilkinson often surrounded himself with 'nighthawks' - Klan security guards toting sub-machine guns and sawed-off shotguns.
In a 1980 interview with the Associated Press he was a little more forthright about the Klan's violent intentions: 'If the fact that I say we're going to defend ourselves by any means is violent, then I'm violent.
'If the fact that I say we're facing a race war in this country is violent, then I'm violent.'
Asked if he was comfortable being a hated man, even today, Wilkinson added: 'You might be surprised how few people hated me.
'I don't take that personally, I believe in freedom of expression and everybody who opposed me had a right to say in the right context what they think.'
The hatred against Wilkinson and his Klan bubbled over at a KKK rally in 1977.
A man plowed a Jaguar sports car into a crowd of 250 people in a bid to kill Wilkinson.
Wilkinson was addressing the outdoor rally in Plains, Georgia when a man revved up his Jaguar and smashed through the speakers' platform and into the crowd, witnesses said.
Of the 32 persons injured, 19 required hospitalization, many with broken bones.
'He said he was trying to get Wilkinson,' Sumter County Sheriff Randy Howard told the Associated Press.
'He said he had a lot of black friends and he was going to get even with Wilkinson for what he was saying about the blacks,' the sheriff said.
Idyll: San Pedro is on the Caribbean and known for its diving and fishing as well as its relaxed lifestyle
Informal: Because it is an island, most people get around the relaxed San Pedro on golf buggies
Happy: Bill Wilkinson says he loves being in Belize and is unaffected by its racial mix
A 30-year-old mechanic called Buddy Cochran, who had been drinking heavily, was taken into custody following the incident.
Wilkinson recalls the near miss. He said: 'He didn't like me, a lot of people were injured, all I got was three cracked ribs.
'But there was enough people that disliked President Kennedy and he was assassinated, so I don't take it personally.'
What's worse, Wilkinson doesn't believe today any of the reported 10,000 former members of the Klan who followed him in the 1980s would be upset in the knowledge their former leader now fraternizes with the local Black and Mayan population in Belize.
He claims he came to the country in 1984 when the US was experiencing an economic decline.
'It was bad particularly in the oil producing states, Louisiana being one of them,' he said.
'A friend of mine recommended that I come here [Belize], he said it was the best scuba diving. So I thought why not.'
Wilkinson's nonchalant attitude towards his relocation to a multi-cultural place like Belize may seem dumbfounding.
He even said he refused to shake the hand of black reporters he met along his travels, but 'only cause they wrote bad things about me', he said.
Wilkinson seems like a man firmly in denial.
Happy: Bill Wilkinson poses with a lobster he caught in the Caribbean, and says he does not regret quitting the KKK and moving to Belize - even though it is hardly the segregated society he wants
Widowed: Wilkinson lost his wife, Barbara, of 49 years in 2013. He now has a new girlfriend
WHY BELIZE MIGHT NOT BE IDEAL FOR A KKK IMPERIAL WIZARD The 2010 national census, shows that Belize, a former British colony, has a tiny group of people declaring themselves to be white. Out of a population of 303,422, just 3,099, a fraction over 1%, called themselves white/Caucasian. By far the largest group - at 150,921, was those calling themselves'mestizo', Spanish, or Latino, who were counted as one racial group. Given that it could include white Spanish speakers, the figure suggests many of 3,099 white/Caucasian are likely to be from an English-speaking background. The second largest group is Creole, meaning the descendants of black slaves, at 63,057, while 44,092 declared themselves to be from native American groups, almost all of them Mayan tribes, like the majority of people on Wilkinson's island. Other smaller groups included black Africans, Asians, East Indians, and 10,865 Mennonites.
Asked if his views had mellowed, he said: 'I can't pass judgment on myself, that's for other people on the outside to do.'
Wilkinson says he no longer has any involvement in Klan activity not even from a distance.
'When I resigned I left the organization and that was that,' he said.
But when pressed on what his true views are today – in particular his thoughts on a black American President - he is reluctant to open up.
'I'm not going down that road,' he said.
Wilkinson also denied claims he was an FBI informant – a reason some have speculated was the reason why he fled the States and seemingly vanished from the white-supremacist scene.
'I spoke with the FBI yes, but I wasn't an informant,' he said.
'I told all my members that had to operate within the law and civil rights, I didn't want anyone killed.'
For now widower Wilkinson, who lost his wife of 49 years in 2013, enjoys a quiet life in paradise with a younger girlfriend from Louisiana.
On his plans for retirement he says he hopes to sell his $3million resort and buy himself a house further up the coast.
'I just wanna continue enjoy scuba-diving and snorkeling and spear-fishing,' he said.
While enjoying life in Belize is good he refuses to turn his back on his past in Louisiana.
Many would argue that Wilkinson is hugely hypocritical.
His vile views don't match his actions or lifestyle.
Or could it be that this is one former Imperial Wizard who has found peace with himself and those around him – black or white?
That would be something.The State
Conventionally, the state is defined as an agency with two unique characteristics. First, it is a compulsory territorial monopolist of ultimate decision-making (jurisdiction). That is, it is the ultimate arbiter in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving itself. Second, the state is a territorial monopolist of taxation. That is, it is an agency that unilaterally fixes the price citizens must pay for its provision of law and order.
Predictably, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in favor of the state. Instead of resolving conflict, a monopolist of ultimate decision-making will provoke conflict in order to settle it to his own advantage. Worse, while the quality of justice will fall under monopolistic auspices, its price will rise. Motivated like everyone else by self-interest but equipped with the power to tax, the state agents' goal is always the same: to maximize income and minimize productive effort.
State, War, and Imperialism
Instead of concentrating on the internal consequences of the institution of a state, however, I will focus on its external consequences, i.e., foreign rather than domestic policy.
For one, as an agency that perverts justice and imposes taxes, every state is threatened with "exit." Especially its most productive citizen may leave to escape taxation and the perversions of law. No state likes this. To the contrary, instead of seeing the range of control and tax base shrink, state agents prefer that they be expanded. Yet this brings them in conflict with other states. Unlike competition between "natural" persons and institutions, however, the competition between states is eliminative. That is, there can be only one monopolist of ultimate decision-making and taxation in any given area. Consequently, the competition between different states promotes a tendency toward political centralization and ultimately one single world state.
Further, as tax-funded monopolists of ultimate decision-making, states are inherently aggressive institutions. Whereas "natural" persons and institutions must bear the cost of aggressive behavior themselves (which may well induce them to abstain from such conduct), states can externalize this cost onto their taxpayers. Hence, state agents are prone to become provocateurs and aggressors and the process of centralization can be expected to proceed by means of violent clashes, i.e., interstate wars.
Moreover, given that states must begin small and assuming as the starting point a world composed of a multitude of independent territorial units, something rather specific about the requirement of success can be stated. Victory or defeat in interstate warfare depend on many factors, of course, but other things such as population size being the same, in the long run the decisive factor is the relative amount of economic resources at a state's disposal. In taxing and regulating, states do not contribute to the creation of economic wealth. Instead, they parasitically draw on existing wealth. However, state governments can influence the amount of existing wealth negatively. Other things being equal, the lower the tax and regulation burden imposed on the domestic economy, the larger the population will tend to grow and the larger the amount of domestically produced wealth on which the state can draw in its conflicts with neighboring competitors. That is, states which tax and regulate their economies comparatively little — liberal states — tend to defeat and expand their territories or their range of hegemonic control at the expense of less-liberal ones.
This explains, for instance, why Western Europe came to dominate the rest of the world rather than the other way around. More specifically, it explains why it was first the Dutch, then the British and finally, in the 20th century, the United States, that became the dominant imperial power, and why the United States, internally one of the most liberal states, has conducted the most aggressive foreign policy, while the former Soviet Union, for instance, with its entirely illiberal (repressive) domestic policies has engaged in a comparatively peaceful and cautious foreign policy. The United States knew that it could militarily beat any other state; hence, it has been aggressive. In contrast, the Soviet Union knew that it was bound to lose a military confrontation with any state of substantial size unless it could win within a few days or weeks.
From Monarchy and Wars of Armies to Democracy and Total Wars
Historically, most states have been monarchies, headed by absolute or constitutional kings or princes. It is interesting to ask why this is so, but here I have to leave this question aside. Suffice it to say that democratic states (including so-called parliamentary monarchies), headed by presidents or prime-ministers, were rare until the French Revolution and have assumed world-historic importance only after World War I.
While all states must be expected to have aggressive inclinations, the incentive structure faced by traditional kings on the one hand and modern presidents on the other is different enough to account for different kinds of war. Whereas kings viewed themselves as the private owner of the territory under their control, presidents consider themselves as temporary caretakers. The owner of a resource is concerned about the current income to be derived from the resource and the capital value embodied in it (as a reflection of expected future income). His interests are long-run, with a concern for the preservation and enhancement of the capital values embodied in "his" country. In contrast, the caretaker of a resource (viewed as public rather than private property) is concerned primarily about his current income and pays little or no attention to capital values.
The empirical upshot of this different incentive structure is that monarchical wars tended to be "moderate" and "conservative" as compared to democratic warfare.
Monarchical wars typically arose out of inheritance disputes brought on by a complex network of inter-dynastic marriages. They were characterized by tangible territorial objectives. They were not ideologically motivated quarrels. The public considered war the king's private affair, to be financed and executed with his own money and military forces. Moreover, as conflicts between different ruling families, kings felt compelled to recognize a clear distinction between combatants and noncombatants and target their war efforts exclusively against each other and their family estates. Thus military historian Michael Howard noted about 18th-century monarchical warfare:
On the [European] continent commerce, travel, cultural and learned intercourse went on in wartime almost unhindered. The wars were the king's wars. The role of the good citizen was to pay his taxes, and sound political economy dictated that he should be left alone to make the money out of which to pay those taxes. He was required to participate neither in the decision out of which wars arose nor to take part in them once they broke out, unless prompted by a spirit of youthful adventure. These matters were arcane regni, the concern of the sovereign alone. [War in European History, 73]
Similarly Ludwig von Mises observed about the wars of armies:
In wars of armies, the army does the fighting while the citizens who are not members of the army pursue their normal lives. The citizens pay the costs of warfare; they pay for the maintenance and equipment of the army, but otherwise they remain outside of the war events. It may happen that the war actions raze their houses, devastate their land, and destroy their other property; but this, too, is part of the war costs which they have to bear. It may also happen that they are looted and incidentally killed by the warriors — even by those of their "own" army. But these are events which are not inherent in warfare as such; they hinder rather than help the operations of the army leaders and are not tolerated if those in command have full control over their troops. The warring state which has formed, equipped, and maintained the army considers looting by the soldiers an offense; they were hired to fight, not to loot on their own. The state wants to keep civil life as usual because it wants to preserve the tax-paying ability of its citizens; conquered territories are regarded as its own domain. The system of the market economy is to be maintained during the war to serve the requirement of warfare. [Nationalökonomie, 725–26]
In contrast to the limited warfare of the ancien regime, the era of democratic warfare — which began with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, continued during the 19th century with the American War of Southern Independence, and reached its apex during the 20th century with World War I and World War II — has been the era of total war.
In blurring the distinction between the rulers and the ruled ("we all rule ourselves"), democracy strengthened the identification of the public with a particular state. Rather than dynastic property disputes which could be resolved through conquest and occupation, democratic wars became ideological battles: clashes of civilizations, which could only be resolved through cultural, linguistic, or religious domination, subjugation and, if necessary, extermination. It became increasingly difficult for members of the public to extricate themselves from personal involvement in war. Resistance against higher taxes to fund a war was considered treasonous. Because the democratic state, unlike a monarchy, was "owned" by all, conscription became the rule rather than the exception. And with mass armies of cheap and hence easily disposable conscripts fighting for national goals and ideals, backed by the economic resources of the entire nation, all distinctions between combatants and noncombatants fell by the wayside. Collateral damage was no longer an unintended side-effect but became an integral part of warfare. "Once the state ceased to be regarded as 'property' of dynastic princes," Michael Howard noted,
and became instead the instrument of powerful forces dedicated to such abstract concepts as Liberty, or Nationality, or Revolution, which enabled large numbers of the population to see in that state the embodiment of some absolute Good for which no price was too high, no sacrifice too great to pay; then the 'temperate and indecisive contests' of the rococo age appeared as absurd anachronisms. [ibid. 75–76]
Similar observations have been made by the military historian and major-general J.F.C. Fuller:
The influence of the spirit of nationality, that is of democracy, on war was profound, … [it] emotionalized war and, consequently, brutalized it; …. National armies fight nations, royal armies fight their like, the first obey a mob — always demented, the second a king, generally sane. … All this developed out of the French Revolution, which also gave to the world conscription — herd warfare, and the herd coupling with finance and commerce has begotten new realms of war. For when once the whole nation fights, then is the whole national credit available for the purpose of war. [War and Western Civilization, 26–27]
And William A. Orton thus summarized matters:
Nineteenth-century wars were kept within bounds by the tradition, well recognized in international law, that civilian property and business were outside the sphere of combat. Civilian assets were not exposed to arbitrary distraint or permanent seizure, and apart from such territorial and financial stipulations as one state might impose on another, the economic and cultural life of the belligerents was generally allowed to continue pretty much as it had been. Twentieth-century practice has changed all that. During both World Wars limitless lists of contraband coupled with unilateral declarations of maritime law put every sort of commerce in jeopardy, and made waste paper of all precedents. The close of the first war was marked by a determined and successful effort to impair the economic recovery of the principal losers, and to retain certain civilian properties. The second war has seen the extension of that policy to a point at which international law in war has ceased to exist. For years the Government of Germany, so far as its arms could reach, had based a policy of confiscation on a racial theory that had no standing in civil law, international law, nor Christian ethics; and when the war began, that violation of the comity of nations proved contagious. Anglo-American leadership, in both speech and action, launched a crusade that admitted of neither legal nor territorial limits to the exercise of coercion. The concept of neutrality was denounced in both theory and practice. Not only enemy assets and interests, but the assets and interests of any parties whatsoever, even in neutral countries, were exposed to every constraint the belligerent powers could make effective; and the assets and interests of neutral states and their civilians, lodged in belligerent territories or under belligerent control, were subjected to practically the same sort of coercion as those of enemy nationals. Thus "total war" became a sort of war that no civilian community could hope to escape; and "peace loving nations" will draw the obvious inference. [The Liberal Tradition: A Study of the Social and Spiritual Conditions of Freedom, 251–52]
Excursus: The Doctrine of Democratic Peace
I have explained how the institution of a state leads to war; why, seemingly paradoxical, internally liberal states tend to be imperialist powers; and how the spirit of democracy has contributed to the de-civilization in the conduct of war.
More specifically, I have explained the rise of the United States to the rank of the world's foremost imperial power; and, as a consequence of its successive transformation from the early beginnings as an aristocratic republic into an unrestricted mass democracy which began with the War of Southern Independence, the role of the United States as an increasingly arrogant, self-righteous and zealous warmonger.
What appears to be standing in the way of peace and civilization, then, is above all the state and democracy, and specifically the world's model democracy: the United States. Ironically if not surprisingly, however, it is precisely the United States, which claims that it is the solution to the quest for peace.
The reason for this claim is the doctrine of democratic peace, which goes back to the days of Woodrow Wilson and World War I, has been revived in recent years by George W. Bush and his neo-conservative advisors, and by now has become intellectual folklore even in liberal-libertarian circles. The theory claims:
Democracies do not go to war against each other.
Hence, in order to create lasting peace, the entire world must be made democratic.
And as a — largely unstated — corollary:
Today, many states are not democratic and resist internal — democratic — reform.
Hence, war must be waged on those states in order to convert them to democracy and thus create lasting peace.
I do not have the patience for a full-blown critique of this theory. I shall merely provide a brief critique of the theory's initial premise and its ultimate conclusion.
First: Do democracies not go to war against each other? Since almost no democracies existed before the 20th century the answer supposedly must be found within the last hundred years or so. In fact, the bulk of the evidence offered in favor of the thesis is the observation that the countries of Western Europe have not gone to war against each other in the post–World War II era. Likewise, in the Pacific region, Japan and South Korea have not warred against each other during the same period. Does this evidence prove the case? The democratic-peace theorists think so. As "scientists" they are interested in "statistical" proof, and as they see it there are plenty of "cases" on which to build such proof: Germany did not war against France, Italy, England, etc.; France did not war against Spain, Italy, Belgium, etc.. Moreover, there are permutations: Germany did not attack France, nor did France attack Germany, etc.. Thus, we have seemingly dozens of confirmations — and that for some 60 years — and not a single counterexample. But do we really have so many confirming cases?
The answer is no: we have actually no more than a single case at hand. With the end of World War II, essentially all of — by now: democratic — Western Europe (and democratic Japan and South Korea in the Pacific region) has become part of the US Empire, as indicated by the presence of US troops in practically all of these countries. What the post World War II period of peace then "proves" is not that democracies do not go to war against each other but that a hegemonic, imperialist power such as the United States did not let its various colonial parts go to war against each other (and, of course, that the hegemon itself did not see any need to go to war against its satellites — because they obeyed — and they did not see the need or did not dare to disobey their master).
Moreover, if matters are thus perceived — based on an understanding of history rather than the naïve belief that because one entity has a different name than another their behavior must be independent from one another — it becomes clear that the evidence presented has nothing to do with democracy and everything with hegemony. For instance, no war broke out between the end of World War II and the end of the 1980s, i.e., during the hegemonic reign of the Soviet Union, between East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, etc. Was this because these were communist dictatorships and communist dictatorships do not go to war against each other? That would have to be the conclusion of "scientists" of the caliber of democratic-peace theorists! But surely this conclusion is wrong. No war broke out because the Soviet Union did not permit this to happen — just as no war between Western democracies broke out because the United States did not permit this to happen in its dominion. To be sure, the Soviet Union intervened in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, but so did the United States at various occasions in Middle-America such as in Guatemala, for instance. (Incidentally: How about the wars between Israel and Palestine and Lebanon? Are not all these democracies? Or are Arab countries ruled out by definition as undemocratic?)
Second: What about democracy as a solution to anything, let alone peace? Here the case of democratic-peace theorists appears even worse. Indeed, the lack of historical understanding displayed by them is truly frightening. Here are only some fundamental shortcomings:
First, the theory involves a conceptual conflation of democracy and liberty (freedom) that can only be called scandalous, especially coming from self-proclaimed libertarians. The foundation and cornerstone of liberty is the institution of private property; and private — exclusive — property is logically incompatible with democracy — majority rule. Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else. Incidentally, before the outbreak of the democratic age, i.e., until the beginning of the 20th century, government (state) tax-expenditures (combining all levels of government) in Western European countries constituted somewhere between 7–15% of national product, and in the still young United States even less. Less than a hundred years of full-blown majority rule have increased this percentage to about 50% in Europe and 40% in the United States.
Second, the theory of democratic peace distinguishes essentially only between democracy and non-democracy, summarily labeled dictatorship. Thus not only disappear all aristocratic-republican regimes from view, but more importantly for my current purposes, also all traditional monarchies. They are equated with dictatorships a la Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao. In fact, however, traditional monarchies have little in common with dictatorships (while democracy and dictatorship are intimately related).
Monarchies are the semi-organic outgrowth of hierarchically structured natural — stateless — social orders. Kings are the heads of extended families, of clans, tribes, and nations. They command a great deal of natural, voluntarily acknowledged authority, inherited and accumulated over many generations. It is within the framework of such orders (and of aristocratic republics) that liberalism first developed and flourished. In contrast, democracies are egalitarian and redistributionist in outlook; hence, the above-mentioned growth of state power in the 20th century. Characteristically, the transition from the monarchical age to the democratic one, beginning in the second half of the 19th century, has seen a continuous decline in the strength of liberal parties and a corresponding strengthening of socialists of all stripes.
Third, it follows from this that the view democratic-peace theorists have of conflagrations such as World War I must be considered grotesque, at least from the point of view of someone allegedly valuing freedom. For them, this war was essentially a war of democracy against dictatorship; hence, by increasing the number of democracies, it was a progressive, peace-enhancing, and ultimately justified war.
"Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else."
In fact, matters are very different. To be sure, pre-war Germany and Austria may not have qualified as democratic as England, France, or the United States at the time. But Germany and Austria were definitely not dictatorships. They were (increasingly emasculated) monarchies and as such arguably as liberal — if not more so — than their counterparts. For instance, in the United States, anti-war proponents were jailed, the German language was essentially outlawed, and citizens of German descent were openly harassed and often forced to change their names. Nothing comparable occurred in Austria and Germany.
In any case, however, the result of the crusade to make the world safe for democracy was less liberal than what had existed before (and the Versailles peace dictate precipitated World War II). Not only did state power grow faster after the war than before. In particular, the treatment of minorities deteriorated in the democratized post–World War I period. In newly founded Czechoslovakia, for instance, the Germans were systematically mistreated (until they were finally expelled by the millions and butchered by the tens of thousands after World War II) by the majority Czechs. Nothing remotely comparable had happened to the Czechs during the previous Habsburg reign. The situation regarding the relations between Germans and southern Slavs in pre-war Austria versus post-war Yugoslavia respectively was similar.
Nor was this a fluke. As under the Habsburg monarchy in Austria, for instance, minorities had also been treated fairly well under the Ottomans. However, when the multicultural Ottoman Empire disintegrated in the course of the 19th century and was replaced by semi-democratic nation-states such as Greece, Bulgaria, etc., the existing Ottoman Muslims were expelled or exterminated. Similarly, after democracy had triumphed in the United States with the military conquest of the Southern Confederacy, the Union government quickly proceeded to exterminate the Plains Indians. As Mises had recognized, democracy does not work in multi-ethnic societies. It does not create peace but promotes conflict and has potentially genocidal tendencies.
Fourth and intimately related, the democratic-peace theorists claim that democracy represents a stable "equilibrium." This has been expressed most clearly by Francis Fukuyama, who labeled the new democratic world order as the "end of history." However, overwhelming evidence exists that this claim is patently wrong.
On theoretical grounds: How can democracy be a stable equilibrium if it is possible that it be transformed democratically into a dictatorship, i.e., a system which is considered not stable? Answer: that makes no sense!
Moreover, empirically democracies are anything but stable. As indicated, in multi-cultural societies democracy regularly leads to the discrimination, oppression, or even expulsion and extermination of minorities — hardly a peaceful equilibrium. And in ethnically homogeneous societies, democracy regularly leads to class warfare, which leads to economic crisis, which leads to dictatorship. Think, for example, of post-Czarist Russia, post-World War I Italy, Weimar Germany, Spain, Portugal, and in more recent times Greece, Turkey, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, and Pakistan.
Not only is this close correlation between democracy and dictatorship troublesome for democratic-peace theorists; worse, they must come to grips with the fact that the dictatorships emerging from crises of democracy are by no means always worse, from a classical liberal or libertarian view, than what would have resulted otherwise. Cases can be easily cited where dictatorships were preferable and an improvement. Think of Italy and Mussolini or Spain and Franco. In addition, how is one to square the starry-eyed advocacy of democracy with the fact that dictators, quite unlike kings who owe their rank to an accident of birth, are often favorites of the masses and in this sense highly democratic? Just think of Lenin or Stalin, who were certainly more democratic than Czar Nicholas II; or think of Hitler, who was definitely more democratic and a "man of the people" than Kaiser Wilhelm II or Kaiser Franz Joseph.
According to democratic-peace theorists, then, it would seem that we are supposed to war against foreign dictators, whether kings or demagogues, in order to install democracies, which then turn into (modern) dictatorships, until finally, one supposes, the United States itself has turned into a dictatorship, owing to the growth of internal state power which results from the endless "emergencies" engendered by foreign wars.
Better, I dare say, to heed the advice of Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn and, instead of aiming to make the world safe for democracy, we try making it safe from democracy — everywhere, but most importantly in the United States.Rogue soldier who killed digger shot dead
Updated
Coalition forces have killed the Afghan rogue soldier who shot Australian Lance Corporal Andrew Jones in Afghanistan late last month.
Lance Corporal Jones, an Army cook, was shot four times by the soldier, named as Shafied Ullah, as he was walking in front of his accommodation at Combat Outpost Mashal in the Chora Valley near Tarin Kowt.
Lance Corporal Jones died shortly after being shot.
Ullah was fired at by another Afghan serviceman as he fled the scene but the shot missed and a manhunt was launched.
Defence Minister Stephen Smith today said Ullah was killed during a joint operation between US special forces and Afghan troops near his home village in the Khowst province of eastern Afghanistan.
He says there was a "limited Australian involvement" in the operation that cornered the killer but he refused to go into detail.
"The Chief of the Defence Force in future may be able to provide more detail, but at present we are confirming Shafied Ullah's death and confirming the fact it was a coalition special forces operation," Mr Smith said.
The Minister says Ullah's brother, who was with him when he was killed, has been detained and is being interrogated to shed light on why his brother shot Lance Corporal Jones.
"Obviously, we would have preferred that Shafied Ullah was captured to enable interrogation to occur as to the circumstances surrounding his murder of Lance Corporal Jones, but Shafied Ullah placed himself in a position where he was a direct threat to special forces, and as a consequence of the resulting firefight or gunfire he was killed," he said.
Chief of Defence Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston says despite intentions to detain Ullah, his death could not be avoided.
"I understand from reporting received this morning that Shafied Ullah drew a pistol when confronted by the coalition special forces team and was shot and killed," Air Chief Marshal Houston said in a statement.
Mr Smith says all of the evidence "points conclusively" to the guilt of Ullah as the murderer, and that he was the man killed by US special forces.
"He was essentially tracked down as a result of intelligence. He was tracked to his home province, the province of Khowst, as a result of intelligence work," he said.
"Andrew Jones' family have been advised of this outcome earlier today and they've asked that their privacy be respected.
"While this may come as some solace... it will of course be a terrible reminder to the family of Lance Corporal Jones of his tragic death."
Chapter closed
Air Chief Marshal Houston says Ullah's death closes a chapter in the tragic death of Lance Corporal Jones.
"Across the Coalition and the Afghan National Security Forces there has been tremendous efforts directed towards bringing the man suspected of the shooting to justice, and for that support I personally thank General Petraeus and General Karimi," he said.
"While it gives me no great pleasure that Shafied Ullah is dead, I am pleased that this man no longer poses a threat."
Lance Corporal Jones was on his first deployment to Afghanistan and was serving with the Mentoring Task Force, which is involved with training the Afghan army.
The Victorian-based soldier was one of two Australian servicemen who died in Afghanistan on May 30, in what Defence Force chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston described as a "very bad day".
Defence is investigating the shooting of Lance Corporal Jones.
Lance Corporal Jones left behind his parents, two younger siblings and girlfriend, who are receiving support from Defence.
His family said it was in "deep mourning at the loss of our son, brother and boyfriend".
Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the nation's thoughts are with Lance Corporal Jones' family.
Ms Gillard says while it is a small amount of justice it can never take away the grief his family would feel from his death.
Topics: army, defence-and-national-security, defence-forces, afghanistan, australia, vic
First postedK.C. Collins (Robocop) has landed a multi-episode arc on the fourth and final season of FX’s vampire drama thriller The Strain from Carlton Cuse, Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan. Collins will play Roman, who helps the main characters in their fight for survival. The Strain has the very survival of humanity at stake, with New York City is a battleground. Written off by the federal government, the citizens are on their own in the ultimate showdown between humans and strigoi. Collins also is cast in HBO’s pilot Mogadishu, Minnesota. He’s repped by Norbert Abrams at Noble Caplan Abrams and A Management.
Kara Royster (Pretty Little Liars) is set for a recurring role on Freeform’s The Fosters. Executive produced by Jennifer Lopez, the series follows a multi-ethnic family mix of adopted and biological teenage kids being raised by two moms. Royster will play Dawn, a flirtatious student who causes some jealousy between Callie (Maia Mitchell) and AJ (Tom Williamson). Known for her role as Yvonne Philips on Pretty Little Liars, Royster’s other recent credits include K.C. Undercover and a guest role on Supernatural.Tactical documents, codes and on-field training drills were found in a conference room at the InterContinental Hotel, three days before England were knocked out by France in the quarter-finals. It is believed that the documents went amiss while England were training in Dunedin.
Before both teams were knocked out, England and Ireland were on course to meet in the semi-finals.
The fact that the secret documents – nine sides of A3 paper – ended up in Ireland's hands could have spelt disaster for Johnson's side if the two sides had met this weekend.
The briefings include one A3-sided sheet entitled 'The Big Picture' with one of the bullet points highlighting a focus on discipline. England rued a rash of indiscipline throughout their campaign, giving away more penalties than any other team by the end of the last eight matches.
Another sheet carrying the heading 'Red Zone' had the words 'Adapt if required' marked with an asterick at the bottom.
Other notes include instructions for the back row
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WC 4.4 4.4 4.5 -0.1 2009 STL 1-15-0 0-8-0 -16.3 -16.4 -16.3 -0.1 2003 CAR 11-5-0 6-2-0 Lost SB 1.3 1.3 1.4 -0.1 2004 NYG 6-10-0 3-5-0 -2.8 -2.9 -2.6 -0.1 2003 NYG 4-12-0 1-7-0 -9.0 -9.1 -8.9 -0.1 2008 WAS 8-8-0 4-4-0 -1.9 -2.1 -1.8 -0.2 2004 TEN 5-11-0 2-6-0 -5.9 -6.1 -5.8 -0.2 2003 TAM 7-9-0 3-5-0 2.3 2.1 2.5 -0.2 2012 DAL 8-8-0 4-4-0 -1.5 -1.8 -1.3 -0.3 2009 GNB 11-5-0 6-2-0 Lost WC 10.3 10.0 10.5 -0.3 2002 BAL 7-9-0 4-4-0 -2.4 -2.6 -2.1 -0.3 2002 IND 10-6-0 5-3-0 Lost WC 2.3 2.0 2.5 -0.3 2002 SDG 8-8-0 5-3-0 -2.1 -2.4 -1.9 -0.3 2009 HOU 9-7-0 4-4-0 3.4 3.1 3.8 -0.3 2009 NOR 13-3-0 6-2-0 Won SB 10.6 10.3 10.9 -0.3 2005 NWE 10-6-0 5-3-0 Lost Div 2.6 2.3 2.9 -0.3 2010 CAR 2-14-0 2-6-0 -13.3 -13.6 -12.9 -0.4 2011 HOU 10-6-0 5-3-0 Lost Div 6.4 6.0 6.9 -0.4 2008 NWE 11-5-0 5-3-0 6.3 5.9 6.8 -0.4 2008 TEN 13-3-0 7-1-0 Lost Div 8.8 8.4 9.3 -0.4 2006 NYJ 10-6-0 4-4-0 Lost WC 1.3 0.9 1.8 -0.4 2003 ATL 5-11-0 2-6-0 -7.7 -8.1 -7.3 -0.4 2010 DAL 6-10-0 2-6-0 -2.6 -3.1 -2.1 -0.5 2007 PHI 8-8-0 3-5-0 2.3 1.8 2.8 -0.5 2015 DEN 12-4-0 6-2-0 Won SB 3.7 3.1 4.3 -0.6 2015 PHI 7-9-0 3-5-0 -3.3 -3.9 -2.8 -0.6 2005 HOU 2-14-0 2-6-0 -10.7 -11.3 -10.1 -0.6 2004 NOR 8-8-0 3-5-0 -3.6 -4.1 -3.0 -0.6 2011 TEN 9-7-0 5-3-0 0.5 -0.1 1.1 -0.6 2005 IND 14-2-0 7-1-0 Lost Div 12.0 11.4 12.6 -0.6 2010 CLE 5-11-0 3-5-0 -3.8 -4.5 -3.1 -0.7 2002 PIT 10-5-1 5-2-1 Lost Div 2.8 2.1 3.5 -0.7 2012 NYJ 6-10-0 3-5-0 -5.9 -6.8 -5.0 -0.9 2009 NYJ 9-7-0 4-4-0 Lost Conf 7.0 6.1 7.9 -0.9 2008 BUF 7-9-0 3-5-0 -0.4 -1.3 0.5 -0.9 2007 IND 13-3-0 6-2-0 Lost Div 11.8 10.9 12.6 -0.9 2004 CAR 7-9-0 3-5-0 1.0 0.1 1.9 -0.9 2014 WAS 4-12-0 3-5-0 -8.6 -9.5 -7.6 -0.9 2012 CHI 10-6-0 5-3-0 6.1 5.1 7.1 -1.0 2011 OAK 8-8-0 3-5-0 -4.6 -5.6 -3.6 -1.0 2011 CIN 9-7-0 4-4-0 Lost WC 1.3 0.3 2.4 -1.1 2004 GNB 10-6-0 4-4-0 Lost WC 2.8 1.6 3.9 -1.1 2002 NOR 9-7-0 4-4-0 2.8 1.6 3.9 -1.1 2014 TAM 2-14-0 0-8-0 -8.3 -9.5 -7.1 -1.2 2005 CIN 11-5-0 5-3-0 Lost WC 4.4 3.3 5.6 -1.2 2008 JAX 5-11-0 2-6-0 -4.1 -5.4 -2.8 -1.3 2015 CIN 12-4-0 6-2-0 Lost WC 8.8 7.4 10.1 -1.4 2007 MIA 1-15-0 1-7-0 -10.6 -12.0 -9.3 -1.4 2012 NWE 12-4-0 6-2-0 Lost Conf 14.1 12.6 15.6 -1.5 2015 BAL 5-11-0 3-5-0 -4.6 -6.1 -3.0 -1.6 2007 NOR 7-9-0 3-5-0 -0.6 -2.1 1.0 -1.6 2006 STL 8-8-0 4-4-0 -0.9 -2.6 0.9 -1.8 2004 CHI 5-11-0 2-6-0 -6.3 -8.0 -4.5 -1.8 2010 NOR 11-5-0 5-3-0 Lost WC 4.8 3.0 6.6 -1.8 2005 PIT 11-5-0 5-3-0 Won SB 8.2 6.4 10.0 -1.8 2015 TAM 6-10-0 3-5-0 -4.7 -6.6 -2.8 -1.9 2011 DEN 8-8-0 3-5-0 Lost Div -5.1 -7.0 -3.1 -1.9 2015 TEN 3-13-0 1-7-0 -7.8 -9.9 -5.6 -2.1 2013 SFO 12-4-0 6-2-0 Lost Conf 8.4 6.3 10.5 -2.1 2002 NWE 9-7-0 5-3-0 2.2 0.0 4.4 -2.2 2015 CHI 6-10-0 1-7-0 -3.9 -6.1 -1.6 -2.3 2010 PHI 10-6-0 4-4-0 Lost WC 3.9 1.6 6.1 -2.3 2009 DEN 8-8-0 4-4-0 0.1 -2.1 2.4 -2.3 2003 PHI 12-4-0 5-3-0 Lost Conf 5.4 3.1 7.8 -2.3 2002 CIN 2-14-0 1-7-0 -11.1 -13.4 -8.8 -2.3 2015 SEA 10-6-0 5-3-0 Lost Div 9.1 6.8 11.5 -2.4 2006 CIN 8-8-0 4-4-0 2.6 0.3 5.0 -2.4 2009 IND 14-2-0 7-1-0 Lost SB 6.8 4.4 9.3 -2.4 2012 SDG 7-9-0 3-5-0 0.0 -2.5 2.5 -2.5 2006 DAL 9-7-0 4-4-0 Lost WC 4.7 2.1 7.3 -2.6 2009 WAS 4-12-0 3-5-0 -4.4 -7.0 -1.8 -2.6 2009 SDG 13-3-0 6-2-0 Lost Div 8.4 5.6 11.1 -2.8 2010 MIA 7-9-0 1-7-0 -3.8 -6.6 -0.9 -2.9 2012 JAX 2-14-0 1-7-0 -11.8 -14.8 -8.9 -2.9 2015 ARI 13-3-0 6-2-0 Lost Conf 11.0 8.0 14.0 -3.0 2015 DAL 4-12-0 1-7-0 -6.2 -9.3 -3.1 -3.1 2014 NOR 7-9-0 3-5-0 -1.4 -4.5 1.6 -3.1 2003 WAS 5-11-0 3-5-0 -5.3 -8.4 -2.3 -3.1 2015 OAK 7-9-0 3-5-0 -2.5 -5.6 0.6 -3.1 2012 STL 7-8-1 4-3-1 -3.1 -6.3 0.1 -3.2 2008 OAK 5-11-0 2-6-0 -7.8 -11.0 -4.6 -3.2 2006 CAR 8-8-0 4-4-0 -2.2 -5.4 1.0 -3.2 2006 NYG 8-8-0 3-5-0 Lost WC -0.4 -3.6 2.8 -3.2 2013 JAX 4-12-0 1-7-0 -12.6 -15.9 -9.4 -3.3 2009 KAN 4-12-0 1-7-0 -8.1 -11.4 -4.9 -3.3 2004 DET 6-10-0 3-5-0 -3.4 -6.6 -0.1 -3.3 2010 TAM 10-6-0 4-4-0 1.4 -1.9 4.8 -3.3 2006 MIN 6-10-0 3-5-0 -2.8 -6.1 0.5 -3.3 2010 CHI 11-5-0 5-3-0 Lost Conf 3.0 -0.5 6.5 -3.5 2008 MIA 11-5-0 5-3-0 Lost WC 1.8 -1.9 5.4 -3.6 2007 CAR 7-9-0 2-6-0 -5.0 -8.6 -1.4 -3.6 2003 MIA 10-6-0 4-4-0 3.1 -0.5 6.8 -3.6 2012 CAR 7-9-0 3-5-0 -0.4 -4.6 3.9 -4.3 2014 DAL 12-4-0 4-4-0 Lost Div 7.2 2.6 11.8 -4.6 2009 ARI 10-6-0 4-4-0 Lost Div 3.1 -1.5 7.8 -4.6 2006 NWE 12-4-0 5-3-0 Lost Conf 9.3 4.5 14.0 -4.8 2013 KAN 11-5-0 5-3-0 Lost WC 7.8 2.9 12.8 -4.9 2006 GNB 8-8-0 3-5-0 -4.1 -9.0 0.9 -4.9 2006 NOR 10-6-0 4-4-0 Lost Conf 5.7 0.8 10.6 -4.9 2007 NYG 10-6-0 3-5-0 Won SB 1.4 -3.8 6.5 -5.1 2009 TAM 3-13-0 1-7-0 -9.8 -15.8 -3.8 -6.0 2008 DET 0-16-0 0-8-0 -15.6 -22.0 -9.1 -6.4
The most important thing to note about team-specific HFA is that it is wildly unpredictable, as we should expect considering the ups and downs of teams’ fortunes from season to season. Probably the best example of this is the 2003 49ers. Here’s a plot of San Francisco’s HFA numbers since 2002:
Their point differential at home in 2003 was 16.3, on the road it was -10.4, making for an observed HFA of 13.3, the league highest since 2002. But what about the year before and year after? In 2002, it was 1.3, the following year, 1.4. The graph above, with its drastic spikes, is fairly typical of every NFL team.
So, beyond general interest and trivia, the single season numbers don’t tell us much. But taking each team’s average over a longer period of time does give us numbers that go along with our common consensus, e.g., “Seattle has great home field advantage, the Panthers, not so much”. Below is a table of each team’s HFA using data since 2002:
Rk Team Stadium *for the 2015 season* (year first used) Tot W/L% Home W/L% Tot MoV Home MoV Away MoV Obs HFA 1 BAL M&T Bank Stadium (1998) 0.567 0.732 2.9 7.4 -1.6 4.5 2 SEA CenturyLink Field (2002) 0.567 0.696 3.0 7.3 -1.2 4.2 3 ARI University of Phoenix Stadium (2006) 0.464 0.598 -2.5 1.6 -6.6 4.1 4 SFO Levi's Stadium (2014) 0.469 0.571 -1.7 2.4 -5.8 4.1 5 GNB Lambeau Field (1957) 0.625 0.705 4.9 8.7 1.1 3.8 6 STL Edward Jones Dome (1995) 0.371 0.464 -5.2 -1.5 -8.8 3.7 7 DET Ford Field (2002) 0.339 0.438 -4.6 -1.1 -8.2 3.5 8 MIN Mall of America Field (1982) 0.491 0.634 0.0 3.5 -3.5 3.5 9 BUF Ralph Wilson Stadium (1973) 0.420 0.509 -2.2 1.0 -5.5 3.3 10 KAN Arrowhead Stadium (1972) 0.478 0.563 0.0 2.9 -3.0 3.0 11 NYJ MetLife Stadium (2010) 0.482 0.563 -0.4 2.4 -3.3 2.9 12 PIT Heinz Field (2001) 0.634 0.714 4.7 7.5 1.8 2.8 13 JAX EverBank Field (1995) 0.402 0.491 -3.1 -0.5 -5.7 2.6 14 HOU NRG Stadium (2002) 0.433 0.500 -2.0 0.5 -4.6 2.6 15 SDG Qualcomm Stadium (1967) 0.558 0.634 3.3 5.8 0.8 2.5 16 IND Lucas Oil Stadium (2008) 0.679 0.732 3.8 6.3 1.3 2.5 17 ATL Georgia Dome (1992) 0.527 0.598 0.3 2.7 -2.2 2.4 18 DEN Sports Authority Field at Mile High (2001) 0.607 0.679 2.5 4.8 0.3 2.3 19 CHI Soldier Field (1971) 0.496 0.554 -0.6 1.7 -2.8 2.3 20 NOR Louisiana Superdome (1975) 0.545 0.571 2.1 4.2 0.0 2.1 21 CLE FirstEnergy Stadium (1999) 0.335 0.393 -4.8 -2.8 -6.8 2.0 22 DAL AT&T Stadium (2009) 0.527 0.554 0.5 2.4 -1.3 1.9 23 TEN Nissan Stadium (1999) 0.464 0.500 -2.2 -0.3 -4.0 1.8 24 NWE Gillette Stadium (2002) 0.763 0.848 9.3 11.1 7.5 1.8 25 NYG MetLife Stadium (2010) 0.518 0.518 0.4 1.8 -1.1 1.4 26 OAK O.co Coliseum (1995) 0.330 0.384 -5.9 -4.5 -7.3 1.4 27 WAS FedExField (1997) 0.406 0.464 -2.8 -1.4 -4.2 1.4 28 PHI Lincoln Financial Field (2003) 0.580 0.580 3.0 4.4 1.7 1.4 29 CIN Paul Brown Stadium (2000) 0.509 0.571 0.2 1.6 -1.1 1.3 30 TAM Raymond James Stadium (1998) 0.415 0.455 -2.2 -1.0 -3.4 1.2 31 MIA Sun Life Stadium (1987) 0.442 0.482 -1.3 -0.3 -2.4 1.1 32 CAR Bank of America Stadium (1996) 0.536 0.571 0.6 1.6 -0.3 1.0
Some thoughts:
1. Having a high HFA number doesn’t necessarily mean that a team was consistently outscoring their opponents at home, or even had a winning record there; it simply implies that they’re better at home than on the road. The St. Louis Rams had a losing record (0.464) and a -1.5 margin of victory at the Edward Jones Dome since 2002, but were even worse on the road, losing by an abysmal 8.8 points per game during that same period. This gives them a healthy HFA of 3.7, but they’re certainly not “dominant at home” the way Green Bay is, who have a similar HFA.
2. If you’re looking for another reason to hate – or love – the Patriots, look no further: since 2002, they have a road point differential of +7.5, easily the best in the league (maybe the best in history) and far ahead of second place Pittsburgh at +1.8. Granted, a good chunk of this comes from two epic seasons – 2007 and 2012, in which they clobbered teams on the road by an average of 17.9 and 15.6 points, respectively – but it’s still remarkable. Since they also dominated at home during this period, winning by an average of 11.1 points, their observed HFA is a lowly 1.8, the 24th “worst” in the league.
3. As mentioned above, and as can be seen by the standard deviation numbers in the tables, using these HFA numbers for predictive purposes might be a fool’s errand. But, on the flip side, if we do agree that, say, the Packers have a better home field advantage at Lambeau Field than the Dolphins at Sun Life Stadium, than these numbers are a good place to start.
Finally, I thought it might be interesting to see which teams have the toughest schedule by combining their average opponent’s HFA and their average opponent’s 2015 SRS ratings. Note that this was written before last night’s game.
Rnk Team Avg Road Opp HFA Avg Road Opp SRS (2015) 2016 Road SOS 1 MIA 3.0 3.2 6.3 2 BUF 2.6 2.7 5.3 3 SFO 2.8 2.5 5.2 4 NYJ 2.8 2.3 5.1 5 STL 3.0 1.5 4.5 6 NWE 2.8 1.2 4.1 7 ARI 2.9 1.1 4.0 8 SEA 3.0 0.8 3.7 9 PHI 2.6 0.8 3.3 10 KAN 2.2 1.1 3.3 11 NOR 2.5 0.8 3.3 12 TAM 2.6 0.5 3.1 13 WAS 2.6 0.6 3.1 14 ATL 2.2 0.7 2.9 15 SDG 2.1 0.7 2.8 16 BAL 2.1 0.5 2.6 17 NYG 2.5 0.0 2.5 18 IND 2.6 -0.1 2.5 19 HOU 2.5 -0.1 2.3 20 DAL 2.5 -0.2 2.3 21 CIN 2.5 -0.3 2.2 22 CAR 2.3 -0.4 1.9 23 CLE 2.2 -0.8 1.4 24 JAX 2.7 -1.6 1.1 25 CHI 2.6 -1.8 0.7 26 DET 2.5 -1.8 0.7 27 MIN 2.2 -1.6 0.6 28 TEN 2.5 -2.1 0.4 29 DEN 2.0 -2.0 0.1 30 PIT 2.2 -2.2 0.0 31 OAK 2.5 -2.8 -0.3 32 GNB 2.4 -3.0 -0.6
After the usual caveats – 2015 SRS numbers might be meaningless (Vegas projections would be better), and the already noted volatility of the HFA numbers – we can see that it’s going to be a tough year for Miami. Like the other brethren of AFC East, the Dolphins have to take on two of the meanest divisions in football, the NFC West and the AFC North; on top of that, their opener is in Seattle, and they have winter games in Baltimore, New York (the Jets) and Buffalo. Their two-week stay on the West Coast against the Chargers and Rams in November might seem like a vacation.
As always, would love to hear any comments, thanks for reading."The educational opportunities for young people in 2014 are vast," reported the Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK) on Thursday.
Nearly a third of the 13,000 companies surveyed said they could not fill their apprenticeships, an increase of seven percent over last year.
Companies are having an increasingly difficult time finding apprentices and reported tens of thousands of openings across the country. Hospitality and construction were the fields most affected by the deficit.
More than 60 percent of respondents reported that they couldn't find enough trainees in the last year.
Students increasingly choose academia over vocational training. Around 507,000 students will hit the books at universities across Germany - a third more than a decade ago. Competition for a spot at university is tighter every year.
The Centre for Higher Education (CHE) reported last year that by 2016 there would be 36,000 too few spots for students wishing to pursue a Masters degree.
Of the firms looking for apprentices, 71 percent cited a lack of suitable candidates. The DIHK also found that around half of those with available training opportunities say that German language skills and maths marks are important when considering a candidate.
For 2014, the numbers could be even grimmer for members of the DIHK, as there are 53,000 fewer pupils set to graduate from schools than in 2013. It has long been the hope that immigration would be the answer to Germany's population growth problem, though that has yet to come to fruition.
"The wave of foreign apprentices has yet to materialise," DIHK researcher Dr. Achim Dercks said in a release.
As a result of the shortfall, more firms are looking for new incentives to attract young people into their ranks. More than two-thirds of responding companies say that they prefer to take on new hires from their own training programmes rather than hire someone from outside the company ranks. A job is most likely to happen for apprentices in the banking and insurance industries.By Collin Boyles
Northern Colorado Sports Information
GREELEY – The future of Northern Colorado Wrestling begins on Monday as Director of Athletics Darren Dunn announced Troy Nickerson as the program’s seventh head coach in its 35 year history.
“After a lengthy, diligent process, we found a great leader for our wrestling program in Troy Nickerson,” Dunn said. “He is a bright star in wrestling, familiar with Colorado Wrestling and he will be a great mentor for our student-athletes. I am truly excited Troy will be joining our UNC family.”
Nickerson comes to Northern Colorado after coaching the past two seasons at Iowa State and finishing a remarkable collegiate career with Cornell from 2006-10. His recent history in the sport includes NCAA Championships and All-American statuses; along with off-the-mat initiatives to build relationships in his community.
“I’m extremely excited to join the Northern Colorado Wrestling community,” Nickerson said. “I want to thank Darren Dunn and the search committee for believing in me and providing me with this opportunity. I will work tirelessly to make UNC Wrestling a force to be reckoned with in the future.”
Nickerson’s main responsibilities at Iowa State included the lightweights of 125-149 pounds. During his two seasons, he coached one NCAA All-American and one NCAA qualifier in 2013-14 and finished all of his starters with a record of at least.500 in 2012-13. Prior to joining the Iowa State wrestling program, Nickerson served as an assistant coach at the Finger Lakes Wrestling Club from 2011-12 in Ithaca, N.Y. He was also the head coach of the FLWC college team during 2010-11.
During his four seasons as a member of the Big Red wrestling program at Cornell, Nickerson finished as an NCAA Champion in 2009 at 125 pounds, a four-time All-American, a two-time NCAA Tournament finalist and racked up a 97-8 career record, placing himself 20th all-time in wins in program history.
Nickerson inherits the program that went down to Arizona State and won on the Sun Devils’ home opener, 24-15. The team finished the 2013-14 season with a 5-13 record and a Western Wrestling All-Conference third team selection to upcoming senior Henry Chirino (Brandon, Fla.). Chirino and fellow senior Mitchell Polkowske (LaJara, Colo.) recently finished fifth in their weight divisions at the ASICS National Championships in late May. Teammate Trey Andrews (Safford, Ariz.) will also participate in late-season matches, heading to the Junior Pan American Championships with USA Wrestling from June 27-29.
Originally from Chenango Forks, N.Y., Nickerson graduated from Cornell in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in biology & science with a minor in nutritional science.
Coaching Career
2012-14 – Assistant Coach, Iowa State
Duals Record Total – 20-12 (.625)
Individual Wrestling Accomplishments
Cornell – 2006-10
4x All-American
2x NCAA Finalist
2009 NCAA Championship @ 125 lbs
97-8 college career
20th all-time in wins at Cornell
What They’re Saying
“What a great day for wrestling! The fact that the Darren Dunn and the leadership of the University of Northern Colorado went to such great lengths to go out and hire a coach of Troy Nickerson’s reputation and character sends a strong message about their commitment to wrestling. I’m confident that Troy will bring an energy and professionalism to the program that will set UNC Wrestling up for long term success. USA Wrestling welcomes Troy back to Colorado, we’re excited for him as he takes this next step in his wrestling career.” – Rich Bender, Executive Director of USA Wrestling
“Coach Nickerson is a phenomenal wrestler, coach, and mentor. There is no doubt that he will lead the University of Northern Colorado wrestling program to extraordinary success.” – Mike Moyer, Executive Director of National Wrestling Coaches Association
“Troy is a legend in New York state and is certainly known nation-wide. He was a phenomenal high school wrestler and an equally sensational college career for Cornell. He was a gutsy competitor and found a way to win a national title, literally with one arm, and that’s what I’ll always remember about Troy. He’s very intelligent, and Cornell’s tough as it is, but to be a pre-med major and to be a four-time NCAA All-American gives you the idea of the type of focus and time management skills and discipline that Troy possesses.” – Rob Koll, Cornell Head Wrestling Coach
“Troy’s got a passion for wrestling. I think he sees the sport for more than just wrestling. I think he really enjoys the particulars of the administrative duties that he’ll be taking on in Northern Colorado. I know that was really attractive for him and building a program is something he’s really excited about. He’s a straight worker, initiator, innovator and he’ll do a great job for the Bears. He’s been to two very successful, historically traditional wrestling programs in Cornell and Iowa State, and he’s going to try and initiate some of those things to make Northern Colorado his own.” – Kevin Jackson, Iowa State Head Wrestling CoachIncome from oil has helped boost terror group's cash reserves to $1billion and enables ISIS to pay fighters an estimated wage of $1,000 every month
ISIS generates up to $2million a day from its vast oil production industry
Saudi and UAE air forces conducted majority of strikes, with U.S. support
Terrorists fighting for ISIS in Syria are believed to have freed 150 prisoners in the group's de facto capital Raqqa in the hope it will convince America and its Arab allies to end a campaign of airstrikes.
American jets hit scores of key oil refineries last night, and the Pentagon displayed photos of the facilities in ruins today.
The strikes prompted desperate militants to released scores of captives overnight, apparently in the belief the move could encourage an anti-ISIS coalition of nations to focus their raids away from Raqqa.
The militant stronghold is widely thought to be a base for the group's senior figures - including leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - and where British hostages Alan Henning and John Cantlie are being held.
The 150 prisoners released by the group are all believed to have been arrested in recent weeks, suggesting they are most likely to have been locals accused of committing minor crimes.
The news comes as a fresh wave of airstrikes from the United States and its Arab allies hit ISIS oil refineries overnight, killing at least 14 militants and striking at the heart of the terror group's funding.
ISIS generates up to $2million a day from the sale of oil, employing highly trained engineers to extract thousands of barrels a day from the vast swaths of Syria and Iraq under the terror group's control.
Scroll down for video
Flattened: Before and after aerial pictures show damage to the Gbiebe Modular Oil Refinery in Syria following air strikes by U.S
Hitting where it hurts: The ruins of the Jeribe Modular Oil Refinery in Syria. At least 14 militants were killed in the latest strikes
Daylight flight: Activists based in Syria's de facto capital Raqqa claim to have spotted aircraft belonging to the anti-ISIS coalition carrying out raids in the area this morning
Airstrikes: A jet lands on USS George H. W. Bush Tuesday after successful strikes against ISIS targets in Syria
Force: A handout picture made available by the US Department of Defense today shows a formation of US Navy F-18E Super Hornets refueling having carried out airstrikes on targets linked to ISIS
The Saudi and UAE air forces conducted a majority of the coordinated attacks last night, targeting 12'modular oil refineries' in eastern Syria capable of extracting thousands of barrels of crude oil a day.
Much of this oil is believed smuggled into neighboring oil-producing regions at reduced price and then sold of mainstream markets, with the entire process helping ISIS become the wealthiest terror group of all time, with an estimated $1billion in cash reserves.
The U.S. provided strike capability as well as surveillance aircraft to the overnight strikes in Syria, Pentagon spokesperson Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby
Last night's 13 airstrikes were aimed at 12 sites, 'using a mix of fighters, bombers and Tomahawk missiles', he added.
At least 14 militants are believed to have been killed - along with a further five people who lived near one of the refineries in northeastern Hassakeh province.
It is believed the civilian victims are most likely wives and children of the militants.
Prepared: A US Air Force pilot is seen moments before taking off in support of a mission to strike ISIS
Plans: In this image released by the U.S Department of Defense today, Air Force Master Sgt. Jeffery Morris goes through paperwork before taking his fighter jet to conduct air strikes in Syria
Defiant: A fluttering ISIS flag is flown over a hill in Tel Abyad, on the Syrian-Turkish border yesterday. The area, which is in the heart of the Raqqa countryside, has been the subject of numerous coalition airstrikes
RADICAL PREACHER ANJEM CHOUDARY IS ONE OF NINE MEN ARRESTED BY COUNTER-TERROR POLICE IN LONDON ON SUSPICION OF ENCOURAGING TERRORISM Radical preacher Anjem Choudary is understood to be one of nine men arrested today as part of an investigation into
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bug where Rudolph could sometimes regain the ability to double jump while flying.
Dressers, Pianos and Tables no longer emit particles when struck - you're not breaking them.
Fixed a bug where Glass Walls were not drawing to the map properly.
Fixed a bug where the background was showing through some Stone Slab parts.
Fixed bugs with the sign / npc chat display again.
Fixed bug where tile wands did not consume items if you had high tile placement speed.
Fixed bug where breakable pots wouldn't drop life and mana when you weren't at your max if you had temporary increases.
Fixed bug where other player's pets would disappear after a while (in multiplayer).
Fixed a bug that could cause the Minimap to crash the game.
Fireworks now show the wiring layout when selected.
Fixed bug where watches show 2 colons (:) when displaying time.
Wooden fence types now properly let the sunlight through.
Updated graphics for Chairs and Tall Torches to fix some issues.
Fixed a bug where bad item stack sizes could cause the game to crash when saving.
Fixed an alignment issue with Pearlwood Chandelier.
Actuated tiles no longer remove the water over them on world load.
Fixed bug where minions on multiplayer would disappear after a while.
Fixed a bug where buff tooltips were staying visible on the map screen.
Fixed the name for the Hoppin' Jack NPC.
Fixed issue where minions would not sync upon spawning them in multiplayer.
Fixed grammar issues with magic quiver tooltips.
Fixed issue where Death Sickle and Vampire Knives would not animate properly on other players in multiplayer.
Fixed issue where Scorpions worked with King Statue and Travelling Merchant did not.
Fixed the exploit where you could have infinite Hoverboard hovering time.
Invasion summon items will no longer be consumed if no invasion would happen using it.
Not destroying a Shadow Orb at all will no longer block Natural Pirate invasions.
Painted walls show up properly on the map.
Fixed issue where holding binoculars with mouse would still move your camera, making it annoying to move them to chests and the likes.
Fixed bug where you couldn't dye the Flying Carpet accessory.
Fixed exploit where you could buy and sell stackable items for profit.
Fixed bug where glass would not let sun through properly.
Fixed bug where wings wouldn't work after getting out of water with Merman accessories equipped.
Fixed a bug where you would die on entering a world from fall damage.
Fixed exploit where you could duplicate buckets on Mannequins.
Purification Powder now says 'cleanses the evil' rather than 'cleanses the corruption' (to make it crimson compatible)
Fixed bug where magic missiles, drills and dirt rods would not function properly in reverse gravity.
Fixed bug where the player would float when standing between a downwards slope and a halftile.
Fixed bug where close dropped wires wouldn't merge with each other.
Balance Changes:
Spectre Hood doesn't increase mana usage anymore.
Made it slightly easier to advance in Frost Moon waves.
Made several Frost Moon monsters shoot slower and do less damage.
Bug Fixes:
Features and Mechanics:
You can now name Chests.
Added ingame settings menu.
There's now options for the ambient sound.
Save and Exit is now in the settings menu.
Added sliders for parallax & volume settings.
Game now loads at saved resolution and even remembers if you use maximized window.
Reforging cost is now 1/3 the value of an item, instead of 1/2 the value.
You can now turn platforms into stairs using the hammer.
Added infinite wiring support across the map.
Updated Robe graphics.
Updated Music Box graphics. Each music box now has a unique design.
Music notes now come from music boxes.
Update the graphics for Cobalt Shield, Obsidian Shield, and Paladin's Shield.
You can now place switches and levers on walls.
Accessories now have an option to be visible and show on your character. This can be toggled off and on.
You can now wear vanity wings.
Wings can now be dyed.
Dyes are now stackable.
Buckets are now stackable.
Ore now stacks to 999.
You can now change cloths colors at a dresser.
Added Ctrl + Z, X, C, and V (clear line, cut line, copy line, and paste into line respectively).
Added Shift+Insert, Shift+Delete, Ctrl+Insert (paste, cut, and copy respectively).
Added the ability to mine multiple tiles without resetting the hit count on every tile.
Increased tile limit to 65536.
Added cactus variations.
Added biome specific stalactite variations.
You can now place saplings on all grass types.
Reduced the effect of campfire and heart lantern regeneration.
Ancient Shadow armor drop rate was reduced slightly.
Multicore Lighting added to options menu.
There are now critter sounds.
Added sounds for Waterfalls and Lavafalls.
Birds are now more likely to spawn in mornings. Each type has several songs to sing.
When you hover over text in the interface menu the text now turns yellow.
Replaced Tree 9's graphic.
Players have a longer respawn delay after a non pvp death with a boss alive in multiplayer.
Dark tiles on the map no longer tell you what they are when moused over.
Added upside down slopes.
Upside down slopes spawn in new worlds.
Using Mana Potions now puts a debuff on the player that lowers magic damage based on the amount of time left.
Mana potions all have higher stacks.
Spelunker no longer gives off light. This prevents ore from showing up on the map
Spelunker now causes ore to be gold colored on the screen
Hunter potion no longer gives off light. enemies will appear in red, friendly creatures appear in green.
Slightly reduced the chance for rain.
Pyramids are slightly more common.
Waterleaf now only blooms in the rain.
Life crystals no longer spawn in the dungeon.
New Items:
Added several new paint colors: Brown, Shadow, and Negative paint.
Added Team Dye: Changes colors depending on team.
Added Beetle Armor. There are two difference chest pieces, one for melee offense another for melee defense.
Added Beetle Husks to craft Beetle Armor - drops from Golem.
Added Beetle Wings.
Added Shroomite Digging Claw.
Added Gemspark Blocks.
Added Gemspark Block waterfalls.
Added Womannequin.
Added several new wallpapers to the Painter.
You can now craft an animated steampunk tileset out of Cogs.
Added several new weapons racks that can be made at a Sawmill.
All bosses now have a chance to drop a Boss Mask.
Added Waterfall and Lavafall Walls. These are craftable by having a Crystal Ball and glass near a water or lava source.
The Merchant now sells a Bug Net.
You can now catch and release several critters using the Bug Net.
You can now place critters in cages.
Added Crimson seeds.
Added 8 new crafting stations.
Over 100 new furnitures were added to existing tilesets.
Added Heavy Workbench.
Added Copper Plating, Stone Slabs, and Sandstone Slabs. These are crafted at the Heavy Workbench.
Added Venom Staff.
Added Super Mana Potions.
New Npc:
Added Stylist NPC (Congratulations Ripsand!) - Sells rare hair dye, changes hair style and color. (spawns in spider caves). She will also sell new hair styles! (Thanks Omnir)
Added 20 new friendly critters.
Added Traveling Merchant. He will randomly show up once you have at least 2 NPCS and stay for one day. His inventory will always be random and present things he has found during his time spent traveling. He has over 30 different things he can sell.
Hardmode Balance Changes:
Drastically increased the drop chance of Keymolds.
Ice Golem now drops a Frozen core that is used with Hallowed Bars to craft Frost Armor.
The Pickaxe Axe now requires 1 soul from each Mech boss to craft.
The Drax requires a soul from each boss to craft.
Plantera bulb's don't spawn until all 3 mech bosses are defeated.
You cannot summon the Golem until after Plantera has been defeated.
Mech bosses are now slightly more difficult.
The Golem has had its life, defense, and damage increased slightly.
The Golems attacks now penetrate walls.
The Golem now shoots 2 beams if you are directly above or below him.
Increased Golem Fist damage and knockback.
Increased the size of temple boss rooms.
Wasp gun damage increased by 3.
Golden shower debuff time was reduced to 10 seconds..
Golden shower now only penetrates 5 targets.
Golden Shower now does slightly less damage.
Autohammer can only be bought after killing Plantera.
The Mushroom Spear can now only be obtained once you have killed one of the mech bosses.
The Mushroom Spear has had its sale price increased.
The Hammush can now only be obtained once you have killed a hardmode boss.
Souls now sell for less.
Gungnir now sells for less.
The Hammush has had its sale price increased.
Poison Staff and Frost Staff do less damage now.
Chlorophyte is slightly more rare and grows slower.
Crystal leaf does a bit more damage and shoots faster.
The Rod of Discord now takes 1/6 of your life rather than 1/5.
The Rod of Discord debuff now lasts 8s down from 10s.
Slightly buffed Shotgun, Marrow, and Ice bow.
Slightly buffed Repeater Damage.
Increased the damage of Terra Blade.
Increased the damage of True Excalibur.
Increased the damage of True Night’s Edge.
Terra Blade, True Excalibur, and True Night’s Edge shoot beams more rapidly
Rainbow Rod does more damage.
Rainbow gun's rainbow now lasts 10 seconds.
Buffed Unholy Spear use speed.
Lowered the damage of Chlorophyte Bullets.
New hardmode ore spawns slightly less and is slightly harder to craft.
Palladium pickaxe can no longer mine Adamantite and Titanium.
Meteor heads no longer drop loot in hardmode.
Increased Lost Girl spawn chance.
Scourge of the Corrupter does slightly more damage.
Corruption, Crimson, and Hallow Grass wall spreads further.
Frostburn debuff now does more damage over time.
Added Spectre Mask and Spectre damage set bonus.
Nerfed Spectre Healing helmet.
Spectre Healing Armor: Now uses more mana instead of decreasing mana usage.
Retinazor shoots lasers a bit slower, and they do slightly less damage.
The North Pole now does less damage and has a cap on its projectiles.
Increased Scourge of the Corruptor's damage.
Pre Hardmode Balance Changes:
Lesser mana potions are no longer craftable. They will always be sold by the merchant.
Tim is now more common.
Increased Bee Gun damage by 1.
Natures gift is now slightly more common.
Increased mana usage of gem staves.
Slightly lowered damage of higher tier gem staves.
Lowered value of Magic dagger and Beegun
Optimizations:
Sped up world loading a bit by directly copying tile data from runs.
Terraria has a more efficient format for the World saves. On average it's 20% of their previous size.
Lighting no longer loads on servers, saves 50 megs of memory.
Sped up world clearing when changing from one offline world to another.
Optimized lighting code for better performance.
Optimized rain performance.
Sped up Rain Cloud code and made it draw better.
Reduced netcode data usage for tiles by 75% to 85%.
Map drawing changed to work over time rather than lock the machine up while it happens.
Maps draw much faster and their save files are 60% smaller.
Moved tile framing to real time to cut out having to do it during world load.
Removed overhead from drawing tiles and walls. Light mode 0/1 run 15% faster.
Checking World Alignment sped up significantly.
Checking World Alignment folded into LoadWorld. Gets rid of a lot of overhead.
Sped up the Water moving code a bit. 5-10%.
Bug Fixes:
Pumpkin Moon and Frost Moon can now be started when using a Snowman pet.
The game will now verify there is a lihzahrd altar at the end of world gen. This should hopefully fix the bug with there sometimes being none.
Mouse will no longer function if you have a window over Terraria's window.
You can no longer waste boss summon items by using them after that boss has spawned.
Fixed a bug where too many Waterfalls would crash the game.
Fixed a bug with mana stars not dropping in multiplayer.
Fixed a bug where numerous NPCs could spawn if you beat a hardmode boss in a non-hardmode world.
Instead of consuming 2 blocks, extractinating has a chance of giving a smaller amount of money.
The Golem's evil plans are no longer foiled by platforms.
Invasions can now spawn enemies anywhere near friendly NPCs instead of just the middle of the world.
One of the twins can no longer despawn as long as the other is still active.
Destroyer now drops loot on the closest segment to the player
Fixed Sugar Cookie typo.
All waves in Frost Moon correctly use "Flocko" in the warning.
Boulders with Chests on them no longer crash the game if the boulder is hit.
Red Stucco no longer spreads corruption.
Piggy Bank and Safe now correctly combine coins when Quick Stacking.
Changed how damage/tooltips are generated so weapons get the full damage boost % instead of losing a bit to float precision.
Nurse no longer charges for, or removes the potion cooldown, heart lantern and campfire buffs.
Fixed a bug where moving very large quantities of water could leave some water floating.
Fixed bug where ancient cobalt armor pieces did not grant critical strike chance.
Fixed bug where inactive tiles counted for sticky purposes.
Fixed bug where wings appear too high when on a mount, made hoverboard not appear on a mount.
Fixed bug where sign bubbles would appear in the wrong place at reverse gravity.
Fixed two of the floating player bugs where the player is wildly off the surface they are standing on.
Fixed a bug with leaving honey having water sound and particles.
Fixed bug where featherfall potion did not function equally on reverse gravity.
Fixed minor bug with rain sounds.
Fixed bug where you didn't get the set bonus by mixing Ancient Cobalt & Jungle armor pieces.
You can now see the archery buff's damage bonus in the item tooltips when its up.
Fixed bug where blizzard staff could shoot upwards if you stand in hell's bottom.
Fixed exploit where queen bee could get stuck in tiles and not move
Fixed a bug where Crimsand deserts were not making the water show up red.
Mechanical Glove only improves melee damage.
Fixed bug where you cant hurt the clothier with clothier voodoo doll using projectiles (bows / guns / thrown items / spears / flails and so on)
Fixed a bug with guns not shooting bullets with the correct velocity
Fixed bug where spawn rates were higher than intended everywhere rather than when below the middle of dirt layer.
Fixed bug where NPCs that don't really die (Slimer, Mother Slime, Corrupt Slime) drop hearts and mana stars on shapeshifting (dying).
Fixed bug where you can respawn skeletron prime if you kill its prime cannon hand and not skeletron prime himself.
Fixed bug where heart crystals could spawn in nonsolid areas.
Fixed bug where skeletron hand hook did not remain attached to tiles as much as the rest of the hooks in the game.
Fixed bug where info accessories displayed info when you looked at empty signs but not when you looked at texty signs.
Fixed bug where the selected item was affected by pressing numbers while editing signs.
Fixed a bug where health bars would appear empty when really full.
Fixed bug where Dust would grow massive when you paused the game.
Improved Dryad's world status dialog
Coins now stack as best as they can when you deposit or quickstack them in chests.
Fixed bug where fairy bell would not sync properly in multiplayer.
Fixed bug where fairy bell fairy color would not save / load.
Fixed bug where Shadewood Bow could not be reforged.
Fixed bug where Restoration Potion's rarity was lower than Mana or Life Potion's rarity (despite being the same tier).
Fixed bug in world gen where Restoration potions could generate with their stack over the max.
Fixed bug where platinum candle did not emit light in non-rgb lighting mode.
Fixed bug where piranha gun would chase invincible enemies (blazing wheels and dungeon flails).
Fixed bug where nurse would charge money to remove water candle debuff.
Fixed bug where north pole projectile could attain enough gravity velocity to pass through blocks.
Made Frozen debuff not hide your armor.
Big Fix:You can no longer interact with stuff when fullscreen map is open.
Fixed hoverboard bug where you could walk on air while in reverse gravity.
Added unimplemented crimson monster sounds.
Fixed general bug with gravity where it did not account some terms for half blocks.
Fixed issue where you cannot jump while in reverse gravity in water.
Fixed bug where certain hats would be placed weirdly under reversed gravity.
Fixed bug where rune robe particles appeared on player's head in reverse gravity.
Fixed bug where chat bubbles displayed "wrong" in reverse gravity.
Fixed tile sheet for Water Fountain to remove two bars that vanish when you turn them on. (Jungle/Snow biomes).
Fixed bug where blazing wheels didn't get placed into tiles.
Fixed bug where Crimsand Blocks couldn't be shot out of a Sandgun (added crimsand friendly projectile).
Fixed bug where merchant would not spawn if you own over 21k platinum.
Fixed bug where you couldn't pick up crimson grass and hallowed grass with dirt rod.
Fixed bug where dirt rod ball shakes erratically in water.
Fixed bug where dungeon guardian still tried dealing 9999 damage (and was exploitable thanks to that).
Fixed bug where flesh walls didn't return the item when destroyed.
Fixed bug where gingerbread men dropped yeti head gores for feet.
Fixed bug where attempting to move npcs with reverse gravity used the opposite screen height position.
Fixed bug where Brain of Cthulhu wouldn't make dryad spawn or stop talking about the chasms.
Fixed bug where guide will tell you to press ESC to open inventory even if you changed your keys.
Fixed bug where chests could be placed in bad positions (e.g. ice blocks or sloped tiles in worldgen).
Fixed bug where hooks would break if they try to attach to blocks with liquid in them.
Flocko & Elf Copter now both correctly run away at dawn.
Summoning Golem will now properly only use one Power Cell.
Title Screen music can now be correctly captured when it plays from another Music Box.
Fixed a typo on the Alternate Undeground Music Box.
Fixed bug where special armor visuals don't apply with auto-pause on (robes / werewolf / merform).
Necro Armor reports the right ranged boost on it's Tooltip.
Touching Lava while in Merform will no longer force the player to leave the water and renter to get the Merform back.
Teleporting from Honey to Water will no longer leave the player moving slowly, as if they are still in honey.
Fixed bug where Guide would talk about crafting lens when you don't have any.
Fixed bug where Guide would talk about shadow orbs and corruption in a crimson world.
Fixed bug where Guide would keep talking about shadow orbs until you beat Skeletron rather than eater of worlds / brain of cthulhu.
Fixed bug where Dryad would mention the corruption in purification powder suggestion while in crimson world.
Fixed bug where zooming with sniper scope / binoculars would go in opposite height direction when in reverse gravity.
'Down' button in reverse gravity with feather fall now correctly does the same thing as 'Down' in feather fall without reverse gravity.
Fixed bug where Crimson hearts would be called shadow orbs in minimap
Rod of Discord works properly when gravity is flipped.
Fixed the bug where removing walls in the Underworld would not update the map.
Fixed bug where certain items would be invisible when using flame dye.
Using a Rod of Discord releases all grapples.
Fixed a typo in the Steampunker dialog about the Pirate.
Using a teleporter tile releases all grapples.
Touching lava while in water will now properly put the fire buff out when you leave lava.
Fixed issue where merman / werewolf transforms are visible when you're invisible.
Fixed bug where wing items showed on player's back when in merman form.
Fixed bug where pirate captains would be dismembered into 5 heads instead of 1 body.
Fixed robe lower body animation issues when using items.
Fixed precision with hydra staff in reverse gravity.
Fixed starfury getting magic prefixes despite being melee weapon.
Fixed starfury projectiles being magic instead of melee (no longer triggers spectre set or scale with magic crit).
Fixed bug where you could place campfire in water.
Fixed exploit with moving items around in auto-pause.
Fixed bug where Sand falling was not unsloping tiles.
Fixed bug where mannequins wouldn’t draw robe bottoms.
Fixed bug where skeletron hand hook would emit glows of melee enchantments.
Golem and plantera now drop money (15 gold each).
Fixed bug where Staff of Earth's boulders would sink through tiles if they're in water.
Fixed issue where magma stone fire particles would apply to bug net.
Crimson Hearts now have the right name when hovered over on the map.
Fixed Princess robe not having a bottom.
Fixed bug where chaos elementals can spawn prehardmode.
Fixed exploit where shadow dodge buff wouldn't be removed if its the last buff in a full buff list.
Fixed exploit where you could throw torches to activate hotbar items without costs.
Fixed dying by demon altar having no message.
Wearing Frost Armor no longer makes Spiky Ball Traps give Frostburn debuffs.
Spear traps will vanish when reaching the trap, whether it is inactive or not.
Enemy attacks no longer trigger Spectre set hePrime Minister – and supposed Indigenous Affairs Prime Minister – Tony Abbott has insulted First Australians, saying Australia was "unsettled" before British colonisation, while his Indigenous advisor Warren Mundine laughed off the calumny. First Australian Natalie Cromb comments.
PRIME MINISTER TONU ABBOTT delivered the keynote address at a Melbourne Institute conference last night and, whilst advocating for foreign investment, he shed some light on his particular take on history, crediting Australia's existence on British “foreign investment” in
“... the then unsettled or, um, scarcely settlement, Great South Land.”
This, of course, is the same Tony Abbott who, in the lead up to last year's election, told a large group at Arnhem land that he would spend his first week as Prime Minister with the Yolngu People.
When it was pointed out by David Donovan in late September that he had not, actually, done that, PM Abbott was backed to the hilt by his hand-picked Indigenous advisor, Warren Mundine, who excoriated IA's managing editor for foolishly taking Tony at his word.
Again, today, Mundine has downplayed Abbott’s latest insensitive comments as “silly”, saying Tony Abbott’s
So, who is this Mundine? And why has he thrown his support behind a prime minister whose attitude towards Indigenous Australia is ambivalent at best and downright duplicitous at worst?
As a proud member of Australia's First Peoples, I would like to talk about Warren Mundine and his relationship and connection to Indigenous Australia, as well as lay out what a person in his position should aim to achieve.
Warren Mundine is an accomplished man with a large family and extensive political history with the Australian Labor Party — however, those closest to Mundine do consider his political aspirations self-serving rather than for the greater good of the Aboriginal people.
Lending weight to this critique is the fact that he has jumped ship from Labor, citing he was “sick at heart” following the appointment of Bob Carr to the position that he was courting and now he is Prime Minister Abbott’s key advisor on Aboriginal Affairs.
I am sure that Warren Mundine’s ‘leadership’ status and ‘advisor’ capacity has nothing to do with the fact that he shares the same religious philosophy as the Prime Minister, is an economic conservative that supports Abbott’s policies of individual economic participation as being of more importance than the empowerment of communities and he appears to tow the party line.
Warren Mundine’s views are widely criticised and rightly so.
He has supported a political party and policies that have set Indigenous people back, and makes outlandish comments of this nature, which not only deny the history of this nation, but belittle it for an economic cause.
An example is the recent announcement of $42m funding being cut from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service (ATSILS).
The ATSILS is the one organisation that attempts to counterbalance the obvious discrimination that occurs in the criminal justice system. It is accepted as fact, and there is a tremendous amount of data to support, the contention that Indigenous Australians are racially profiled and are more likely to receive custodial sentences than their non-Indigenous counterparts for the same crime. Nevertheless, ATSILS is staring down the barrel of a crippling funding cut.
Mundine did little to oppose this cut and, in fact, said Indigenous programmes should be looking for further "efficiencies".
In my opinion, Mundine and Abbott can expel rhetoric about efficiencies until the cows come home but a cut is a cut and cuts of this magnitude, targeted in such a manner, illustrate a complete disconnect between Abbott, his adviser and the Aboriginal populace at large.
The real issues faced by the Aboriginal communities all over Australia – noting that the issues are different for many of the community groups – have not been considered in any meaningful way and it is the duty of the Indigenous Affairs advisor to stop defending "great bloke" Abbott, and the Government he leads, and start advocating forcefully for the Indigenous people he is meant to represent.
I do not have a problem with Warren Mundine as a person, I have a problem with what he represents. What he represents is the patriarchal manner in which political parties in Australia approach the issue of Indigenous Affairs.
It is not acceptable for political parties to appoint a token representative to address the issue, misrepresent to the community they are going to be acting in the best interests of the community and then fail to consult the community upon which they are imposing laws and policies.
Has the Bringing Them Home report been forgotten completely? Have we lost the essence of that the Indigenous culture is all about? Community consultation and involvement is paramount!
The patriarchal “for the good of them” attitude is Aboriginal protectionist policy continued into the modern day. For as long as Indigenous policy is approached in this manner, it will fail.
It is apparent from the actions of the government that their priorities are all about governmental budget savings rather than effecting any real change to the consciousness of Australians that might lead us all to a more inclusive nation.
Aboriginal people are not a ‘problem’ to be solved by the Liberal party for the cheapest means possible, so the economic conservatives can give each other a pat on the back.
This government, and all governments that seek to enact laws in this manner, need a history lesson. A truthful history lesson.
The crux of the matter is that European people settled on land belonging to the Indigenous inhabitants under the falsehood of terra nullius and, thereafter, the settlers imposed English law upon the Indigenous inhabitants, including laws which sought to disperse them from the lands to which they belonged on a spiritual level, and further to diminish and/or destroy the families and culture with which they identified.
This history, however bleak and embarrassing to Australians – and Tony Abbott – is what actually did occur.
Australia needs a leader and a government that will look at the history of this nation and utilise this history as a lesson in tolerance and how to be more appreciative of a culture that owned and cared for this land for at least 40,000 years before European settlement occurred.
This nation needs leaders that understand the racial divide of this nation and how to go about correcting and bridging this divide.
There are two key and pressing ways in which to make the first steps to effect dramatic change that will bridge this divide. The first is education and the second is a treaty.
Currently, there is very little education as to the true history of this nation and the events that occurred upon settlement, which is why Abbott was able to get away with his abhorrent and ignorant remarks yesterday, receiving almost no media response. And unless one seeks out that education, the majority of Australians have nothing but negative mass media produced stereotypes about the First Peoples, which breeds malevolent disregard towards Indigenous Australians.
Thus, it was Warren Mundine's job to rebut Abbott's comments today, not downplay them and call them "silly".
Moreover, the act of creating a treaty between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia would provide not only a basis upon which future relations could be established, but it will create a legacy for future generations to look upon with pride. Whilst the history of this nation is turbulent, it does not have to be looked upon with shame forever.
Australia can become a nation proud of its rich cultural history and all that it entails by enacting a treaty which effectively conciliates the issues of contention between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Australia should be a proud nation without one culture having to compromise its entire identity. The Prime Minister has stated he has passion for Indigenous Affairs – and while that claims seems dubious – Warren Mundine should be holding him to his word and advocating for Aboriginal Australians.
Let me be clear: we do not need leaders that arbitrarily state Aboriginal people need to forgive because it is in keeping with their own personal beliefs, stemming from a European religious institution that has committed countless horrors against Indigenous people. That would be about as palatable to Indigenous people as asking victims of sexual predators to forgive their assailants.
What we need are leaders – whichever party they are affiliated with – to stand up to the policy status quo and fight the hard fight for the Indigenous people of this nation.
Most particularly, our Indigenous leaders need to fight for a change to curriculum in schools to educate future generations on the accurate history of this nation, so that future generations of Indigenous children do not suffer the ridicule of previous.
It is the duty of our Indigenous leaders to be effective communicators. We cannot rest until our perspective is understood and empathised with, because only then will there be policies enacted that are culturally appropriate and in line with community needs.
If you are the man for this, Warren Mundine, then I urge you to stop being a spokesperson for the Liberal party and start being an advocate for your people.
You can follow Natalie on Twitter @NatalieCromb.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
Monthly Donation Frequency Monthly Annually Amount $ Single Donation Amount $ISTANBUL (Reuters) - ‘Watch out London - the Americans are coming’ was the message after the U.S. team recorded their best showing at the world indoor championships with 10 gold medals in Istanbul.
Ashton Eaton of the U.S. celebrates his gold medal at the heptatlon event during the world indoor athletics championships at the Atakoy Athletics Arena in Istanbul March 10, 2012. Eaton broke his own world indoor heptathlon record with a total of 6,645 points to take the title at the world indoor championships on Saturday. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
Men’s team coach John Moon was in buoyant mood as the athletes, fresh from their record success, now turn their attention to the year’s main event, the Olympics.
“Going into the championships I gave the team a challenge of 17 medals,” Moon told Reuters.
“Some people might have thought that was foolish with such a young team. But we came here and got 18 medals. We sent a message that we are ready for London. I’m proud of this team and it was a team effort.
“Of all of the big stars here, to come out with that many medals is great. They came to the challenge. A lot of these kids will be in London,” he added.
One of the younger team members was 24-year-old Ashton Eaton, who was a class apart in the heptathlon and is seemingly able to break the world record at will after setting his third for the event in two years with 6,645 points.
The U.S. also have the Olympic gold medallist Bryan Clay and world champion Trey Hardee in their ranks.
“If all of us are 100 percent healthy, and even 80 percent in shape, realistically we could sweep (the Olympic medals),” Eaton said.
A revitalized Justin Gatlin showed he was heading back to his best after returning from a four-year doping ban by winning the men’s 60 metres from Jamaican Nesta Carter.
It is likely, however, that he will face a much tougher test in London against the likes of compatriot Tyson Gay and Jamaica’s world record holder Usain Bolt.
The U.S. also showed strength in depth in the jumps with one-two’s for Brittney Reese and Janay DeLoach in the long jump and Will Claye and Christian Taylor in the triple.
“Seeing everyone else do well was great,” said Claye. “The jumps in the U.S. are coming back. Plenty of guys are jumping far. They are good guys in college and (world champion) Dwight (Phillips) hasn’t even jumped yet this year.”
There were some timely reminders from Olympic champions Yelena Isinbayeva, Pamela Jelimo and Nataliya Dobrynska at the Atakoy Athletics Arena.
Both pole vaulter Isinbayeva and 800 metres runner Pamela Jelimo suffered from injury and loss of form following their triumphs in Beijing but after taking breaks from the sport, the pair comfortably won their respective events.
Slideshow (3 Images)
Russian world record holder Isinbayeva needed just two jumps to earn a fourth world indoor title while Jelimo sped away on the final lap to win the 800.
Ukraine’s Dobrynska won the Olympic heptathlon title but has been overshadowed by Britain’s Jessica Ennis and Tatyana Chernova of Russia since. However, she stepped out of the shadows in Istanbul to break the pentathlon world record with a score of 5,013 and propel herself into the favourite’s position for London.
All eyes were on Ennis and world 5,000 metres champion Mo Farah for the Olympic hosts and although neither won their events in Turkey, Britain finished second in the medals table with their best haul of nine medals, including two golds thanks to surprise victories for 39-year-old Yamile Aldama in the women’s triple jump and the women’s 4x400 relay team. (Additional reporting by Gene Cherry)MONTREAL – The Montreal Impact announced on Friday that Belgian defender Laurent Ciman has agreed to a one-year extension, keeping him under contract with the club through the 2018 season.
"We are very pleased to have extended Laurent's contract for an extra year,” said Impact technical director Adam Braz. “Laurent and his family indicated that they felt great in the city and in the club. There was a mutual desire to extend his time with the club.”
“I am very pleased to be able to extend my contract with the Impact,” declared Ciman. “My family and I are happy in this city and we love our new lives here in Quebec. We feel privileged to be able to grow here. On the sporting side, I feel comfortable with this club and I am proud to be here for several more years. I want to thank the organization and fans for their support. I'll do everything to help this team win.”
Ciman, 30, was named the 2015 MLS Defender of the Year, selected to the MLS Best XI and the Impact Defensive Player of the Year, following his first season in the league.
In 2015, Ciman quickly imposed himself on the team’s backline, helping the club to its best showing in its young MLS history with 44 goals allowed this season, five less than 2013 and 14 less than 2014.
He tallied two goals and two assists during the regular season, finishing second on the team with 2,405 minutes and third with 27 starts. He also started all three games for the Impact in the MLS Cup Playoffs, registering one assist and 300 minutes.
He was selected to the 2015 MLS All-Star Game, wearing the captain’s armband during the second half against English club Tottenham Hotspur F.C. He was also named three times to the MLSSoccer.com Team of the Week and six times as the Videotron mobile Player of the Game.
At the international level, Ciman is a regular with the Belgian national team since 2010. He was on the roster for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. He made his official debut with the Red Devils on May 19, 2010 against Bulgaria. He’s played nine games so far, including four qualifiers for Euro 2012. He also participated in the 2007 U21 UEFA Championship with Belgium and suited up for his country at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, with the U23 team.
LAURENT CIMAN
Position: Defender
Height: 6’0
Weight: 155 lbs
Date of Birth: August 5, 1985, Farciennes, Belgium
Nationality: Belgium
Last club : Standard de Liège (Belgium)
Acquisition: January 22, 2015
Contract extension : February 12, 2016by Brett Stevens on January 11, 2017
Austrian-Jewish artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser broke boundaries not so much through progress, but through rejection of it in favor of nature. He spoke highly of the organic form and rejected the intellectualized human intent which characterized so much of his chosen field, architecture, and instead aspired to make buildings that conveyed a sense of naturalness and pleasure for their occupants.
“Fortunately I’m not a trained architect,” he said, “because if I had been, I would have been brainwashed – straight, square, ugly, empty, dogmatic and intellectual. It’s so important that the buildings in which people live are in harmony with nature and in harmony with human creativity.” Hundertwasser has a hatred of the straight line, which he says occurs nowhere in nature. He believes that conventional geometrically-based architecture is “not only obsolete, but a crime against humanity”.1
In his revolution against the straight line, Hunterwasser discovered another principle: architecture should resemble nature, which unlike the blocky constructions that are easy for the human mind to remember, has a flexible layout with high internal variation that pairs closely to function, making its use transparent to the human which has evolved under a similar system.
These thoughts lead Hunterwasser to places that good Leftist subjects are not supposed to go, namely the idea that modernity itself was the same type of arrogance and denial of both nature and our inner nature:
Austria needs something to look up to, consisting of perennial higher values—of which one now hardly dares to speak—such as beauty, culture, internal and external peace, faith, richness of heart […] Austria needs an emperor, who is subservient to the people. A superior and radiant figure in whom everyone has confidence, because this great figure is a possession of all. The rationalist
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thrine administration would affect sensitization similarly to ZIP. Chelerythrine more generally blocks PKCs by competitively inhibiting the catalytic domain and effectively inhibits PKM isoforms (Herbert et al., 1990; Serrano et al., 2008; Yao et al., 2013). This experiment was conducted to validate the effectiveness of using osmotic minipumps and continuous delivery to inhibit aPKCs. Mice were implanted with osmotic pumps which delivered chelerythrine or vehicle throughout the experiment at a dose established by others (10 nmol/μL, 0.25 μL/h, Serrano et al., 2008; Yao et al., 2013). Mice were divided into two groups (n = 8–9 per group): (1) received chelerythrine (10 nmol/μL) ICV as well as i.p. cocaine injections and (2) vehicle mice received aCSF ICV and i.p. injections of cocaine. All animals underwent six cocaine administration sessions (15 mg/kg, i.p.; Figure 2A). As with ZIP, chelerythrine did not affect the acute response to cocaine during session 1 [F (1, 15) = 0.1, p = 0.76]. After the final cocaine administration session, sensitization was assessed as the difference between the acute (session 1) and sensitized response (session 6). Sensitization was dramatically attenuated in mice previously treated with chelerythrine relative to mice that had received vehicle [Figures 2B,C; F (1, 15) = 11.1, p < 0.01].
FIGURE 2
Figure 2. Continuous chelerythrine reduces locomotor sensitization. (A) Mice were implanted with osmotic pumps containing chelerythrine or vehicle. Chelerythrine (n = 9 Chel, n = 8 Veh) was delivered continuously, ICV (10 nmol/μL, 0.25 μL/h), across six sessions of cocaine administration (15 mg/kg, i.p.). Average distance traveled (±s.e.m.) during each session is depicted. Chelerythrine did not alter the acute response to cocaine [ANOVA, F (1, 15) = 0.097, p = 0.76] but did reduce the development of sensitization across the six sessions. (B) Sensitization, measured as the difference in distance traveled between the acute (session 1) and sensitized (session 6) response was significantly impaired in mice receiving chelerythrine across 15 min [MANOVA, F (1, 15) = 11.1, p < 0.01]. The difference in distance traveled (± s.e.m.) is shown for each minute. (C) Average sensitization (±s.e.m.) measured as the difference in distance traveled is shown for each group.
Experiment 3: Effects of Acute, Pre-Induction ZIP on Locomotor Sensitization
As most previous studies have given a single infusion of ZIP to assess the effects on memory, we examined if a single infusion could disrupt sensitization (Pastalkova et al., 2006; Shema et al., 2007; Serrano et al., 2008; Kwapis et al., 2009; Parsons and Davis, 2011). In this experiment, we used two groups of mice (n = 13 per group): (1) received a single pre-induction application of ZIP (10 nmol/μL, 1 μL) 2 h prior to the first cocaine administration session, while (2) received a 1 μL infusion of aCSF prior to cocaine administration (Figure 3A). During this initial session (15 mg/kg, i.p.), ZIP did not affect the response to cocaine [Figure 3A; F (1, 24) = 0.22, p = 0.65]. In contrast, when challenged with cocaine while off-ZIP, 48 h later, mice that had previously received ZIP showed substantial impairment in sensitization [Figure 3A; F (1, 24) = 5.8, p < 0.05]. Further, ZIP also impaired sensitization when assessed as the difference in activity between the two sessions [Figure 3B; F (1, 24) = 5.7, p < 0.05].
FIGURE 3
Figure 3. Single pre- but not post-induction application of ZIP reduces locomotor sensitization. (A) Mice received a single pre-induction infusion of ZIP (10 nmol/μL, 1 μL). Sensitization was induced during two sessions of cocaine administration (15 mg/kg, i.p.). ZIP was administered 2 h prior to the first cocaine administration session (n = 13 ZIP, n = 13 aCSF), indicated by the arrow. The average distance traveled (±s.e.m.) for each session is shown. While on-ZIP, the acute response to cocaine was not altered [ANOVA, F (1, 24) = 0.215, p = 0.65]. Cocaine was given for a second time, 48 h later, during session 2. When measured off-ZIP, distance traveled was significantly reduced in animals that had previously received ZIP [ANOVA, F (1, 24) = 5.8, p < 0.05]. (B) Sensitization was significantly reduced in animals given ZIP prior to cocaine administration [ANOVA, F (1, 24) = 5.7, p < 0.05]. Sensitization is represented as the average difference in distance traveled (±s.e.m.) between the two sessions. (C) Mice received a single post-induction infusion of ZIP (10 nmol/μL, 1 μL). Sensitization was induced across 4 sessions of cocaine administration (15 mg/kg, i.p.), after which mice were given a single infusion of ZIP, represented by the arrow. Post-induction ZIP did not produce impairment when sensitization was assessed 72 h later off-ZIP (ZIP n = 9, Veh n = 8). (D) A single infusion of ZIP reduces AMPAR density following sensitization. H3 counts (±s.e.m.) for each group are depicted.
Experiment 4: Effects of Acute, Post-Induction ZIP on Locomotor Sensitization
We then examined whether a single, post-induction application of ZIP could disrupt locomotor sensitization. Two groups of mice were used (n = 8–9 per group); both groups received i.p. injections of cocaine (15 mg/kg, i.p.), but one group received an ICV infusion of ZIP while the other received an ICV infusion of aCSF. Four cocaine administration sessions produced robust sensitization that did not differ across groups [Figure 3C; F (1, 15) = 0.29, p = 0.59]. After the fourth session, mice were given a single microinfusion of ZIP (10 nmol/μL, 1 μL) or a comparable infusion of aCSF. Forty-eight hours later, we conducted an off-ZIP sensitization test. Post-induction ZIP failed to affect sensitization [Figure 3C; F (1, 15) = 0.23, p = 0.63].
Experiment 5: Effects of ZIP on AMPAR Density
Finally, we examined whether a single application of ZIP was sufficient to reduce AMPAR density in sensitized brain tissue. As it has been argued that both PKMζ and PKCλ exert their effects through AMPAR trafficking (Ling et al., 2006; Yao et al., 2008; Migues et al., 2010; Ren et al., 2013), we used a radioligand binding procedure to detect membrane-bound [3H]AMPA. We found that membrane-bound AMPARs were significantly reduced in tissue previously exposed to ZIP [Figure 3D; F (1, 34) = 6.2, p < 0.02].
Discussion
In the present study, we examined the effects of both continuous and acute inhibition of the aPKC isoforms, PKMζ and PKCλ, on the nonassociative, addiction-related memory, locomotor sensitization. There were two main findings. First, aPKCs are critically involved in the development of locomotor sensitization; ZIP was highly effective at disrupting sensitization if infused prior to cocaine administration. Second, infusion of ZIP after sensitization had been established failed to produce impairment, despite reducing the density of membrane-bound AMPARs. The current findings extend the existing evidence regarding which forms of memory are susceptible to disruption by ZIP. The novel method for ZIP administration reveals nonassociative memory may have different requirements for memory maintenance than traditional forms of memory, as pre-induction ZIP was required to produce impairment.
ZIP Administration Disrupts the Development of Sensitization
Growing evidence supports the view that ZIP disrupts not only PKMζ, but also a second atypical PKC isoform, PKCλ (Lee et al., 2013; Ren et al., 2013; Volk et al., 2013). The majority of studies have used a single application to disrupt associative or spatial forms of memory such as conditioned taste aversion, Pavlovian fear conditioning, fear potentiated startle, and the Morris water maze (Pastalkova et al., 2006; Shema et al., 2007; Serrano et al., 2008; Kwapis et al., 2009; Parsons and Davis, 2011). ZIP is derived from the pseudosubstrate sequence of PKCζ, which is identical to that of PKCλ. At higher concentrations, ZIP inhibits both PKMζ and PKCλ (Standaert et al., 2001; Bosch et al., 2004; Ren et al., 2013). Here, we expand current findings to include a role for PKMζ and PKCλ in the nonassociative, addiction-related memory, locomotor sensitization. Administration of either ZIP or chelerythrine prior to induction impaired the development of sensitization. ZIP dramatically impaired sensitization regardless of whether it was given continuously or in a single infusion, but the effects were largest when given continuously (Figures 1B,E). Still, a single application of ZIP disrupted sensitization 48 h after administration (Figures 3A,B), a time point when ZIP would have been fully degraded (Kwapis et al., 2012). These results demonstrate ZIP persistently effects sensitization if administration occurs prior to acquisition.
There are a few previous reports demonstrating ZIP's ability to disrupt certain forms of addiction-related plasticity and memory including cocaine-induced spontaneous synaptic transmission, the cocaine-induced enhancement in AMPA/NMDA ratio and conditioned place preference (Li et al., 2011; Ho et al., 2012). However, these studies focused on associative forms of addiction related memory. The present study is the first to demonstrate its ability to disrupt nonassociative addiction related memory. Nonassociative aspects of addiction are important to consider as they model key pathological components of what drive addiction.
ZIP Does Not Impair the Maintenance of Sensitization
Studies that have examined the application of post-training ZIP have found that it often produces amnesia (Pastalkova et al., 2006; Shema et al., 2007; Serrano et al., 2008; Kwapis et al., 2009; Gámiz and Gallo, 2011). However, Parsons and Davis (2011) suggested the effects of ZIP were dependent on the timing between training and administration. While memory and addiction have been argued to share overlapping neural substrates (Robinson and Kolb, 1997; Kelley, 2004; Kauer and Malenka, 2007; Lee and Messing, 2008), findings from the current study suggest the role of PKMζ and PKCλ in sensitization differs somewhat from their role in associative memory. Once sensitization had been established, ZIP administration was unable to produce subsequent impairment (Figure 3C). Moreover, sustained inhibition was required to fully prevent sensitization.
One possible reason that may account for these differences is the region-specificity of the infusion. Most prior studies have infused ZIP into a particular region (e.g., amygdala, insular cortex, hippocampus), however we administered ZIP ICV. It is possible that the concentration of ZIP required to produce an effect after sensitization had been established was not achieved. Previous work has established that a certain concentration of ZIP is required to block PKMζ and PKCλ and impair plasticity (Serrano et al., 2005; Sacktor and Fenton, 2012; Ren et al., 2013). A similar explanation could potentially account for differences in the effects of ZIP on conditioned place preference found in this study compared to other studies that have shown the apparent erasure of CPP memory following the administration of PKMζ inhibitors (Supplementary Figure S1, He et al., 2011; Li et al., 2011; Shabashov et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2013). It is also possible that by infusing ZIP ICV the peptide did not reach regions critical for the behavior, such as the amygdala (Everitt et al., 1991; Hsu et al., 2002; He et al., 2011). While this explanation may explain the negative result in our place preference experiments, it likely does not account for our sensitization results because the concentration achieved in the current study was sufficient to disrupt sensitization prior to induction and produced a decrease in AMPAR density when given post-induction.
An alternate reason we did not find an effect of ZIP on sensitization when given after induction is that the mechanism of ZIP may be different when given pre-training compared to post-training. It is possible there is a shift to the right in the dose-effect curve for ZIP given post- vs. pre-training. While we used the standard dose of ZIP in the current study, in future studies, it would be interesting to examine the effects of a higher dose of ZIP on sensitization when given after induction; however, it is possible there would be nonspecific effects at higher doses. In the future it would be interesting to compare the effects of a single post-induction ZIP infusion and continuous ZIP infusion on AMPAR density. It is possible, in our experiments, that continuous ZIP infusion reduced post-synaptic AMPAR density below a critical threshold necessary to sustain memory, while the single, post-induction infusion did not (despite using the same total dose of ZIP). Similarly, it is also possible that inhibiting aPKCs prior to training impairs AMPAR insertion or that the newly inserted AMPARs are more vulnerable to the effects of ZIP, potentially because of a difference in sub-unit composition. A more detailed analysis of the type of AMPARs affected by pre- vs. post-training infusions could help to tease apart these explanations. Another alternative is that the neural adaptations produced by a nonassociative, drug-related memory may be more enduring than those in associative memory or the mechanisms may only partially overlap(Robinson and Kolb, 1997; Carmack et al., 2013). A recent study conducted by Carmack and colleagues (2013), using the NMDA receptor antagonist CPP, found that NMDARs were not essential for the induction of sensitization, whereas NMDARs were essential for the formation of place preference. A study conducted by Cai et al. (2011) was one of the few studies to examine the effects of aPKC inhibition on nonassociative memory. In this study, both ZIP and chelerythrine were found to disrupt long-term sensitization of the gill-withdrawal reflex in Aplysia, even when given 7 days after training. While both the current study and the Cai et al. study examine the effects of inhibition of aPKCs on sensitization, the mechanisms underlying each of these forms of sensitization is quite different.
AMPAR trafficking is believed to mediate the downstream effects of PKMζ and PKCλ (Ling et al., 2006; Yao et al., 2008; Migues et al., 2010). PKMζ has been reported to enhance AMPA-mediated mEPSCs and application of the synthetic peptide GluR2 3Y effectively prevented the endocytosis of GluR2 AMPAR subunits and prevented the deficit in fear memory typically produced by PKMζ inhibition (Ling et al., 2006; Migues et al., 2010). Similarly, PKCλ also affects AMPAR trafficking. Inhibition of PKCλ blocked the LTP-induced enhancement of post-synaptic responses of GluA1 and GluA2 and post-synaptic AMPARs, mEPSCs, and EPSC magnitude are reduced by application of ZIP or PKCλ knockdown (Ren et al., 2013). Our data support and extend previous findings, which suggest the effects of PKMζ and PKCλ are mediated by AMPARs, to cocaine-induced sensitization. In future studies, an interesting comparison would be to examine the effects of ZIP on both sensitized and nonsensitized brain tissue, but for the purposes of this experiment we were primarily concerned with any differences in AMPAR density in cocaine-sensitized animals exposed to ZIP vs. nonZIP.
While ZIP was initially believed to exert its effects on plasticity and memory by selectively inhibiting PKMζ, emerging evidence suggests at concentrations of at least 2 μ M, the peptide acts on PKCλ as well (Ren et al., 2013); this likely accounts for the controversial findings obtained from mice with a deletion of the Prkcz gene (Lee et al., 2013; Volk et al., 2013). ZIP still effectively reversed LTP and cocaine-induced place preference in these mice despite the absence of PKMζ (Lee et al., 2013; Volk et al., 2013). Both lines of PKCζ /PKMζ knockout mice exhibit levels of PKCλ that do not differ from controls (Lee et al., 2013; Volk et al., 2013). We found that ZIP effectively impaired nonassociative addiction-related memory and membrane-bound AMPAR expression, but future work will be needed to directly assess the extent to which ZIP exerts its effects on PKMζ, PKCλ or both atypical PKCs. Additional future work will be needed to mitigate the discrepancy between the post-training effects of ZIP on AMPAR density and behavior. As mentioned above, it is possible that a higher dose of ZIP is needed to disrupt AMPAR expression enough to disrupt established sensitization. In the current study we examined global AMPAR density, while future work will examine AMPAR density in a region specific manner.
General Conclusion
In summary, we found that atypical PKC isoforms play a critical role in cocaine-induced locomotor sensitization and addiction. Future work should further explore the differences between traditional forms of associative memory and nonassociative addiction related memory. These differences may elucidate how certain forms of memory may become pathological. Taken together, these findings support a critical role for the atypical PKCs, PKMζ, and PKCλ in cocaine-induced sensitization and therefore in mediating the transition from casual to pathological drug use.
Author Contributions
Kristin K. Howell, Bradley R. Monk, Stephanie A. Carmack, and Oliver D. Mrowczynski performed experiments. Kristin K. Howell, Bradley R. Monk, and Stephan G. Anagnostaras analyzed data. Kristin K. Howell, Bradley R. Monk, and Stephan G. Anagnostaras prepared the figures and wrote the manuscript. Robert E. Clark contributed resources for the measurement of AMPARs. All authors contributed to experimental design and edited the manuscript.
Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
We thank J. Roth for technical assistance and G. Sanchez and A. Mora for animal care. This research was supported by NIDA grant DA020041 (Stephan G. Anagnostaras), a Hellman Fellowship (Stephan G. Anagnostaras), an NSF Fellowship (Kristin K. Howell), the UCSD Chancellor's Interdisciplinary Collaboratories Program (Stephanie A. Carmack, Stephan G. Anagnostaras), an NSF grant to the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center (Robert E. Clark), and the Medical Research Service of the Department of Veterans Affairs (Robert E. Clark).
Supplementary Material
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: http://www.frontiersin.org/journal/10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00070/abstract
We conducted a place preference test following training for each of the experiments. We did not however explore the effects of ZIP while on-board during place preference. Thus, we cannot make any strong conclusions regarding the effects of ZIP on place preference.
Supplementary Figure S1 | Conditioned place preference assessment. (A) Place preference was examined for all experiments. In Experiment 1 mice that had previously received cocaine (Veh/Coc, ZIP/Coc) showed place preference whereas mice that had received vehicle (Veh/Veh, ZIP/Veh) did not F (3, 32) = 15.048, p < 0.01]. Continuous ZIP did not affect place preference (Veh/Coc, ZIP/Coc, p = 0.45). (B) Experiment 2. Chelerythrine did not disrupt place preference F (1, 15) = 3.121, p = 0.10]. (C) An infusion of ZIP given prior to any cocaine administration did not impair place preference F (1, 15) = 1.440, p = 0.24]. (D) Place preference remained intact when ZIP was given after the induction of sensitization F (1, 15) = 0.023, p = 0.88].
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Design and Features
The Alienware 18 has been totally redesigned from the older Alienware M18x ($4529) chassis, but it is still undoubtedly an Alienware creation. The system retains touches like the Alienware silver alien head logo on the lid, though now LED-backlit diagonal lines cut into the lid join it. The trackpad itself is now fully backlit, though it doesn't have an etched logo like the Razer Blade (2012) ($2,499). At the very least, it's an improvement over the trackpad on the M18x, which is only ringed by light. Bucking the trend toward one-piece trackpads, the Alienware 18 still has two physical mouse buttons below the keyboard.
Speaking of lights and the keyboard, the Alienware 18 retains the multiple-zone AlienwareFX lighting system. There are 10 different zones that can be lit in different colors, and the lighting system supports full spectrum color changes. If you want the keyboard keys in a bright aqua green but the sides of the system in burnt orange, you can do that. If your game supports it, the lighting can give you visual cues on player status, pulsing to a slowing virtual heart beat if your hit points are running low. The keyboard is comfortable to use and has a full numeric keypad on the right. The Start key is to the left of the space bar, bucking the trend for gaming laptops to have their Start key on the right side, as seen on systems like the former Editors' Choice Origin EON17-SLX ($4405) and the EuroCom Scorpius ($5297).
Alienware's pre-loaded utilities help the gamer by optimizing the laptop for each game or program. For example, instead of manually quitting programs you usually have open like Word or Excel, you can set the system to auto-quit those programs when you start up a Bioshock Infinite session. If you launch Team Fortress 2, the system could automatically bring up your favorite IM client so you can talk to your teammates. AlienFusion controls the power management on the system, so it can bring everything up to full power for gaming sessions, but shut parts of the system down for quieter browsing sessions or watching videos.
The Alienware 18 has an 18.4-inch 1,920-by-1,080 full 1080p HD screen that is quite clear and makes watching Blu-ray movies a pleasure. The system comes with a Blu-ray reader that can also read and burn DVDs and CDs. Of course, viewing HD videos online is a pleasant experience, limited only by your connection to the Internet via the system's 802.11ac Wi-Fi or Gigabit Ethernet port. Other ports include four USB 3.0 ports (two on either the left or right side), a SD card reader, a mini-DisplayPort, and a trio of audio ports for mic, headphone, and headset. The reason there are three is some gamers preferred headphones have two leads (mic and headphone) while others have a single lead (headset).
The last notable port is the system's HDMI port, as you'd expect the port acts as a HDMI-out for use with an external monitor. What's unexpected is that the same port can be switched to HDMI-in, so you can continue to use the system as an 18-inch HD display after the PC internals inevitably become obsolete. The laptop is nominally user-serviceable, as there is a service manual available on Dell's website. You can remove the battery for replacement, but it requires a screwdriver to remove the bottom plate. Thus, we still consider the Alienware 18 to have a sealed battery because it is a 10- to 20-minute procedure to replace the battery as opposed to the traditional few seconds with a regular removable battery. Likewise, you can access the hard drive, optical drive, system memory, etc. for further upgrades/replacement, though this configuration is mostly maxed out to begin with.
The Alienware 18 comes without any pre-loaded apps aside from the Alienware utilities to control the screen, lighting, and energy usage. This is a good thing, since hardcore gamers hate performance robbing utilities like anti-virus and firewall programs. Our review unit came with Windows 7 Ultimate, which is the prime choice for most gamers. Windows 8 is available, but since the system doesn't have a touch screen, that's not our recommended configuration. The system came equipped with 32GB of memory, which is more than enough for today's games and programs.
The system also comes with a 500GB mSATA SSD as the boot drive, with a 750GB 7,200rpm SATA hard drive for data storage. This is perfect for the gamer, since he probably won't fill the 500GB SSD too quickly, and will still have the 750GB for storing downloaded videos and games that he doesn't play as often. The SSD boots fairly quickly and launches apps and games in seconds. The whole shebang is portable, but you won't be holding it on your lap for long without support: the system weighs 12.02 pounds alone. The system comes with a one-year basic warranty.
Performance
The Alienware 18 is a powerhouse system. With its new fourth-generation Intel Core i7-4900MQ, 32GB of system memory, 500GB SSD boot drive, and dual Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M graphics cards, the Alienware 18 destroyed the competition on the game grid. It returned the highest, smoothest frame rate scores that we've seen on both Aliens vs. Predator (89 fps, maximum quality) and Heaven (87 fps, max quality). Likewise, the system is able to dominate on both 3DMark11 tests we ran. The Alienware trumps the Eurocom Scorpius, Origin EON17-SLX and the Maingear Nomad 17 Ultimate ($2,824) on all the 3D based gaming tests. The Alienware 18 is no slouch on the multimedia tests either, though Origin is able to eke out a very slim lead on those tests. Keep the Alienware 18 close to a power outlet: short battery life of 1 hour 58 minutes isn't enough for a long gaming session. Besides, you'd want full power for your gaming sessions.
The Alienware 18 is a huge gaming laptop, but it throws performance, features, full-featured keyboard, smooth trackpad, customizable lighting, lots of I/O ports, and a great screen into the mix. It's the high-end gaming portable gaming rig you'd want if you want to show off, and if you can afford the just under $4,500 price tag. The Alienware 18 beats the Origin EON17-SLX on flash, performance, features, intimidation, and looks. That's a recipe for our latest Editors' Choice for high-end gaming laptops.Richie Havens, who marshaled a craggy voice, a percussive guitar and a soulful sensibility to play his way into musical immortality at Woodstock in 1969, improvising the song “Freedom” on the fly, died on Monday at his home in Jersey City. He was 72.
The cause was a heart attack, his agent, Tim Drake, said.
Mr. Havens embodied the spirit of the ’60s — espousing peace and love, hanging out in Greenwich Village and playing gigs from the Isle of Wight to the Fillmore (both East and West) to Carnegie Hall. He surfaced only in the mid-1960s, but before the end of the decade many rock musicians were citing him as an influence. His rendition of “Handsome Johnny” became an anti-Vietnam War anthem.
He moved beyond his ’60s triumphs to record more than two dozen albums, act in movies, champion environmental education and perform in 1993 at the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton. In 2003, the National Music Council gave him its American Eagle Award for his place in the nation’s musical heritage. Kidney surgery forced him to stop touring last year.
For the baby-boomer generation, he will live forever on the stage of the Woodstock festival, which he had the honor to open because the folk-rock band Sweetwater, the scheduled opening act, was stuck in traffic. Mr. Havens and his guitarist and drummer arrived by helicopter. They had been scheduled to go on fifth.Steampunk, the repurposing of Victorian culture and technology for contemporary fun and profit, is so ubiquitous -- in media, books, fashion, music, cosplay, and maker culture -- that we tend to imagine its superficial aspects are all that define it. But there's more to the mode than is first apparent. Here are five overlooked aspects of this playful co-opting of all things nineteenth century -- some observations both broad and particular, public and personal -- that might serve to enlighten the average fan of the genre, whose familiarity could extend no further than brass goggles and leather corsets.
1. Technically and logically speaking, actual Victorian science fiction writers cannot be dubbed "steampunks." Although they utilized many of the same tropes and touchstones employed later by twenty-first-century writers of steampunk, in their contemporary hands these devices represented state-of-the-art speculation. Writers such as Kipling, Verne and Wells were the Arthur C. Clarkes of their era, not the Gail Carrigers (The Parasol Protectorate series), and possessed none of the ironic, retrospective, transformative touch of those who adopted and refashioned their Victorian toys into steampunk. Nonetheless, scholar and editor Mike Ashley has managed to assemble an anthology, Steampunk Prime, which reprints actual Victorian stories that bear an uncanny resemblance to the current product.
2. The term "steampunk" itself, now a badge of honor, began as a putdown, a joke. But like "Big Bang" in cosmology, the diss became the standard. At the height of the cyberpunk movement in science fiction, in the middle of the 1980s, when the trendy suffix "-punk" seemed in danger of overuse and dilution, noted writer K. W. Jeter speculated -- with a mild sneer, in a printed letter to Locus magazine from April 1987 -- that the next big thing would be "steampunk." But by casting a jaundiced eye backwards to the vital, imperishable roots of our current age, Jeter instead drew attention to a rich and resonant source of heroism, adventure, weird technology, odd beliefs and cool clothing that would help fuel science fiction's insatiable need for new themes, mannerisms and topics.
3. I began my own steampunk novella, Victoria, in June of 1988, a year after Jeter's letter appeared. Assembled with two others -- Hottentots and Walt and Emily -- as The Steampunk Trilogy, my book would become the first publication explicitly identified as steampunk, leading many to surmise incorrectly that I had invented the label.
My composition of Victoria was aided by blasting the Kinks song of the same title continuously through my headphones as I wrote. As one of the great proto-punk bands of the 1960s, the Kinks therefore rank high as unacknowledged forefathers of the ste
|
pool North from 1992-97. He is currently the chairman of the New Security Foundation..“Show me the money,” -Mookie Betts (probably)
Rumors splurging around that the Sox offered Mookie Betts a 5 year/$100million deal extension with the ball club but Betts declined the offer. Why would he do such a thing? Isn’t that enough money? Doesn’t he love the Red Sox? These are all questions we’re left asking ourselves, but I’m sure Mookie wants to be a Red Sox long term but the numbers aren’t right, yet.
If you remember this kind of situation happened not too long ago with Jon Lester back in 2014. The Sox initially offered Lester $70 million/ 4 year deal but then bumped it up to a $135 million/ 5 year deal where Lester still declined and joined the Chicago Cubs on a $155 million/ 6 year deal. Boston GM, Ben Cherington, said that the Red Sox offered what they felt was “the best they can do”, I agree with him. Lester was 31 at the time and he wanted to go somewhere where he’s going to get paid a lot and long term, Chicago gave him that guarantee.
This offer is disrespectful.
The AL MVP runner up from last year is still only 24 years old; currently under his rookie contract and will be through the 2020 season, then he’ll be an unrestricted free agent if no long term agreement is made between Betts and the Sox by 2021. I won’t lie but Mookie has been nothing short of a disappointment this season, not just him, this team has been underachieving if you ask me. So far this season he’s hitting.262 with a.434 slugging and.775 OPS, cranking 23 home runs, 78 RBIs and 23 stolen bases. It’s not only about the offense, either, what Betts brings to table on the defensive end is irreplaceable. We all saw what Mookie is capable about doing, so this season is a little hiccup for him and the whole team in general.
Fantastic grab by Mookie Betts! pic.twitter.com/ilunj4yTKF — Dugout Nation (@DugoutNation) September 6, 2017
Whether you want to believe he’s worth it or not, Betts is going to get PAID and soon. I’m talking multiple of hundreds of millions over seven or eight years. I’m backing up those Brinks trucks for Mookie to keep him in a Red Sox uniform and I think you’re absolutely foolish to do otherwise.
The sooner they get this contract situation figured out, the better because if Bryce Harper, Mike Trout or Aaron Judge all get their +$350 million contracts then Mookie will be looking at Dombrowski with his eyes wide open and hands out asking for similar money.
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Like this: Like Loading...A seven-year-old girl was allegedly raped three times by a 13-year-old boy while on the bus to school in Washington state.
The Peninsula Daily News reported the Chimacum Middle School student's initial juvenile court is supposed to take place July 15.
Citing court records, the newspaper reported the boy and girl rode the bus together from September 2014 until the end of February.
Incident: A 7-year-old girl was allegedly raped on a school bus by a 13-year-old boy (file photograph)
According to the Peninsula Daily News, the girl told her aunt about the alleged incident, before the aunt brought the girl to a doctor.
The aunt, referred to as 'Rose,' told KING earlier this year: 'I'm angry. I'm confused.
'I feel upset for my niece.'
She told the television station: 'When we got to the doctor I found out.
'I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.'
According to KING, the alleged victim was bleeding as she returned from school.
'Rose' told KING the alleged victim no longer rides the bus.
Legal case: The accused Chimacum Middle School student's initial juvenile court appearance is supposed to take place July 15
The aunt told the television station: 'We take her to and from school for her safety.
'I have lost a lot of trust in the school district.'
KING reported neither the driver nor students observed the alleged attack.
The boy did not have an attorney Thursday, the Peninsula Daily News reported.
Referring to court documents, the newspaper reported the school expelled him and the boy was released to his family until the legal case is resolved.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
SALT LAKE CITY -- The president of one of Utah's largest Internet companies has vowed not to cooperate with law enforcement requesting customer data -- unless they get a warrant.
In an interview with FOX 13 News, XMission President Pete Ashdown said he is standing up for his customers' Internet privacy in an era of intrusion. To that end, he has published a list of requests he has gotten from law enforcement and government agencies for customer data.
"Most of them are not warrants. Most of them are subpoenas that had one signature on them, and not a judge's signature," Ashdown told FOX 13. "Very few valid, constitutional requests out of this group which is disappointing to me."
XMission has refused to comply with most of the requests for information -- with one notable exception: A Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court request in 2010. The FISA Court is the same one that authorized the NSA to collect millions of phone records revealed last week.
Ashdown said he could not reveal much about the FISA Court order given to XMission on Nov. 29, 2010 because of the same order.
"It was, essentially, setting up a monitoring device on one customer for an extended period of time," Ashdown said. "I wasn't very happy about that, but they said, 'Look, it's going to be a nightmare if you try and challenge it.' And so I did it."
But for most of the other requests, XMission has refused to cooperate unless there is a warrant. A majority of the requests Ashdown published came from the U.S. Department of Justice or the Utah Attorney General's Office.
A spokesman for the Utah Attorney General's Office said he was unable to provide a comment late Monday on XMission's warrant demands.
"I'm making the decision as the company owner to say, 'Look, I want a proper warrant when you ask me for data,'" Ashdown said.
The revelations about NSA data mining programs have prompted concern, condemnation and defense from various circles. Members of Utah's congressional delegation have offered mixed opinions. Utah Senator Orrin Hatch has defended it; Sen. Mike Lee has expressed opposition.
In a statement, Second District Congressman Chris Stewart expressed concern.
"While this collection of information resulted from a decision that came out of the FISA court’s, the initial reports still trouble me," he wrote. "While I recognize that we live in a very dangerous world, as a member of the Homeland Security Counter-terrorism and Intelligence Sub-Committee, I also recognize our responsibility to hold the administration accountable for protecting the privacy of American citizens."
In his interview with FOX 13, Ashdown said he was "uncomfortable" with the massive NSA data center being built in Bluffdale. He was critical of Utah's congressional leaders for supporting it -- then expressing concern and outrage about the data collection.
"They come out and stomp their feet about how this is an outrageous invasion of American privacy and it's domestic spying," Ashdown said. "Well, that's all that's going on out there. It's a billion dollar-plus facility that they had to sign off on."While America anxiously awaits the FBI’s results in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information – wondering if she will ever face criminal charges – one man is explaining what will happen should she not be indicted.
And it still doesn’t look good for the former Secretary of State.
More from The Political Insider
Judge Andrew Napolitano, who recently stated that “the evidence of her (Hillary’s) guilt is overwhelming,” claims that if she isn’t held accountable for her crimes, it would still be “catastrophic” for her candidacy.
How catastrophic?
Napolitano believes “she will be replaced on the Democratic ticket.”
The judge lays out this scenario (via the Daily Caller):
The “publicly known evidence of her guilt is overwhelming,” Napolitano claimed. “If the Democrats that run the Justice Department decide that she’s not going to be indicted because she’s about to become or will have become the Democratic nominee for president, can you imagine what the reaction will be?” he continued. “The FBI will release the evidence against her, much of which is already publicly known.” “I believe that FBI agents, perhaps the director himself, James Comey, will resign and President Obama will be confronted during his last six months in office with a crisis not unlike Richard Nixon’s during the so-called ‘Saturday night massacre’ in Watergate where people resigned rather than doing what the president asked them to do.” According to Napolitano, “that will have a catastrophic effect on Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy. Probably so catastrophic that she will be replaced on the Democratic ticket.”
Watch his breakdown if the case below …
Judge Napolitano recently laughed out loud at Hillary’s suggestion that the FBI is merely conducting a “security review” and not a serious investigation.
“This is about as serious an investigation as there could be… The FBI does not do security assessments, the State Department does. The FBI does criminal investigations,” he explained.
He added that regardless of the outcome, the FBI needs to reveal their findings fairly soon.
“The American public and the Democratic Party need to know if they’re about to nominate someone who might be a defendant in a criminal prosecution,” Napolitano said.
Check out Clinton dismissing the notion that she could be indicted over her private email server …
Read this Next on ThePoliticalInsider.com Ex-Bernie Spokesman Calls Team Hillary ‘Total Ingrates’
Comment: Could we actually see Hillary indicted for her handling of classified information? Even if we don’t, will the results be ‘catastrophic’ for the Clinton campaign? Tell us your predictions below.Libya’s Sexual Revolution
JANZOUR, Libya – When it comes to love, Muammar al-Qaddafi’s Libya was unlucky for unmarried 33-year-old truck driver Ahmed Nori Faqiar. His looks would have benefited if his parents could ever have sprung for a dentist. Lack of means forced him to live unhappily at his childhood home well into adulthood. Marriage, a home of his own, kids — all are dreams that the wiry Libyan had long ago steeled himself to stop hoping for.
"Before, I was not even daring to look at girls as wife material, because I knew I could not afford" to get married, say Faqiar now.
These days, though, Faqiar wears the mismatched camouflage of Libya’s rebels and a dashing bandana on his head, pirate-style. He carries a gun. He is a veteran of battles for Libyans’ freedom from Qaddafi’s regime — and it’s the women who are talking to him.
"Girls around the area come up to you and say, ‘Thank you! You made us proud, you made us happy,’" Faqiar told me one night recently. He spoke on the sidelines of a camel and couscous feast that the people in this Tripoli suburb threw for several thousand young rebels, after slaughtering 10 camels.
From a specially raised dais, speakers praised the young rebel fighters late into the evening. Hundreds of excited young women and girls in head scarves mingled near rifle-toting young men, a novelty in this conservative country that was overwhelming to members of both genders in the crowd that night. "It’s like a wedding!" Faqiar exclaimed, shaking his head in surprise.
Relations between Libyan men and women — deeply distorted by the eccentric Libyan leader’s refusal to provide normal opportunities for Libya’s young people — have changed "100 percent" in the days since Qaddafi fell, the young rebel said. His comrades listening around him voiced agreement.
"Thank God," Faqiar added.
Nearby, young women — a group of cousins and neighbors, clustered together, in long skirts and shirts and head coverings — said the same, and laughed about taking their pick of a husband from among the rebels when the war was done.
Before the revolution, young men her age "were just lazing around in the streets, no future. I didn’t care about them at all," said Esra’a el-Gadi, 20. "Now I look at them in a totally new light — they stood up against Qaddafi. It’s something."
"We saw them as lost youth, unemployed," Rahana el-Gadi, 19, said of men of her generation. "Now we were surprised, so surprised to see what they’re capable of," she added.
"We dream of the day they come back, and we welcome them."
Jokes passed by cell phone text messages across Libya confirm the newfound eligibility of the young civilians turned fighters.
"Forget doctors and engineers: We want to marry a rebel," one of the widely circulated text messages goes. "Looking for a rebel to wed?" another SMS asks: "Press ‘M’ for a husband from Misrata, ‘B’ for a husband from Benghazi…"
But Libya is still a deeply observant Islamic country, and very few — if any — of those unacquainted young men and women were actually talking to each other during the night of rallying that followed the camel feast. Only once in my visit last month, in Tripoli’s Martyrs Square, packed with celebrating crowds each night since Qaddafi’s overthrow, did I see a tall, armed rebel and a young woman in headscarf with their cell phones out, exchanging numbers. The young male Libyan activist I was with watched as the rebel and young woman appeared to head out of the square together, a discreet 10 feet apart. "This has never happened before," my Libyan colleague said, shocked.
But the budding of wartime romance means a lot more in Libya than merely giddiness at overthrowing a four-decade old dictatorship.
With dictators falling in much of the Middle East and North Africa, Arab men and women in newly liberated nations hope to redress one of the most profound and damaging iniquities wrought by rulers like Qaddafi — the lack of economic opportunity that stunted every aspect of the lives of the region’s youth.
The Arab region has the second-largest percentage of young people in the world. Almost two out of every three Arabs are under 30, a level exceeded only in sub-Saharan Africa. And the Middle East and North Africa boast both the highest youth unemployment and unemployment overall on the planet.
Years ago, political scientists, including Diane Singerman, began using the term "waithood" to describe the crippled outlook for the young generations of the Arab world. Unable to find jobs, or jobs that paid a living wage, millions of young Arabs were fated to live unhappily at home, unable to afford marriage. And in conservative Islamic societies, marriage for many is the only launch there is into independence, dignity, and a life of one’s own.
In effect, for young Arabs of ordinary means, "If they’re unemployed, they have no hope of becoming adult," Singerman, an associate professor at American University in Washington, D.C. told me earlier this year.
Around the region, the average age of marriage has edged up — and not, for most, because millions of young Arab men and women were enjoying their single years.
Young Libyans had it especially bad. Qaddafi didn’t just fail to develop well-paying jobs for the young — he destroyed jobs with erratic socialist schemes that warped Libya’s economy. So much so, in fact, that the Libyan government officially estimated unemployment in recent years at 20 percent, twice that of the already high regional rate.
As U.S. diplomats in Libya noted in a 2009 WikiLeaked cable that looked closely at the country’s high rate of waithood, that more than 60 percent of those Libyans lucky enough to have jobs worked for the state. Qaddafi, quixotically, had blocked wage increases in most of those jobs for decades. Most employed Libyans I spoke with said they made only a few hundred dollars each month. Despite Libya’s vast oil wealth, gross domestic product per capita is less than $10,000.
A single wedding can cost almost that much in Libya, young Libyan men told me. Marriage in Libya is particularly expensive, with days of celebration and gold-laden dowries expected. Housing is in short supply, but suitors are expected to line up an apartment before the wedding.
The result was countless hard-luck stories. On a 2007 visit, I met a Tripoli family of six educated brothers and sisters in their 20s and 30s — all of whom, male and female, had already bought outfits for their future weddings, which none had any hope of actually affording. The stories of most Libyan young men I met, then and again this year, were variations on the same theme.
"What he’s saying, it’s all of us," said the Libyan man in his 20s who translated for me as I talked to Faqiar, the rebel fighter, about his lack of prospects before the revolution.
No one in Libya’s regime seems to have bothered to have tracked precise figures. Libyan women have a perception that there is a shortage of marriageable young men, both because of the death tolls of Qaddafi’s military adventures in Chad and elsewhere and because of the lack of jobs.
"If you tried to count the number of spinsters among us, you couldn’t, you’d make mistakes — there are too many," said Rahana el-Gadi, the 19-year-old young woman at Janzour’s rally for the young rebels.
The unease over the lack of opportunity for marriage was reflected in the unexpected declaration last weekend, in a victory speech by the head of Libya’s opposition national council, that the new Libya would reinstate polygamy, which Qaddafi had limited. But because, according to Islam, only those with the means to support all wives equally can take more than one, easing the way for polygamy would seem likely to make it worse for Libya’s unmarried young men of modest means.
So did all this frustration really have an impact on the course of the revolution in Libya?
In 2009, an Economist article mentioned the Arab world’s "waithood" problem but shrugged off any possible political impact. "Hardly the stuff of which political revolutions are generally made," the magazine wrote.
Young Arabs, post-revolution, told me differently. In Janzour, I asked Faqiar how much his lack of hope for a normal life — a job, marriage, a home, kids — played into his decision to take up arms. "100 percent," he said, not smiling.
Around the region this year — in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen — many, though not all, young protesters and fighters told me the same. "All of them, they had nothing to lose. They saw their life wasting away," Israa Khalil, a 25-year-old woman in Tripoli, said of her male friends and relatives. "So they all went to fight."
For years, Arab leaders and others treated the youth bulge and delayed marriage as "kind of like a funny thing," Singerman told me. The attitude was, "This is a cultural thing so we shouldn’t pay attention to it. They’re not laughing anymore."
With the tyrant now out of the way, transitional leaders have pledged to raise the artificially low Qaddafi-era wages. Young Libyans — whether fighters, activists, or onlookers — say they have new hope of their lives getting better as their country shakes off four decades of Qaddafi’s weirdness and isolation.
Already, Khalil and a group of young women in Tripoli told me, men and women have shed the Qaddafi-era notion of the other sex as representing dangerous, impossible entanglements, since all knew few suitors could afford marriage.
In the "family" section of a Tripoli café, Khalil told me a story of one evening in the revolution, in August. At sunset, with gunfire blasting around their homes, she and other women and girls burst out of their houses, sprinting with water and sandwiches to young fighters who had been observing the daytime fast of Ramadan.
The women trilled their tongues as they ran, trying to lift the spirits of this unknown band of rebels on their way to a front. Moved, the fighters had tears in their eyes as they accepted the food, Khalil said.
Before, "there was a barrier," and Libya’s hapless young men were to be pitied, Khalil said. "Now, he’s the man who protected me," Khalil said. "Since the revolution I have the confidence to go up and tell them ‘Thank you," and that in turn gives them confidence in themselves. And we know we were part of this. And they know we were part of this."I’m currently really enjoying SWTOR, the advanced classes, companion characters and storylines breathe new life into an aging genre, but Bioware are falling down on some key MMO aspects among other things. Here are my complaints and possible fixes.
Raid icons for enemies
For a game with a lot of group content it’s criminal that we have no way to distinguish between enemies. Chat often gets confusing right before a pull with who wants to Force Lift who and what the tank is focusing on.
Just some simple shapes would do wonders to group content, right click the enemy portrait and pick a shape from a list and group members can clearly see what needs to be done about the upcoming fight.
Dedicated LFG screen/tab
It seems that toughest part of group content is actually finding a group to join, granted its beta and there are less people then when this thing goes live but the system in place is just awful!
To begin with not many people know about the LFG system in the “Who” tab, hell it took me ages to find. Why not put a separate LFG tab in the social window, that way it can be better dedicated to actually finding groups rather than being tagged onto another function.
In this new tab the player can mark himself/herself as wanting to find a group and pick what kind of group they want (group quests, flashpoints, pvp, etc) while seeing available groups in that area.
Group leaders can also use this tab to see people that are looking for a group and can invite or whisper them from there.
Painfully small raid UI
I have only tried out the raid panels for Warzones but they are just horrid to look at. Whose idea was it to have them so small, as a healer I want to be able to see people’s health values but this is impossible if I look solely at the raid frames.
It doesn’t even make sense why they are there in warzones, the groups aren’t that big so why is loads of room wasted with empty panels?
A fix would be to just borrow from the group frames and shrink these a tiny bit, remove all information bar the health bar, force/heat (energy?) bar and their name. Would make the UI a lot nicer to look at the life’s of healers way better.
Less group quests, more flashpoints
The Esseles flashpoint was brilliant, at first I thought it was just another group quest but it became this wonderful story and was extremely fun.
I’m level 25 now and I haven’t even smelt another flashpoint which is a crying shame, these are what distinguish you from other games but they are way too reserved, yet the amount of separate group quests is way too high.
A great way to solve both of these problems would be to merge some of these group quests into flashpoint content. For example the group quests involving one of the major gangs on Coruscant could be merged into a single flashpoint. The group starts to investigate the area before being ambushed by that gang’s kingpin and then they go after him while taking down various key parts of their operation. A little basic (I’m sure the story wizkids at BioWare can do a lot better) but it shows how easy it would be to group and merge certain aspects to create new and exciting flashpoints.
Crafting
The crafting is awesome, the way it works and the high variety of jobs is really good and doesn’t distract the player from the main story. However there is one fatal flaw that could turn people away.
I currently cannot lever my Artificing any more due to not having the correct mats, my archaeology skill is so high that I have way too many Nixon crystals but not enough Elaram crystal. To get my artifcing skill up I need to use recipes that use Elaram crystals but as I can no longer get these I am at a dead end. I have tried using the Auction house but nothing is up on there (this will be different come release but people shouldn’t have to resort too much to the AH) and I really don’t want to return to lower level planets just to farm crafting mats.
Now this will probably affect a small minority of players, I will admit I’ve been a bit of an idiot by not levelling both skills equally. But if this happens now then it is going to happen when it goes live. It has really deterred me away from crafting which is a shame as I really did enjoy it.
A way of solving this would be to provide blueprints (from vendor, drops, experience) for a new recipe that breaks down higher level mats into lower level mats. That way players will not get stuck when levelling their crafting skills and encourage them to use the system more then give up with it.
Trainer costs
As I hit 25 I had a horrible decision to make, new attacks or a mount. I picked mount (I really regret that decision for reasons I will explain later on) and now am poor with lesser powerful attacks.
2000+ credits for a single attack upgrade is a bit much, couple this with the fact that most a levels a player can upgrade 2 or 3 attacks or learn a new one and you can see how fast players are going to lose money. Hell I feel sorry for Sardoni, I don’t want to think how much those level 50 upgrades are!
Any MMO shouldn’t penalise a player when learning a new attack or upgrading old ones, it’s a natural part of the game and its really unfair to players when they have to choose. Certain moves and abilities like mount training should remain high, they are a privilege after all but basic attacks and skills needed for gameplay. Charge something so it’s feasible and makes sense to the story but at least lower the cost a bit.
Change color option of UI
A very simple idea, why does the UI have to be blue all the time? I’m a Jedi so it fits my character but I’m sure that Empire classes are a bit annoyed that all they keep seeing is this goody too shoes blue. Hell even some of their holograms are red!
Players love to customize their HUD, it helps bring a sense of control and not every thinks the same when it comes to aesthetics.
I simple colour slider that changes the colour of the frames would be lovely, keep the blue as default and hide the slider somewhere in the options menu so it doesn’t get in the way but at least give people the option. Some people may want black/red to suit their game style and I’m pretty sure some players would want lovely hot pink frames while touring the galaxy
Space combat
Despite what others are saying about it I really enjoyed space combat, its not too fancy as to distract the player from the main RPG elements of the game and not too simple to be overlooked as a tacked on mini game. However it does need some fixing.
The first escort quest was awesome; sadly it’s the only bit of combat I can do until I can afford some form of shield regen.
The missions are way too hard, there is little the player can do to dodge incoming laser fire (from the front and back) and it really isn’t fun. I did grind enough to buy a shield thinking it would help but instead it bought me about 30 seconds more of combat. Something needs to be done:
A) Nerf the damage from incoming enemies for the first couple of missions, these are the starting levels, why are they noted as “Normal” difficulty and bloody impossible to finish? Gently introduce players to the concept and they will love it instead of failing a lot and never doing it again.
B) Put shields and shield regens as standard in our ships, everyone else seems to have them so why do we have to grind to get them? The regen will make combat much more bearable and force players to think tactically so they can survive.
Or
C) Let us buy basic shields and shield regens with good old credits. I don’t really think anyone wants to grind the same level 10 times just so they can move onto the next. Let players invest in new but basic equipment with credits at first so that they can complete the harder levels are unlock new stuff with what they win.
Advanced classes
“O hello, young Consular, you are now a Jedi Shadow, here have a bunch of new stuff and abilities”.
That was the process of picking an advance class for me the first time my main got to level 10, something so important to the player’s gaming experience has been seriously overlooked and forgotten about. No big quest, no cinematic, just a choice between option 1 and option 2 to decide how you play your character for the rest of the game.
This badly needs to change and there are many ways already up on these forums on how this can be fixed. For me I would suggest either:
Sample quests – Let the player try out each advanced class through 2 different quests and then let them pick
Early skill tree view – Show players both skill trees as they level to 10 so that they can research and study both sides and then pick
Retcon tokens – When a player chooses their advanced class they are given a single bound token good for a single swap. If players don’t like their advanced class they can swap to the other one but must stay as that for the rest of the game.
Mounts
I was really looking forward to getting a mount, after about half an hour finding the vendor (seriously put in a quest or a unique icon to help players find him on Tatooine) and then actually getting my mount I was met with sheer disappointment at what I had just wasted my time and money on.
Now when you think of a Jedi rushing into combat on a vehicle you would think of a really cool speeder bike going at break neck speeds (kinda like the Endor chase in Return of the Jedi) what I got was my Sage squatting on what looked like the shop mobility scooter of the future. “Ok so I look like an idiot, no matter let’s see how fast this baby can go!” I thought to myself. It felt slower than a shop mobility scooter!
Now granted this is just the level 25 mount (the level 50 ones better be fast) but they need to be faster. Everything is really spaced out and far apart in SWTOR and any MMO player will tell you that running to places is not fun AT ALL. Also I have sprint, ok a mount is faster but it just doesn’t seem it. Sprint I can just toggle it on and I’m away, with my mount I have to summon it, hide my embarrassment and then I can go (at what feels like a snail’s pace). With sprint I can even use my boost move to make myself even faster, with a mount I am forever stuck at a painfully constant speed.
At the moment I just can’t justify the 44k credits I spent on this hover scooter, it needs to be a lot faster or needs to give me something new. A boost, a shield, a cool laser turret attack just something to justify the purchase, hell I’d settle for an actual speeder bike model and some added motion blur!
Well that’s some of my thoughts; sorry that this little rant has gone on a bit, feel free to discuss and challenge my ideas below. Hopefully we can all come up with some really cool ideas for existing problems and make this game even more awesome before release.
See you all in game
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The document, part of a push by the computer and electronics manufacturer to have its Central Texas facilities designated as a foreign trade zone, suggests the company already created 879 jobs for the project and could add another 815 positions if it hits peak targets.
The Austin American-Statesman reports that Flextronics America is currently in the middle of a hiring effort that will see the company employing as many as 1,700 workers to build a "next generation desktop computer" at the company's facilities in Austin, Texas. While Flextronics will not reveal the identity of the computer or the company behind it, speculation naturally points toward Apple's radically redesigned Mac Pro.Flextronics had previously been named as Apple's contract manufacturer for the Mac Pro as part of an effort to bring some Mac production back to the United States, but we had received an unconfirmed tip that Flextronics would be using its facility in Fort Worth, Texas where it manufactures the Moto X smartphone.It appears that the company will instead be using its Austin facilities that are less than a mile from Apple's existing operations campus where it employees roughly 4,000 workers. That campus is currently undergoing a major expansion that will see Apple spending over $300 million to add at least 3,600 new employees there over ten years.Apple announced back in June that the new Mac Pro would be launching later this year, and the machine is expected to be featured at the company's media event reportedly scheduled for next TuesdayWhen next you meet a rat or raccoon on the streets of your city, or see a starling or sparrow on a suburban lawn, take a moment to ask: Where did they come from, so to speak? And where are they going?
In evolutionary terms, the urban environments we take for granted represent radical ecological upheavals, the sort of massive changes that for most of Earth’s history have played out over geological time, not a few hundred years.
Houses, roads, landscaping, and the vast, dense populations of hairless bipedal apes responsible for it: All this is new. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the brains and behaviors of urban animals are changing rapidly in response.
“A lot of biologists are really interested in how animals are going to deal with changes in their environments,” said biologist Emilie Snell-Rood of the University of Minnesota. “Humans are creating all these totally new environments compared to what they’ve seen in evolutionary history.”
Snell-Rood is one of many researchers who have updated the conventional narrative of urban animals, in which city life favors a few tough, adaptable jack-of-all-trades — hello, crows! — and those species fortunate enough to have found a built environment similar to their native niches, such as the formerly cliff-dwelling rock doves we now call pigeons and find perched on building ledges everywhere.
The long view, though, is rather more multidimensional. Cities are just one more setting for evolution, a new set of selection pressures. Those adaptable early immigrants, and other species that once avoided cities but are slowly moving in, are changing fast.
As Snell-Rood and colleagues describe in an August 21 Proceedings of the Royal Society B article, museum specimens gathered across the 20th century show that Minnesota’s urbanized small mammals — shrews and voles, bats and squirrels, mice and gophers — experienced a jump in brain size compared to rural mammals.
'Humans are creating all these totally new environments compared to what animals have seen in evolutionary history.'
Brain size is, to be sure, a very rough metric, one that’s been discredited as a measure of raw intelligence in humans. For it to fluctuate across a whole suite of species, though, especially when other parts of their anatomy didn’t change, at least hints that something cognitive was going on.
Many other studies have looked at behavior rather than raw cranial capacity. In these, a common theme of emerges: Urban animals tend to be bold, not backing down from threats that would send their country counterparts into retreat. Yet even as they’re bold in certain situations, urban animals are often quite wary in others, especially when confronted with something they haven’t seen before.
“Maybe avoiding danger is an useful trait for some animals living in urban environments,” said biologist Catarina Miranda of Germany’s Max Planck Institute, who in a September Global Change Biology paper described her experiments with rural and urban blackbirds.
“Most of the birds that never approach new objects or enter new environments in this long period of time are urban,” Miranda said. “There are many new dangers in a town for a bird. Cars can run you over. Cats can eat you. Kids can take you home.”
Somewhat counterintuitively, bold urban animals also tend to be less-than-typically aggressive, a pattern documented in species as disparate as house sparrows and salamanders, the latter of which are a specialty of Jason Munshi-South, an evolutionary
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, according to the Oregonian, is named for William H. Boring, an early resident. The newspaper says his great-grandson Bob Boring, 72, was all for the hook-up with Dull. "I think this is fun. Let's do it," he said.
This probably isn't a surprise either: There's a Dull & Boring Facebook page.
Back in April, Eyder previewed the Dull and Boring news: "If 'War And Peace' Was Less Than Exciting, Try A Union Between Dull And Boring."THE scale of the challenge facing Scottish Labour can be revealed after it emerged the party has one-sixth of the membership of the SNP.
Informed sources said the number of members currently sits at just under 13,500, a figure boosted by nearly 1000 new referendum campaign sign-ups.
Labour helped secure a No vote in September, but the party has been toiling due to the dramatic sequence of events in its aftermath.
Soaring memberships among the pro-independence parties have also confirmed that Scottish politics is in a state of flux.
The SNP tally has shot up from 25,000 to 84,228. The Scottish Socialist Party, which has long been in the political doldrums, has increased its membership from 1500 to 3500. The Scottish Greens had fewer than 2000 members before the referendum, but now have more than 7500.
Labour has consistently declined to confirm its total figure north of the Border, but it is understood nearly 13,500 members will get a vote in the contest to select Lamont's successor.
The party is choosing its leader in Scotland after the resignation of Johann Lamont, through a complex electoral college system which gives one-third of the votes to parliamentarians, one-third to affiliated organisations such as trades unions, and the remainder to party members. The system - which is to be phased out for UK leadership contests - means the vote of one MP or MSP carries the same weight as the votes of around 168 ordinary party members.
Labour's rules for the contest have also been designed to act as a recruitment tool for the party.
The usual six-month qualification rule - under which new recruits must have paid their dues for the specified period of time before being able to vote - has been waived. New members could join as late as Thursday and be eligible to vote.
Party sources believe the gulf in membership between Labour and the SNP will become apparent in the Westminster General Election campaign, when thousands of Nationalist supporters are expected to hit the streets.
MP Jim Murphy, one of the three Labour leadership contenders, wants to increase trades union sign-ups, involve non-party members in local campaigns, and use "reduced rate" initiatives to boost the figures.
A spokesman for Neil Findlay, a second leadership candidate, said he saw the trades union movement as key to future recruitment: "There is an obvious potential pool of support in trades unions and the party needs to focus and reconnect with the trades union movement. The relationship has to be deepened and strengthened."
A spokeswoman for Sarah Boyack, the third candidate for leader, said she wanted to target young workers and first-time voters, as well as targeting No supporters who don't have a natural party of choice.
SNP business convener Derek Mackay MSP said: "The extraordinary growth in SNP membership shows that the people of Scotland trust the SNP to hold the Westminster establishment to account on their vow of substantially more powers for Scotland."Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
April 4, 2016, 4:55 PM GMT / Updated April 4, 2016, 4:55 PM GMT By Tracy Connor and Tom Winter
A Massachusetts man was charged Monday with trying to cut power lines running to Quebec — a decade after he pleaded guilty to a similar stunt.
Dan Kelly — who has filed a slew of lawsuits against his hometown of Chelmsford, including one over a nativity scene — harbors a deep grudge against utility companies and government entities, according to court papers.
In the latest case, he threatened to sabotage National Grid's equipment and share his methods on the Internet unless the company made contact with him, court papers allege.
Kelly, a former engineer, is accused of buying thermite, a pyrotechnic compound, on eBay and using it to make pipe-bomb-style contraptions he placed on National Grid high-voltage lines used to import power from Canada.
Authorities discovered the vandalism last week when they responded to a brush fire that engulfed four acres of land. They also found an anonymous note taking credit attached to one of the poles.
"It is going to be an expensive war, if you want to play it. I see no way you can win!" the note said. "Now I fully understand that I cannot win. That is not the point."
The point was not entirely clear in the note, though the author railed against corrupt courts, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office.
In 2004, federal authorities charged Kelly with cutting 18 above-ground cables as part of a scheme to extort money from Verizon and Comcast, which is NBC's parent company, because he was upset he could not find work.
He pleaded guilty and got five years probation in that case, court records show.
Investigators said the notes sent in the 2004 case bear similarities to the letter found after the fire last week. In addition, one of the incendiary devices contained a UPS sticker, and authorities were able to trace UPS shipments to Kelly and recover an unused device from his home.
A criminal complaint says that when agents told Kelly they knew he had planted the devices and asked for his side of the story, he responded, "Then arrest me."
Kelly, who claims in court papers to be terminally ill with cancer, has represented himself in his most recent lawsuits and it is not clear if he has an attorney.The competition to claim Mr. Obama’s political mantle was the dominant theme of the night, given that the Democratic race has become so close in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Mr. Obama remains widely popular among party members, particularly in the state that Mrs. Clinton now needs to win more than ever: South Carolina, which votes on Feb. 27. Should she lose the first two nominating contests, Mrs. Clinton and her team believe she can regain political momentum in the South Carolina primary, in part because of her strong support among African-Americans there.
Mrs. Clinton repeatedly reiterated her support for Mr. Obama’s agenda, while Mr. Sanders tried to present himself as the bolder choice to build on Mr. Obama’s legacy. But she stymied him at times: When Mr. Sanders criticized Mrs. Clinton for accepting more than “$600,000 in speaking fees” from Goldman Sachs, she used the moment to portray Mr. Sanders as opposed to Mr. Obama on the issue of Wall Street regulation.
The third candidate in the Democratic race, former Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland, who is far behind in most polls, showed some new life at the debate as he reminded the audience that Mrs. Clinton had evoked the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks previously to explain her Wall Street donations when she was a senator representing New York.
“Now you bring up President Obama here in South Carolina in defense of the fact of your cozy relationship with Wall Street,” Mr. O’Malley said. If Mrs. Clinton was trying to make Mr. Sanders look less than qualified for the presidency, Mr. Sanders repeatedly tried to address doubts about his electability, which a new Clinton television advertisement has questioned. At one point, he rattled off some of his strong poll numbers, not unlike the leading Republican candidate, Donald J. Trump.
“When this campaign began, she was 50 points ahead of me,” he said. “We were all of three percentage points. Guess what? In Iowa and New Hampshire, the race is very, very close.”
He added, “In polling, we are running ahead of Secretary Clinton against my good friend Donald Trump.”Greenland melting due equally to global warming, natural variations
Hannah Hickey UW News
The rapid melting of Greenland glaciers is captured in the documentary “Chasing Ice.” The retreat of the ice edge from one year to the next sends more water into the sea.
Now University of Washington atmospheric scientists have estimated that up to half of the recent warming in Greenland and surrounding areas may be due to climate variations that originate in the tropical Pacific and are not connected with the overall warming of the planet. Still, at least half the warming remains attributable to global warming caused by rising carbon dioxide emissions. The paper is published May 8 in Nature.
Greenland and parts of neighboring Canada have experienced some of the most extreme warming since 1979, at a rate of about 1 degree Celsius per decade, or several times the global average.
“We need to understand why in the last 30 years global warming is not uniform,” said first author Qinghua Ding, a UW research scientist in atmospheric sciences. “Superimposed on this global average warming are some regional features that need to be explained.”
The study used observations and advanced computer models to show that a warmer western tropical Pacific Ocean has caused atmospheric changes over the North Atlantic that have warmed the surface by about a half-degree per decade since 1979.
“The pattern of the changes in the tropical Pacific that are responsible for remarkable atmospheric circulation changes and warming in Greenland and the Canadian Arctic are consistent with what we would call natural variability,” said co-author David Battisti, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences.
Researchers say it’s not surprising to find the imprint of natural variability in an area famous for its melting ice. In many of the fastest-warming areas on Earth, global warming and natural variations both contribute to create a “perfect storm” for warming, said co-author John “Mike” Wallace, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences.
The natural variations in the new study related to an unusually warm western tropical Pacific, near Papua New Guinea. Since the mid-1990s the water surface there has been about 0.3 degrees hotter than normal. Computer models show this affects the regional air pressure, setting off a stationary wave in the atmosphere that arcs in a great circle from the tropical Pacific toward Greenland before turning back over the Atlantic.
“Along this wave train there are warm spots where the air has been pushed down, and cold spots where the air has been pulled up,” Wallace said. “And Greenland is in one of the warm spots.”
In previous studies, Wallace and Battisti have documented the existence of decades-long climate variations in the Pacific Ocean that resemble the well-known shorter-range El Niño variations.
This particular location in the tropical Pacific may be a sweet spot for generating global atmospheric waves. A series of studies led by co-author Eric Steig, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences, working with Ding and Battisti, showed that waves starting in the same place but radiating southward are warming West Antarctica and melting the Pine Island Glacier.
Researchers can’t say for how long the tropical Pacific will remain in this state.
“Our work shows that about half of the warming signal in Greenland comes from the predictable part – forcing of climate by anthropogenic greenhouse gases – but about half comes from the unpredictable part,” Steig said.
This makes shorter-term forecasts difficult, but helps scientists to make more accurate long-range projections.
“Nothing we have found challenges the idea that globally, glaciers are retreating,” Battisti said. “We looked at this place because the warming there is really remarkable. Our findings help us to understand on a regional scale how much of what you see is human-induced by the buildup of CO2, and how much of it is natural variability.”
The dramatic message of “Chasing Ice” remains true, authors say.
“There’s nothing in this paper that negates the message in the movie,” Wallace said. “Ice appears to be exquisitely sensitive to the buildup of greenhouse gases, more than we ever would have thought.” Natural variations could either accelerate or decelerate the melting rate of Greenland’s glaciers in coming decades, he said, but “in the long run, the human-induced component is likely to prevail.”
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, UW’s Quaternary Research Center, the National Basic Research Program of China and the APEC Climate Center. Other co-authors are Lei Geng at the UW; Ailie Gallant at Australia’s Monash University; and Hyung-Jin Kim at South Korea’s APEC Climate Center.
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For more information, contact Ding at [email protected], Wallace at 206-543-7390 or [email protected], Battisti at 206-543-2019 or [email protected], and Steig at 206-685-3715 or [email protected].
NSF grant numbers: OPP 1043092, ATM 1122989.Senate Republicans are threatening openly to throw up their hands and let Democrats vote to raise the debt limit on their own if President Obama doesn’t cave and agree to trillions of dollars in entitlement cuts and zero tax increases. Here’s how NRSC chairman John Cornyn (R-TX) put it, speaking to reporters Tuesday:
“I am wondering if as the deadline approaches, whether our Democratic colleagues in the Senate have realized that unless the President’s willing to do a grand bargain that’s good for the American people how much he’s opening his own political party — candidates running for 2012 in the United States Senate — to a referendum on his failure to reach a grand bargain,” Cornyn said. “Obviously if it’s possible to deal with the spending problem and the entitlement reforms, that’s our first choice. But if the President and his party refuse to do the right thing, then in the Senate they’re going to be required to vote to raise the debt limit and we’ll have a referendum in 2012 on that decision. I don’t think if I were a senator on the other side of the aisle I would view that prospect with a lot of pleasure.”
Translation: give us what we want, or we’ll leave it to you to avoid default, then spend the next year and a half running against you on the grounds that you voted to give President Obama a blank check for massive government spending.That wouldn’t be true. But it doesn’t have to be for Republicans’ political purposes. Raising the debt limit polls about as high as razor-wire chewing gum. And whereas in the Senate the responsibility for raising it lies with the Democrats, in the House it’s up to the GOP leadership. So this is either a different recipe for defaulting on the debt, or a turf-protecting way of passing the buck to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).
Everyone knows Boehner is stuck between the absolute imperative that Congress raise the debt limit, and the highly partisan demands of his caucus, which won’t vote to allow the country to borrow more money without simultaneously cutting a big hole into the social safety net. For weeks, that put him in the middle of the legislative food fight.
But as House GOP demands escalated, and after Boehner’s top negotiator, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), walked out of debt negotiations last week, the Senate is now the center of the action. And the dynamic on that side of the Capitol is very different.
In some ways, it’s tougher for Democrats over here. And it’s hard to see an easy way out of it for them.A native New Zealand Falcon is being used for pest control and the University of Canterbury.
A trained falcon has chased away more than half the pigeons from the University of Canterbury – and another bird may be on the way.
The university and falcon trainers want to get that number up to 100 per cent. Meanwhile, Lincoln University is looking at getting in on the deal.
Tappe the karearea, or New Zealand falcon, was born in captivity and hand-raised by the Marlborough Falcon Conservation Trust.
Grant Matthew Rob Lawry with a New Zealand Falcon.
It got a job in humane pest control at the university late last year in a bid to clear mess-making and disease-spreading pigeons from campus, particularly around the history building.
READ MORE:
* University of Canterbury hopes falcon will curb pigeon problem
* Karearea looks mint on new $20 bill
* Rehabilitated New Zealand falcon released in New Plymouth
* Karearea could be pet pigeon killer
Handler Rob Lawry said Tappe had reduced the three or four flocks that haunted the campus to one or two.
Grant Matthew Falconer Rob Lawry with a New Zealand Falcon which he has been flying at Canterbury University as part of a pigeon control programme.
"We haven't managed to completely eliminate pigeons from the university... That last flock is pretty hard to get rid of."
Lawry said it was a tough job for one falcon, especially as Tappe was a 300-gram male, and pigeons were at the "very top" of what he might hunt in the wild.
The conservation trust is training a 620g female karearea, who may join Tappe in the next couple of months.
DEAN KOZANIC Hundreds of pigeons are plaguing the University of Canterbury campus.
Tappe flies at the university three times a week. The flights were recently changed from dawn to dusk, which seemed to be more effective.
Because karearea were low flyers – unlike traditional high-flying pest deterrents like peregrines – trainers had to train the bird to fly higher.
If the falcon was in the sky above the pigeons, they saw it and made themselves scarce.
Tappe loved his work, Lawry said. "He gets real excited. It's something fun for him to do."
It was great for the trust, he said, because the university paid for the service, and because of the opportunity to educate people about the threatened species.
The rare endemic karearea is often confused with the more common harrier hawk, which is found throughout Australasia and the South Pacific. The Department of Conservation estimates there are only 5000 to 8000 karearea spread around New Zealand.
A University of Canterbury spokesperson would not say how much it spent on the initiative, citing commercial sensitivity because of a review of the deal at the end of the year.
Lawry said Lincoln University had indicated its interest in using a karearea to deter pigeons. That task would be easier with just one building to clear.Feast your eyes on this motherfucker – 1964 Hallett Barron v-drive. So, so, cool. Where do I start?
Let’s begin with the monkey pod plywood hull. Now I’ve never heard of monkey pod before, let alone know it’s a rare rain forest wood. To me a monkey pod sounds like a crazy place an ape stores its valuables. Alas, to see it on this boat is magnificent, the grain is striking and a perfect match for any type of wooden racer.
Moving beyond the monkey pod, take a look at that massive Chrysler 440 V8 wedge motor. No specs on horsepower, but who cares, it’s just fun to look at – braided lines, vintage Mickey Thompson aluminum finned valve covers, double carbs poking up with intakes that resemble knight helmets who use the giant headers as jousting sticks.
The tuck and rolled glitter red over white interior is an absolute perfect match to the rest of this Hallett’s style. I would actually get some sort of creepy pleasure pain out of burning my ass on the red seats in the scorching sun.
Top this whole package off with a matching pearlescent white tandem axle trailer with white walls and all I can do is try to figure out how to lift this entire boat through the picture window into my living room for permanent display. This Hallett Barron can be yours with some aggressive bidding on eBay where it’s currently creeping up on $26,000 (reserve not met) in Mooresville, North Carolina.Despite widespread opposition from food safety, environmental and watchdog groups, as well as health professionals and concerned consumers, the USDA has paved the way for the commercial use of genetically engineered crops dubbed "Agent Orange" corn and soybeans.
In its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) released Friday, the agency said that its "preferred" option for Dow AgroSciences' "Enlist" corn and soybean, genetically engineered (GE) to be resistant to the herbicide 2,4-D, is to deregulate them.
2,4-D, the third most widely used herbicide in the U.S., is made by Dow Chemical, and was a component of Agent Orange. The herbicide has been linked to Parkinson's, birth defects, reproductive problems, and endocrine disruption.
Critics say that green-lighting these two genetically engineered crops will expand the use of toxic herbicides at the expense of public and environmental health, while padding the coffers of he pesticide industry.
"'Agent Orange crops' are designed to survive a chemical assault with 2,4-D. They will increase the use of toxic pesticides in industrial agriculture while providing absolutely no benefit to consumers," said Center for Food Safety executive director Andrew Kimbrell.
Some see a cautionary tale from Monsanto's Roundup Ready crops, which led to an increased use of glyphosate and the creation of "super weeds."
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"USDA is propelling American agriculture further down a path of increased dependence on older, more toxic pesticides."
—Patty Lovera, Food and Water Watch"When Dow Chemical and Monsanto first brought out GE crops, they assured us their new, expensive seeds would clean up our environment and reduce pesticide use. That didn’t happen," said Iowa corn and soybean farmer George Naylor. "Today weeds are resistant to Roundup and many farmers are using older, more deadly pesticides to kill them. 2,4-D corn and soybeans just keep us on the same old pesticide treadmill; it’s a terrible idea."
This "pesticide treadmill" means profits for the industry.
"GE herbicide-resistant seeds are clearly the growth engine powering the pesticide industry," stated Pesticide Action Network senior scientist, Marcia Ishii-Eiteman. "These seeds are part of a technology package explicitly designed to drive up herbicide sales."
Critics also charge that the likely approval means the USDA is abdicating its duty to the American public.
"By continuing to rubber-stamp its approval of Dow and Monsanto’s latest products, USDA has abandoned its responsibility to safeguard American farmers’ crops, health and livelihoods," Ishii-Eiteman added.
The likely approval of the crops, said Food & Water Watch assistant director Patty Lovera, means the "USDA is propelling American agriculture further down a path of increased dependence on older, more toxic pesticides."
__________________Three Cheers for Globalism!
The defining epithet of the Age of Trump is “globalist.” This is the all-purpose term of abuse that the president and his most fervent supporters hurl at anyone who dissents from their populist agenda. During last year’s campaign, Donald Trump tweeted that the choice was “between Americanism” and Hillary Clinton’s “corrupt globalism.” His former strategist Steve Bannon, who thinks that “the globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia,” was said to call economic advisor Gary Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs, “Globalist Gary.” An National Security Council aide was fired by national security advisor H.R. McMaster after circulating a memo claiming that Trump is threatened by an unholy coalition of “globalists” along with “‘deep state’s actors,” “bankers,” “Islamists,” and “establishment Republicans.” (It would be fun to imagine a meeting of all these Trump enemies.)
It’s about time that someone spoke up for “globalism,” a term that is only insulting if you don’t ponder the alternatives. Sure, globalism has its downsides. But what, one wonders, is the opposite of globalism? Provincialism? Tribalism? Nationalism? None is appealing.
Provincialism, the dictionary tells us, is “the way of life or mode of thought characteristic of the regions outside the capital city of a country, especially when regarded as unsophisticated or narrow-minded.” That’s a pretty good description of Trump and his followers but presumably not one that they would embrace — no doubt they see this definition as emblematic of the disdain in which they are held by cosmopolitan elites.
Tribalism? That’s what gave us the genocide in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and what is today responsible for the slaughter in Syria and Yemen and the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar. It is even leading to violence in Spain, where the national police cracked heads to stop a Catalan independence referendum. And, as Andrew Sullivan notes in a brilliant essay for New York magazine, tribalism is poisoning the political climate in America.
Nationalism? That’s the ideology championed in the past by German and Japanese militarists and today by dictators in, among other places, Moscow, Beijing, Caracas, Harare, Ankara, and Pyongyang. A diluted form of nationalism can be benign, but the 200-proof variety has been responsible for at least as many atrocities as tribalism, an ideology from which it is often indistinguishable.
What horrors, by contrast, has globalism given us? If you listen to the ravings of Trump’s crazier backers, you might imagine that the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission have unleashed hordes of stormtroopers in black helicopters to squelch our liberties, while George Soros, the Rothschilds, and other “international bankers,” who just happen to be Jewish, are ravaging our economy. There is a long tradition of such conspiracy-mongering on the far-right fringe, dating back to 19th-century paranoia about the Freemasons, the Catholic Church, the queen of England, and — a consistent theme — Jewish bankers. (Sadly, anti-Semitism never goes out of style.)
Needless to say, these conspiracy theories are nuts. I’ve worked at the Council on Foreign Relations for 15 years and have yet to see a single black helicopter landing on the rooftop. I’ve never even witnessed a discussion of how to destroy American sovereignty. People who believe such things are likely also to believe that aliens are communicating with them through their tooth fillings. Reasoning with them is impossible. But there are also milder forms of anti-globalist prejudice, and for those who hold such views, it is worth pointing out how benign the actual record of globalization has been.
In centuries past, it is true, globalization was often achieved at sword’s point or gunpoint: empires such as those of the Mongols, Ottomans, Spanish, British, and French brought disparate peoples and cultures into close contact by spreading their own imperial rule. But since the 19th century, the dominant means of globalization has been free trade and free migration — the voluntary movement of goods and peoples.
There was a great wave of globalization prior to 1914 when millions of people emigrated from the Old World to the New, and goods and investments flowed across the globe. By one estimate, foreign assets in 1914 accounted for a greater percentage of world GDP than at any point until 1985. The result was a vast improvement in the lifestyle enjoyed by ordinary men and women in the Western world. Sounding very much like a forerunner of Jeff Bezos, John Maynard Keynes wrote that in 1914, “The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole Earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep.”
This was also the era when the ancestors of many of today’s Americans — including Donald Trump and Steve Bannon — arrived on our shores: Trump’s family came from Germany and Bannon’s from Ireland. In those days, borders were so porous that no passports, visas, or background checks were required. If borders had been as tightly policed then as they are today, the “wretched refuse” of Europe would never have washed up on our “teeming shore,” and we would not be the nation that we are today.
The heyday of globalism looks all the better compared to what came next. World War I, followed by the isolationism, protectionism, and illiberalism of the interwar period, destroyed that fin de siècle golden age and ushered in a world of unimaginable horrors. Only after the deaths of more than 100 million people (the combined death tolls of two world wars) did a new age of globalism grow out of the rubble. The United States took the lead in bringing this about by creating institutions such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (forerunner of the World Trade Organization) to reduce trade barriers and institutions such as the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to keep the collective peace. With American encouragement, Europeans decided for a change to cooperate rather than to fight, leading to the creation, successively, of the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community, and then, in 1993, the European Union. Major Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, and China more jealously guarded their sovereignty, but they also integrated into the world economy rather than pursue autarchic policies as they had in the past.
The result of these trends has been an unprecedented decrease in wars and an increase in wealth creation. Steven Pinker of Harvard and Joshua Goldstein of American University report that between 1950 and 2011, the global death rate from wars fell from 22 per 100,000 people to 0.3, before rising to 1.4 in 2014 as a result of the Syrian civil war, the spread of the Islamic State, and other conflicts. But even that elevated rate is far below what humanity has had to endure throughout most of its bloody history prior to the post-1945 era, when wars of aggression have been checked by international law backed up by Western military might.
Meanwhile, Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina of Oxford calculate that the percentage of the global population living in extreme poverty has declined from 84 percent in 1820 to 16 percent in 2010 — and it’s still falling. (They estimated it would have fallen below 10 percent by 2015.) This isn’t all or even mainly the doing of globalization — technological developments such as the Industrial Revolution and the Green Revolution deserve the lion’s share of the credit — but globalization has played an important role in spreading innovations to those who need them. The world would be even richer today were it not for the dark period between 1914 and 1945 when globalization went into reverse.
Granted, globalism can have negative side effects — it can be exploited by terrorists and criminals, and it can be disruptive to traditional communities, whether villages in Africa or industrial towns in Appalachia. It is legitimate to create social welfare and education programs to ameliorate the impact of these changes on workers who risk being left behind.
But globalism is not a nefarious plot to destroy sovereignty, as Trumpkins seem to imagine. University of London professor Or Rosenboim, who has written a book on the subject, notes that “globalism has long allowed a place for nationalism and national sovereignty while suggesting that some human needs and practices transcended national borders.” Transnational issues include the promotion of trade and the battle against human-rights violations, disease, poverty, terrorism, and criminal cartels. That there is more international cooperation than there used to be in all these areas is not, as Trump imagines, a plot against America but rather a plot by America to enhance its own well-being — and that of its allies and trade partners.
While globalism can be disruptive and difficult to deal with in the short term — it destroys some jobs and creates others — its long-run effects are hugely beneficial. The foremost threat we face today is that globalism may once again go into reverse as it did in 1914, because the United States — for so many decades its foremost champion — may now, under Trump, become a hindrance rather than a help to transnational trade and cooperation.
Photo credit: Johannes Simon/Getty ImagesWhile the final verdict will come on the field, the business side of Toronto FC's ongoing rehaul is probably as good as it gets given the circumstances.
The arrival of U.S. international striker Jozy Altidore and Italian playmaker Sebastian Giovinco, whose signing is imminent according to a source, means that star midfielder and team lynchpin Michael Bradley is surrounded by young, committed talent locked up for the next four years.
Altidore is 25. Bradley and Giovinco are 27.
Real Betis defender Damien Perquis, a 30-year-old French-born Poland international, remains on the Toronto radar.
Jermain Defoe is back in England, no longer a talented but confusing distraction looking to go home.
On the financial front, there has been confusion over the exact nature of the Altidore-Defoe swap between Sunderland and Toronto.
While Toronto portrayed the deal as a swap with cash considerations, Sunderland told a different story.
"It's a straight player-for-player swap, no transfer fee involved," a Sunderland spokesman told The Canadian Press.
Asked about terms of the transfer, Toronto GM Tim Bezbatchenko told a news conference introducing Altidore on Friday that he was not permitted to disclose the details.
The Canadian Press has learned the deal is slightly more complicated than the pithy Sunderland summary.
Toronto gets two friendlies for free. And a source confirmed there is a bonus system tied into the number of games played by Altidore and Defoe for their new clubs.
With Altidore expected to miss Toronto games during the Gold Cup slated for July 7-26 — Toronto has four league games scheduled in July — and Defoe facing Cup as well as league play, Toronto expects to come out the better of that deal.
TFC to net $3 million
The friendlies and bonus system are expected to net Toronto $3 million US.
And there are an estimated savings of $9 million on the cost of Defoe versus Altidore over the next three years. The MLS Players Union listed Defoe's salary at $6.18 million last season. A source says Altidore's base figure in Toronto starts with a four.
With Giovinco joining Altidore and Bradley as designated players, it looks like Brazilian striker Gilberto will be the odd man out unless something changes. Clubs are currently allowed three DPs although there is the hope that may go up to four, possibly with a variation of the young DP designation.
Since Giovinco is approaching the end of his contract, Toronto does not have to pay a transfer fee. It also means the Italian won't be available to Major League Soccer until July 1.
Thanks to that delay, Toronto's payroll will be a tad less in 2015 than 2014. Defoe plus Gilberto ($1.2 million last season) is more than Altidore and a half-season of Giovinco.
The numbers will be much higher in 2016 but TFC hopes an expanded, improved BMO Field will help pay for the bigger ticket.
There are other caveats.
It's become clear in recent months that MLS, facing worldwide competition including leagues with better credentials, has to over-pay to get top talent to come to North America.
Defoe's original transfer fee to MLS was a reported $10 million. Altidore reportedly Sunderland cost about the same.
But given Altidore's recent scoring slump, he would likely carry a smaller price-tag today that Defoe, a proven Premier League goal-scorer. Toronto also had a lucrative cash offer from another team on the table.
Here's guessing that if Toronto could have unloaded Defoe for more and bought Altidore for less in separate transactions, it would have done so.
Sunderland wanted more production up front. Toronto needed to unload Defoe and get a replacement striker. Hence the deal.
And Bradley, who is clearly driving the TFC bus these days, was on board for Altidore. That should be good news for TFC fans given Bradley's statement last November.
"The goal here is to not just scrape through a season and maybe make the playoffs and maybe not on the last day," Bradley said. "Yeah, we want to make the playoffs but there's much more to it. And to do that, to get to where we want to be, we need more good players and we need more winners, leaders, competitors — guys who come in every day ready to spill everything they have into it."WAVES Weekly No. 20
Waves Platform Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 6, 2016
Development Update
In the following days, we will be releasing the updated Lite client, which will make token facilities available to every user on mainnet. This is the foundation of fiat gateways and further business development, a great milestone to reach. You can always download the latest version from https://wavesplatform.com. Please do not download the client from other sources for security reasons. The other option is to download the standalone Chrome app, which will automatically update as new versions are released. Many users will find this more convenient and straightforward.
In parallel to the development of Lite client, we released updated version of testnet, with new storage structure and API improvements.
If you would like to run a full node on mainnet, you can find the latest release at https://github.com/wavesplatform/Waves/releases/tag/v0.3.4. Any user can run a node, but you will need at least 10,000 WAVES to generate blocks. You can read the installation guide here.
New Developers
It is with great pleasure that we introduce three new team members that have recently joined the team:
Ilya Smagin(@ismagin) — Experienced in building, extending, and re-engineering one of large bank systems, developing gateway connectors to multiple liquidity providers and backend post-trade matching/processing. A developer with 7 years of experience, strong computer science and algorithms background.
Sergey Tolmachev(@tolsi) — Participated for more than 4 years in the development of backend applications for the Web, Big Data and FinTech projects using Scala. Prior to that, he used a number of languages, methods and approaches to software development.
Alexey Koloskov(@koloale) — A software developer with more than 12 years experience in different Internet, Telecom and Banking areas. He has broad experience in developing and leading full-fledged mobile and web applications from the ground up. In his everyday work, he always tries to use cutting-edge technologies and is willing to learn new programming languages and tools.
Russian Fintech Meetup №2
This week Waves attended the second fintech meetup held at the Digital October Center in Moscow, where Waves has its offices. The theme was trading in the era of bots and cryptocurrencies. Sasha delivered a talk entitled ‘Cryptocurrency: new perspectives for trading’, and there were further presentations and discussions in the areas of big data, blockchain and machine learning.
Waves also held the second round of its {pro}fintech incubator at the HSE. The programme aims to help attendees develop blockchain products for financial applications, particularly for banks and their customers. These include personal finance management systems, p2p-services, investment systems and other fintech products.
Business Development
Now that CAT functions are available,
|
1700 B.C. – 2021), known under the names Curtis Knox[1] in 1958, Sasha Mahnovski[2] in 1975, was a former ancient Egyptian priest in the service of Ramses II who became ambitious and desired power for himself. He was also in love with the priestess Chay-Ara, but she only had eyes for Prince Khufu, and when Hath-Set learned of this, he was consumed with jealous rage.
After Hath-Set attempted to murder the lovers, all three of them were exposed to a mutative element during a meteor shower, which was actually a product of futuristic technology from the planet Thanagar; as a result, Chay-Ara and Khufu were reincarnated each time they died, and Hath-Set developed the powers of regeneration, as well as that of immortality, supposedly with the condition that he would kill both the priestess and prince in each lifetime they lived in order to maintain his powers, although it appeared that the "curse" was misinterpreted in one way or another, as no future incarnation of Chay-Ara resurfaced after Kendra Saunders became a time-traveler, while Khufu's eventual reincarnation Scythian Torvil served Hath-Set as a loyal servant.
At some point, Hath-Set assumed the name "Vandal Savage" and began his lifelong quest to kill each of his enemies' incarnations in each lifetime, managing to do so 206 times over the next 4000 years to maintain his own immortality.
Savage became more ambitious and sought not to only rule Egypt, but the entire world, and over the course of time gradually began to manipulate world leaders into starting wars to prime the world for his own eventual rule. In the Pre-Flashpoint timeline, Vandal succeeds in conquering the world by 2166, leaving billions dead and the future of Earth-1 in peril. Vandal also had a deep hatred for Rip for trying to murder him in the past and has made it one of his life's missions to get revenge on his foe. He was being pursued through time by Rip Hunter and his team, who were attempting to stop his reign of terror before it began. However, while in the process of attempting to reset the timeline, he was rendered mortal and made vulnerable by the meteorite, and was, with Scythian's help, fatally stabbed by Kendra Saunders before being electrocuted by Rip Hunter in 2021, set on fire by Mick Rory in 1958, and had his neck snapped by Sara Lance in 1975.
Contents show]
Biography
Ancient Egypt
Hath-Set was born in the Middle Kingdom of Egypt at some point before 1700 B.C. and became a priest and advisor to Pharaoh Ramses II. However, Hath-Set secretly despised the pharaoh and desired his power. As the priest, it was Hath-Set's job to make offerings to the Egyptian god Horus, along with the Priestess Chay-Ara, and spare the land of his wrath from the celestial rocks (meteors). Hath-Set fell in love with Chay-Ara, but she was in love with the pharaoh's son, Prince Khufu.
One day, Hath-Set was attacked by an assassin he'd nickname "Gareeb", who managed to overpower him and hold a knife to his throat, but hesitated and Hath-Set fought back. Hath-Set was able to stall Gareeb long enough for the guards to apprehend him, and questioned him, demanding to know his name. He imprisoned the assassin in a cell and starved him for weeks but Gareeb refused to tell Hath-Set anything. Hath-Set confronted his prisoner demanding answers, but Gareeb only defended his actions, saying that he was saving the future. Hath-Set merely replied that the meteorites would destroy the kingdom and Gareeb along with it. Soon afterwards, Gareeb was able to escape. The details of how would boggle Hath-Set's mind for centuries. However, Hath-Set never forgot the man's face and would pass down the story of this assassin to his cults one day who considered him a devil to Hath-Set's story.[3]
One day, after addressing Ramses II on the meteors and the dangers they posed, Hath-Set witnessed Chay-Ara and Khufu kissing and became consumed with rage towards them both. The following day, Hath-Set walked into Chay-Ara's bed chambers, where he saw her and Khufu together and attacked them. He fatally stabbed Khufu before stabbing Chay-Ara. As both lay dying, another storm of meteors fell from the sky and began laying waste to the kingdom. Hath-Set prayed to the gods for Khufu and Chay-Ara to suffer, whilst Chay-Ara prayed for Horus' protection. Their prayers were both fulfilled as the meteors possessed a special radiation, which affected the three of them, giving them their own forms of immortality. Hath-Set was granted immortality via cellular regeneration while Khufu and Chay-Ara's became immortal via reincarnation, a fact Hath-Set wasn't aware of for some time. However objects in the general area of the meteor collision were also affected, including the Amon Dagger and Chay-Ara's bracelet, and absorbed the same power and remain the only objects that can kill Hath-Set, but only if used by Chay-Ara as their rightful owner and no one else. At some point Hath-Set abandoned his name and adopted the new identity "Vandal Savage".[4]
Next 4000 years
Some time in the next two decades, Savage discovered that Chay-Ara had reincarnated but retained no memory of her previous life, her lover Khufu or even her real name. Much to Savage's joy this version of Chay-Ara fell in love with him and they lived happily together for years without knowing he was the very man who killed her. At some point however, Savage discovered that Khufu had also reincarnated and found Chay-Ara and helped her remember who she really was. Following this, Chay-Ara left Savage and returned to Khufu's side and Savage murdered them both, but Savage also discovered that upon their deaths, their life force transferred to him and maintained his youth. After realizing that upon their deaths, Khufu and Chay-Ara would reincarnate in new lives in a never-ending cycle, Savage began hunting them in order to maintain his immortality.[4]
For 4000 years, Savage hunted down every reincarnation of Khufu and Chay-Ara, killing them in all of their reincarnations, and by the 21st century, would achieve this 206 times. Vandal also grew ambitious and desired dominion over the entire planet, but knew the current resources of his time were insufficient to achieve such a goal, so he secretly began influencing various figures of authority into war to further the development of weapons and scientific technologies and prime the world for his eventual rule.[4]
Vandal became associated with Julius Caesar and guided him through the Gallic Wars, which he most likely had a hand in causing. He claims to have known Tacitus well and that his work and quotes have been misquoted over the centuries. and later met Genghis Khan, whom Savage served as his most trusted advisor.[5] Vandal was also taught how to resist pain by Robin of Locksley while in turn, Vandal taught Robin the skills of archery. Vandal was also been compared to Machiavelli and Nostradamus.[4]
1800s
Around 1831, Savage encountered the current incarnations of Khufu, now Hannibal Hawkes, and Chay-Ara, though her name at the time is unknown, and stole back Chay-Ara's original bracelet. Sometime later, Savage caught up to them and murdered Hannibal while his wife managed to escape but lived out the rest of her life alone until her death sometime after 1871.[6]
At some point while hunting down the next incarnations of Khufu and Chay-Ara, Vandal traveled to China in 1887 but for reasons unclear, encountered difficulty and instead caused the Yellow River to flood trying to kill Khufu and Chay-Ara and succeeded, whilst also killing 2 million other civilians.[5]
In Victorian London, Savage received tutorage from Jack the Ripper on how to dissect a body.[3] A few years later Vandal met Harry Houdini and taught him as a magician.[5]
1910-1930
In 1914, Vandal met and manipulated Gavrilo Princip into assassinating Franz Ferdinand which led to World War I.[4]
In 1925, Vandal hunted the latest incarnations of Khufu and Chay-Ara, Joe and Edith Boardman, who had already spent years running from Savage. Vandal found them in the middle of the night at a rundown motel in North Carolina and murdered Joe and Edith in the hotel they were staying in, unaware they had a son, Aldus, who was hiding in the closet and who would spend his whole life studying the story of Khufu, Chay-Ara and Hath-Set in the hopes of one day achieving vengeance for his parents.[7]
1950s
Around 1950, he became a close friend of Joseph Stalin. In exchange for his tactical knowledge, Savage was taught how to successfully torture a person and was given a unique torture device as a gift.[8]
Before 1958, Savage left the U.S.S.R. and moved to Harmony Falls, Oregon. He assumed the name "Curtis Knox" and fabricated an identity as a psychiatrist, seeking employment at the local insane asylum. He soon became the head of Hallway H, a top secret wing of the facility that Savage would use to focus on highly dangerous experimentation. During this time, he also married a woman named Gail, and the two lived together in a residential neighborhood.[1]
One night he felt a meteor calling to him, drawn to its landing site because it was comprised of the same compounds that granted him immortal life. Several teenagers came across the meteor as well, after one couple crashed their car along the side of the road next to the meteor while drag racing. He abducted several of the teens with the help of the local sheriff and took them to Hallway H, giving his newly acquired test subjects concentrated doses of Nth metal from the meteor in an effort to recreate his immortality. He only succeeded in turning them into monstrous bird-like creatures, reminiscent of the physical manifestation of Chay-Ara's and Khufu's abilities.
A week later, Rip Hunter's team arrived in Harmony Falls, investigating a string of violent murders that they believed Savage was behind. Kendra and Ray, posing as a married couple, unknowingly moved into the house across the street from Savage, believing that doing so would help them better establish their presence in the community so that they could discover what had really transpired.[1]
A week later, Savage sensed Chay-Ara's supposed current reincarnation Kendra Saunders when she and her "husband" Raymond Palmer moved into the neighborhood, and later that night, Savage and Gail visited Kendra and Raymond, offering a casserole as a welcoming gift. However Kendra didn't appear to remember her past with Savage but Savage remained open to the possibility she could be faking it. Feigning ignorance, he invited them to a mixer that he was holding that night at his home, where he began to flirt with Kendra in an attempt to learn how much she knew. He was shortly called back to the asylum when one of his monsters attacked and killed an orderly. The next day, he came home to find that his private office had been broken into and that the Amon Dagger had been stolen from a chest of his possessions, and realized that Kendra did remember her past lives and was planning on killing him. That night, Savage again allowed his experiments to roam the town. Tommy Fuller, one of the teenagers from the meteor crash site, ended up attacking his girlfriend and Jefferson Jackson while the two were out on a date. The sheriff, still under the employ of Savage, kidnapped Jefferson and took him to Hallway H, where Savage injected him with the Nth serum. He was soon called away by a staff member at the asylum, who informed him that Kendra was awaiting him in his office. Though she presented herself as wanting to continue their discussion from the night before, Savage knew what she was plotting and discreetly stole the dagger from her purse while she was trying in vain to distract him. As Kendra tried to reach for the dagger, Savage dropped the act and attempted to kill her with it, but Ray blasted Savage out the window using a gauntlet from his A.T.O.M. suit.[1]
1963
In 1963, Vandal was present in the crowds in Dallas the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated implying he possibly had a role in his death.[4]
1975
In 1975, Savage was located at St. Roch under the alias "Sasha Mahnovski". Savage had set himself up in a rich mansion, where he kept numerous artifacts collected through the ages including the dagger, and commanded a sizable militia of terrorists.[2]
Seeking one of the Thanagarian meteorites from a rival terrorist organization, Savage traveled to Norway to acquire it, but the organization refused to give it unless he had enough money. Agreeing to their terms, Savage traveled to Norway, stole a prototype nuclear warhead from the military, and explained to his men that humanity only furthers their cause during times of strife, such an example being splitting the atom, which wasn't even thought of until World War II occurred. Savage then put this warhead on sale at the black market, which attracted the most notorious of terrorist organizations, including Damien Darhk of H.I.V.E.. As the potential buyers placed their bids, Savage sensed the presence of Khufu and Chay-Ara nearby, and sold the nuke to a newcomer, Professor Martin Stein, whom neither Savage or Darhk was familiar with. At that moment, Savage begun to suspect Stein wasn't a terrorist and offered a 25% discount to whomever killed him and his companions. At that point Stein's companions Leonard Snart/Captain Cold, Mick Rory/Heat Wave and Sara Lance/White Canary attacked Savage's men and were soon joined by Firestorm and a younger version of Ray than the one encountered in 1958, and the five laid all out war to Savage's men. Amidst his awe, Vandal was confronted by Carter Hall/Hawkman and Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl, Khufu and Chay-Ara's future incarnations, though this Kendra was a younger version of the one encountered in 1958. Savage activated the nuke to distract the others and give himself the chance to escape. Before leaving, Savage killed the terrorists he'd planned to repay with the profit earned from the sale and re-located the meteorite.[2]
The auction was not a complete loss as Savage's men managed to obtain a piece of Ray's suit and began reverse-engineering its mechanisms to develop weapons, while Savage discussed the incident with his right-hand man and deduced that the attackers had technology unheard of and they must be from the future. Savage ordered his engineers to discover the mechanisms of the suit within 24 hours. When one of them expressed doubts, Vandal used the piece of technology to blast the engineer and threatened to do the same to the rest if they failed.[2]
Later that evening, Savage discovered that Leonard, Mick and Ray had broken into his mansion, and Snart and Ray had been caught in a trap in his gallery room. Savage found Mick and held him at gunpoint, then demanded Leonard call his companions and order them to come face him. Savage grew tired of waiting and was moments away from killing Mick, until Firestorm intervened. Though he blasted Savage, he recognized him as Jefferson Jackson from 1958 and a large fight between Savage's men and the Legends broke out outside his mansion. Whilst attempting to flee, Savage was confronted by Hawkman and Hawkgirl, with Hawkman wielding the blade that murdered their first incarnations and the two fought. Hawkman managed to impale Savage with it, only for Savage to be unharmed and turn the blade on him and stabbed him in the heart. Savage reminded a dying Hawkman that the blade belongs to Hawkgirl and she is the only one that can wield it against him. When Carter died, his life force was transferred to Savage and a vengeful Kendra attempted to avenge him, but was hopelessly outmatched against Savage and was stabbed in the chest. As he moved in on her, he confessed how much he truly loved her but reminded her they are bound by a curse of life and death that will forever separate them. Before he could deliver the fatal blow, Atom blasted Savage away and they were able to escape with her alive. Just before being blasted, Savage recognized the team's leader as Gareeb.[2]
Savage took Carter's body to his followers in Africa to perform the ritual to give them all an extra hundred years of life using his blood. Before he began, he was interrupted by the arrival of Sara and his archenemy Gareeb, Rip Hunter. Savage remarked on their previous encounter in Egypt but questioned Rip as to why he was trying to kill him, and why he despised him so much. Savage then searched Rip and found a locket watch with a photo of his wife and child and quickly deduced that he must have killed them in the future, and expressed excitement towards this notion. Savage then demonstrated the ritual to Rip and Sara by bleeding Carter's body into a goblet and drinking from it, increasing his own lifespan further and passed the cup to his followers and increased their own lifespan.[3]
The meeting was interrupted by the arrival of Leonard, Mick, and Jax, who immediately attacked Savage's followers. Rip and Sara were able to get loose too and took part in the counterattack. Savage, enraged, used the Amon Dagger to channel his powers and blast them with a large beam that also caused a shockwave then applied to the floor. However, he was attacked by Rip who managed to subdue Savage and used the dagger to cut Vandal's throat as vengeance for Miranda and Jonas, his wife and son, but unintentionally revealed their names to him. Before dying of blood loss, Savage told Rip he knew their names now and vowed that one day he would rise to power and that he'd wait until they are alive, and hunt them down and he'd kill them. Savage then temporarily died. By the time he regenerated his wounds, the others had escaped.[3]
When he regained consciousness, he realized that the only way that Gareeb was alive was time travel. He was then approached by the Time Masters. They revealed to him that in 2175, the Thanagarians, a race of warrior aliens, would decimate the planet and he would be the man who would rally humanity to stop them but offered him a deal. In exchange for a time machine and full immunity from prosecution by the council for his numerous time code violations, he would obey their orders, while benefiting himself. Savage agreed and began travelling between different periods of time to find the most suitable time period to conquer, and began acquiring future technologies and manipulating future events to prime the world for his own eventual conquest. One of his tasks was ensuring the deaths of Miranda and Jonas which Savage happily complied with.[9]
1986
For the next 11 years, Savage began focusing his efforts on creating his own version of Firestorm and defected to the Soviet Union to utilize their resources, but was unable to balance the equation of Firestorm and many test subjects died as a result. After years of failing, Savage eventually employed Russian physicist Dr. Valentina Vostok who came closer to solving the equation but still lacked the skills to achieve the final step, that Firestorm is made of two people merged into one body.[10]
After Valentina had captured Professor Stein, Ray, and Mick, Savage visited the gulag where they were being held and attempted to torture answers out of Stein, but with no result. Savage also shared stories of his old friend Joseph Stalin and the skills of torture Stalin showed him. After torturing Stein yielded no results, Savage took to torturing Ray and Mick instead, electrocuting them and eventually using a hammer on them in front of Stein. After seeing them in pain for so long, Stein finally decided to aid Savage and gave his side of the equation.[8]
Savage later returned to the prison when Rip Hunter and his team attacked it, looking for Stein and ran into Kendra. Rather than killing her, he offered her a place by his side, promising to prolong her life which she angrily declined. Before Savage could harm her, Rip encountered Savage again and demanded his locket back. Savage told Rip he'd memorized Miranda and Jonas' faces, and reminded him he would kill them, however, as Rip left he set off an explosion that temporarily killed Savage yet again.[8]
2015
29 years later in 2015, Savage stowed aboard a ship bound for Central City in his search of Chay-Ara's latest incarnation. When he was captured and about to be handed over to the CCPD, Vandal slipped his cuffs onto the ship's captain before killing him, his crew and the arresting police officer.[5] Vandal found Chay-Ara, now Kendra Saunders but an earlier version of the one previously faced in the past whose powers and memories had yet to emerge, and Cisco Ramon at CC Jitters. However, Cisco called The Flash, who quickly knocked Savage down. Savage recovered and threw a knife at Cisco. The Flash was diverted to catch the knife, enabling Savage to escape.[5]
As the Flash and Cisco took Kendra to Star City to seek the aid of Team Arrow, Savage gave pursuit. He stormed Oliver Queen's loft as both teams were celebrating. He threw a flurry of knifes at all, but as Barry attempted to catch them all, he threw an extra knife, managing to knock Barry down. He then caught the arrows shot at him and engaged Oliver Queen in close combat. He knocked him down and threw a knife which Barry caught. Oliver and Thea shot a barrage of arrows at him. He was able to block most with his fan, however, he took three to the chest and fell off of the balcony.[5]
Realizing he was outmatched, Savage returned to Central City to find the Staff of Horus. He finds the staff before the Flash and Green Arrow arrive to stop him. Utilizing the staff, he was able to keep both heroes at bay. Acknowledging them as worthy opponents, Savage was about to utilize the staff's full power when he sensed Kendra awakening her past lives. Regaining his bearings, he used the staff to destroy the church, though both of his foes managed to escape.[5]
Malcolm Merlyn, the current Ra's al Ghul, organized a meeting with Savage, along with Green Arrow and the Flash, in which Savage expressed his wish to have Carter Hall and Kendra Saunders, or he would destroy both Star City and Central City. They eventually agreed to hand them over, not knowing that they plan to use the exchange as a means to defeat him.[5]
Original timeline: During the exchange, as Savage prepared to kill Hawkgirl, Green Arrow suddenly turned on him and attacked. Savage incapacitated Green Arrow and killed Hawkman with his knives. He then killed Hawkgirl who was unable to use her wings, absorbing the life force of them both and becoming so strong that the arrows Green Arrow shot at him bounced off. Flash tried to use his staff against him, but Savage used his magic and the staff to kill Green Arrow and incinerate the city with everyone in it, including Team Arrow and Team Flash; the Flash only survived this assault by traveling back in time while trying to outrun the explosive force.
Current timeline: During the exchange, as Savage prepared to kill Hawkgirl, Green Arrow shot their bonds, freeing both Hawkman and Hawkgirl. As Green Arrow, Flash and Hawkman attacked he was distracted by Hawkgirl's sudden attack and was further tested when Black Canary, Speedy and Spartan appeared and attacked him, and together they all managed to stall Savage long enough for Flash to steal the staff. Flash used his gauntlets of Nth metal to channel the power of the Staff of Horus, but had trouble maintaining it. Green Arrow however helped Flash stabilize it and together, they blasted Vandal and turned him to dust. Malcolm later collected his remains and said that he would owe him one.[4] Due to his end not being at the hands of any of Chay-Ara's incarnations, Vandal eventually regenerated from the ashes left in his wake.
2147
By the year 2147, Savage resided in the Kasnia Conglomerate where he served as an advisor to Tor Degaton, and tutored his son Per Degaton. Savage's true aim however was the use the advanced technology of Kasnia to establish the foothold of his future empire. He also sought to use their secret weapon the "Armageddon virus" to downsize the world's population, and prime it for his own personal conquest with far less threats to contend with. To achieve this, Vandal manipulated and corrupted Per's mind, raising him to be ruthless and cold, and to one day succeed his father by murdering him and would dictate his own desires through Per. However, Vandal always sought to take power from Per when the time was right but Per truly believed Vandal considered him a son. At some point during his stay in Kasnia, he had a child named Cassandra with an unnamed woman.[11]
Altered timeline: After a meeting with Tor where Savage failed yet again to persuade him to use the virus, Per was abducted by Rip and his team. Savage met with Tor to discuss this and offered his assistance as he'd faced the abductors before. Savage lead a squad of soldiers and A.T.O.M. robots on Tor's orders to disable the Waverider but were soon faced with Atom, Hawkgirl, White Canary, Firestorm and Captain Cold. During the fight, Savage apprehended White Canary and threatened to kill her but offered to trade her in exchange for Rip, but Rip appeared and offered the same deal but in exchange for Per's life. Per begged his father not to give in and to eliminate them now, to which Savage agreed on, but Tor consented to Rip's terms, and after Per was released, so were White Canary and the team, escaping unharmed. Shortly afterwards, Savage was visited by Per whom Savage told a story from Greek mythology of a prince who was exiled by his father in fear of a prophecy foretelling the prince murdering him coming true, only for the son to survive and return years later to fulfill the prophecy. Savage then handed Per a knife and persuaded him that his father will make the same mistake and convinced him to murder his father. As a result of Tor's death Per was elected the new chairman but due to being underage, he elected Savage to be his proxy. For his first action as stand-in leader, Savage ordered the release of the Armageddon virus and killed billions, including Savage's wife. This led the planet ripe for conquest.[12]
2152
In 2152, when Per was 19, he finally succeeded his father as leader of Kasnia and, on Vandal's insistence, unleashed the Armageddon virus which killed billions of people, including Savage's wife, and leaving the world prime for conquest. When this occurred, Savage betrayed Per and murdered him to take his seat of power and become Kasnia's leader himself. Savage would make Kasnia the foothold of his future empire, however, since Rip's actions changed these events and unleashed the Armageddon virus 5 years earlier, most of these events happened in 2147 instead.
Altered timeline: While Per Degaton was at the height of his power Savage killed him to seize it for himself. This also made Savage appear as a hero to those who believed that unleashing the virus was Per Degaton's idea alone, including Cassandra.[12][11]
2166
By 2166 Savage's plans for world domination had succeeded and left billions dead. He was the dicator of the world and had legions of soldiers under his command. Savage's reign was so significant that dictators such as Julius Caesar, Adolf Hitler and Per Degaton were considered amateurs in comparison. At some point, Savage encountered the next incarnation of Khufu, Scythian Torvil, who had no memories of his past lives, his life as Carter Hall included. Savage manipulated him into serving him and became one of his most trusted soldiers. By this time he had learned much about his enemies the Legends, particularly Sara and learned her sister Laurel Lance/Black Canary had died in early 2016, and managed to deduce that Sara was from a point before this occurred.[11]
Savage was leading a rally of his troops with his daughter, Cassandra, and Scythian. By this point, he was the undisputed leader of the planet, with only a few rebels remaining. He was once again attacked by the Legends and almost captured. This drove him underground and out of reach of the Legends. They instead kidnapped his daughter and tried to ransom her. Savage instead decided to send the Leviathan, a giant peacekeeping robot, to destroy them and hundreds of innocent civilians. This, coupled with the fact that it was Savage who detonated the Armageddon virus, convinced Cassandra that her father was not a good man. She changed allegiances, giving Hunter the access codes to her father's base.[11]
She pretended to have escaped capture and returned to her father, but he realized that she was lying when she wasn't wearing her bracelet, originally belonging to Chay-Ara and one of the devices that could kill him. His base was then attacked by Hunter's cronies and Savage was confronted by his former love. They fought and she came close to killing him with a mace covered with the gold of the bracelet, until she saw that his bodyguard was Scythian. Scythian had been brainwashed into serving the immortal and Savage used this leverage to keep himself alive, since he is the only one who knows how to break the mind control.[11]
He was brought aboard the Waverider and was imprisoned. Savage spoke with Rip and mentioned how he had always wondered how Rip had escaped imprisonment four thousand years ago. Rip told him he would bring him to the Time Masters for illegal use of time travel technology. As Sara checked on him, he told her that Rip would betray her and asked if she knew how her sister Laurel was. He later talked to Ray and told him how Scythian would take Kendra away from him like he did to her in a past life. As Stein came in asking for a way to cure Jefferson, Savage tried to turn him against the others. However, Stein saw through it and left. When Ray showed up, Savage realized Kendra had left him and taunted him, telling him he was weak unlike Scythian and that is why he would not get Kendra. Ray came in and beat up Savage. Savage quickly overpowered Ray and choked him unconscious. He then retrieved his knives and freed Scythian. In the ensuing fight, Savage was able to defeat Ray, Mick, Snart, Kendra, and Rip. As he was about to kill Kendra, Scythian turned on him and attacked him. He was able to defeat Scythian and stab him with his knife but Kendra recovered and knocked him out.[13]
At the Vanishing Point, Rip brought him before the Time Masters, however, the Time Masters told Savage they would return him to 2166 and arrested Rip. Savage confronted Rip in custody and taunted him about the deaths of his family which he was now leaving to fulfill. Given access to a time ship, Savage took Kendra and Scythian with him, wanting them to see his reign come to pass before killing them. When they arrived in London in 2166 during the Second Blitz, Kendra desperately pleaded with Savage to spare Miranda and Jonas. Savage refused to listen and went after them.[13]
After killing his way through numerous rebels, Savage kept true to his promise to Rip almost 200 years ago. He found Miranda Coburn and murdered her, before confronting Jonas. After Vandal remarked how foolish Jonas's father was, he insulted the dictator, and Savage proceeded to shoot and kill the boy in cold blood. Vandal murdering Miranda and Jonas prompted the Rip Hunter of 2166 to hunt down Vandal in the past by gathering his team of heroes from the 21st century, thus repeating the cycle.[9]
Defeats and death
After killing Rip's family, Savage was contacted by a surviving Time Master who reported Zaman Druce's death and the destruction of the Time Master's facility, and informed him they could be of no more use to him. Kendra began to laugh at him believing that without the Time Masters' help, Savage's hold on the world would end, but Savage reminded her that he still had a time ship. Seeking to maintain control, Savage sought to use hers and Scythian's blood and merge it with the three meteorites in three different time periods at times when Earth and Thanagar are aligned, 1958, 1975, and 2021, causing a temporal paradox that would physically revert time back to the point of the first meteorite's impact in 1700 B.C. To achieve this, Savage went back to 1944 to retrieve the original meteor and brought it to 2021. However, he was delayed when Kendra escaped. Though Savage recaptured her, she left a message in the helmet of a soldier that Savage killed which would find its way to Rip years later. After acquiring blood samples from the two he ambushed a Nazi platoon transporting the meteorite but was opposed by White Canary, Heat Wave, Firestorm, and the Atom and though Scythian was able to escape, Kendra was still captured.[14]
After bringing the meteorite to 2021, Vandal, with Kendra as his hostage, traveled back to meet his 1958 counterpart who was on his way to find the second meteorite in Harmony Falls. The future Savage gave his past self a sample of Scythian's blood and told him to combine it with the meteorite he is seeking. Savage then went to 1975 and told his 1975 counterpart at the arms deal to do the same with the meteorite he was seeking to purchase. Savage, along with his 1958 and 1975 counterparts started the ritual. He was unaware that the radiation emitted from the meteorite during this time rendered him mortal and vulnerable to any normal means of death. While White Canary and Firestorm attacked and killed his 1975 counterpart, and Heat Wave and the Atom attacked and killed his 1958 self, the latest variation of Savage was attacked by Rip and Scythian, now donning his Hawkman suit, and Kendra was freed. After dispatching his soldiers, Hawkman held Savage in place while Kendra stabbed Savage in the heart, then Rip grabbed a dying Savage and wedged the knife in further, taunting him about his failure. However, Savage simply reminded Rip that though he might die, he failed to save the lives of his family, but Rip shoves him against the electrical breakers of the building and electrocutes him, finally ending his life before Vandal could finish his sentence.[14]
2175
Original timeline: The Thanagarians, hawk-like aliens, invade the Earth and burn the planet's resources to the ground. Savage is able to rally his troops together and drive back the aliens and is praised as a hero.[9]
Personality
"Caesar, Hitler, Per Degaton. Rank amateurs compared to Savage." —Rip Hunter to the Time Masters[src]
Vandal Savage could project a facade of civility and even friendliness, but he was cold, ruthless, brutal, and obsessed with being immortal, even if it meant killing Chay-Ara and Khufu for the rest of his life in each of the latter two's different lifetimes, regardless of how many people were caught in the crossfire, as shown when he used the Staff of Horus to vaporize Central City and everyone in it (until Barry changed the timeline so that this never happened). Savage took no restraint in avoiding killing innocent people, was totally amoral and capable of destroying two entire cities simply to drive Chay-Ara and Khufu out of hiding. Once, in an attempt to kill them, Savage even flooded the North China Plain, also ending two million lives. As he had killed Khufu and Chay-Ara 206 times in the past, Savage had become quite arrogant in the present, thinking that they were no longer a challenge for him and believing that he could defeat the combined forces of the Flash and Green Arrow by himself. Though he was almost proven right, as he did kill them all in an alternate timeline, his underestimation of their capabilities is what led to his own downfall, as his body was reduced to a pile of ash by Green Arrow and Flash using the Staff of Horus. Although, since it wasn't used against him by the right person (presumably himself, as it belonged to him in Ancient Egypt), this still didn't kill him, and he eventually returned.
Savage was also very vengeful and also had a deep love for Chay-Ara, despite the affection not being returned, and seeing her with Khufu made Vandal so consumed with rage, thus his motive for murdering them in the first place. However, Savage still expressed his love to her in each lifetime and says he always will love her, but viewed them both as tortured souls imprisoned by a circle of death and they could never be together. Savage also despised Rip Hunter for trying to murder him in Egypt and waited 4000 years to get revenge by murdering his wife and son.
Savage's ultimate goal, one he pursued his whole life, was complete subjugation of the entire planet. To achieve this, Vandal worked with the most nefarious of warlords throughout history, such as guiding Julius Caesar through the Gaelic Wars, becoming Genghis Khan's most trusted adviser, and becoming a close ally of Joseph Stalin. He also manipulated people into starting conflicts for him, such as manipulating Gavrilo Princip into starting World War I and is implied to have played a role in John F. Kennedy's assassination. The ultimate outcome of these manipulations is to further the development of weapons technologies and scientific advancements to prime the world for his own rule. He was also very egotistical, stating that he sees himself as a force of nature and a servant of will enabling destiny, trying to make it a better place at any cost regardless of how many wars it takes.
Powers and abilities
Powers
Immortality: Vandal Savage's exposure to the Thanagarian meteorite granted him immortality and as a result, he appeared to be a man in his prime, despite being technically 4000 years old. His immortality also granted him immunity to any earthly illnesses and diseases. Regeneration: A side effect of his immortality was that he is able to regenerate
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uman served from June 1, 2003 until May 20, 2011.[5]
References [ edit ]Mark Eades China’s ‘United Front’ Seeks to Undermine U.S. Support for Taiwan
China has never relied on official diplomatic means to exert influence abroad. Instead, it operates a vast, “shadowy” network of “united front” organizations in countries around the world including the United States. This network forms an integral part of China’s overseas propaganda apparatus, cooperating closely with Chinese government agencies in Beijing and with Chinese embassies and consulates abroad. Its chief aim is asserting mainland Chinese territorial claims, particularly on Taiwan, under the deceptive banner of China’s “peaceful reunification.” Other aims include controlling Chinese citizens overseas and suppressing international criticism of China’s poor human rights record.
China’s “united front” activities in the United States are likely illegal under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Enacted in 1938, FARA requires all persons or groups acting on behalf of a foreign government or other “foreign principal” in the United States to register as such in advance and regularly report their activities, particularly lobbying or propaganda activities aimed at influencing the U.S. political process or public opinion, so that any such activities are carried out openly and transparently. The bipartisan Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act, included in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, is aimed at countering such activities globally. Under international law, Chinese consular involvement in these activities is a likely violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which obliges foreign consular officials to respect the laws of the receiving state and forbids foreign consular interference in the internal affairs of the receiving state.
Unfortunately, these laws are rarely enforced, owing either to institutional negligence or to the influence of powerful multinational business interests that prefer not to disclose their activities on behalf of shady overseas interests. Former Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn have become prominent multinational poster-children for FARA non-enforcement. In the case of China, powerful multinational business interests rest on not doing anything to irritate the dictators in Beijing or to upset the apple cart for U.S.-China business operations. Powerful U.S.-China business interests depend a lot more on friendly U.S. relations with Beijing than on a free and autonomous Taiwan, not to mention human rights or the integrity of the U.S. political process.
Three primary Chinese government agencies oversee its “united front” activities abroad: The Communist Party Central Committee’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), the State Council’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO), and the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO). Nominally “non-governmental” front organizations for these agencies include the China Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification (CCPPNR), the China Overseas Exchange Association (COEA), and the China Overseas Friendship Association (COFA), all led entirely by Chinese Communist Party officials.
For example, current UFWD head, Sun Chunlan, is also president of COFA and executive vice president of CCPPNR, while OCAO head, Qiu Yuanping, is also executive vice president of COEA. CCPPNR President, Yu Zhengsheng and COEA President/CCPPNR Vice President, Han Qide, are likewise ranking Communist Party officials. In addition to his role at CCPPNR, Yu Zhengsheng is a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, the current chairman of the Communist Party-led National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPPC), and deputy director of the party-led “Taiwan Affairs Leading Small Group.”
Established under Communist Party guidance as a “united front” organization in 1988, CCPPNR currently boasts some 200 overseas chapters in 90 countries around the world, including 33 China “peaceful reunification” or “peaceful unification” associations in the United States. Despite their clear subsidiary relationship to the Chinese government, these groups are registered as domestic non-profit community organizations if legally registered at all. Their “united front” efforts are targeted primarily at ethnic Chinese communities abroad including Chinese American communities in the United States, which Beijing regards as “overseas Chinese” or “overseas compatriots” of China rather than as citizens of the countries in which they live, and upon which Beijing presumes an expectation of patriotism for the mainland Chinese “motherland.”
Chinese Orgs in the United States
Among CCPPNR-affiliated “united front” organizations in the United States is the National Association for China’s Peaceful Unification (NACPU) in Washington DC, which acts as a loose umbrella organization for similar associations in cities and regions including New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles/Southern California, and San Francisco/Northern California. Except for locality, the names in Chinese of most of these organizations are identical to that of CCPPNR in Beijing, indicating their affiliate relationship; only their English translations differ, for example: CCPPNR (Beijing): 中国和平统一促进会, NACPU (Washington DC): 美国华盛顿中国和平统一促进会, New York Association for the Peaceful Unification of China (see below): 纽约中国和平统一促进会, and the Chinese for Peaceful Unification – Northern California: 北加州中国和平统一促进会.
Like other such associations, NACPU is registered in the District of Columbia as a domestic non-profit organization despite its clear ties to Beijing. NACPU’s current president is Wu Huiqiu, a native of Wuxi in China’s Jiangsu Province who graduated from China Pharmaceutical University in Nanjing and is now a professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine. Wu is also a senior adviser to COEA and a member of the CPPPC National Committee. The NACPU website is registered under Wu’s name, telephone number, and home address in Ellicott City, Maryland. Wu has written at length on NACPU’s mission to “resolutely oppose all forms of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatism.” Given its exclusive target audience of Chinese-speaking expatriates and first-generation immigrants in the United States, NACPU’s website and most of its other public communications are in Chinese language only.
In May 2017, Wu Huiqiu led a delegation of U.S.-based “peaceful reunification” activists to Beijing and Shanghai, meeting with OCAO deputy director Tan Tianxing, Shanghai UFWD deputy minister Zhao Fuxi, and other officials. Wu’s delegation pledged to “resolutely oppose Taiwan separatist activities” and “promote the reunification of the motherland” in the United States. A DC-area “peaceful reunification forum” the same month featured an appearance by Chinese embassy minister Li Kexin, who thanked participants on behalf of the Chinese government for their work opposing Taiwan independence in America’s “overseas Chinese” community.
In December 2016, NACPU held its annual executive meeting in Washington DC. Lamenting the 2016 electoral victory of pro-independence Taiwanese president Tsai-Ing-wen, Wu Huiqiu and other NACPU leaders pledged renewed efforts to “oppose Taiwan independence” and to promote Chinese president Xi Jinping’s authoritarian “Chinese Dream” of national reunification and “rejuvenation” in the United States. In November 2016, Wu and other officers from NACPU and associated organizations attended a joint conference in San Francisco. Also in attendance were Chinese government officials including Ran Wanxiang, UFWD vice minister and vice president of COFA, who stressed the duty of “overseas Chinese” as he saw it “to foster patriotism” for the mainland Chinese “motherland” and of “serving the nation’s great cause of rejuvenation.”
In April 2016, Wu Huiqiu led a delegation of U.S.-based “peaceful reunification” activists to Beijing, meeting with Zhang Baowen, vice chairman of both CCPPNR and the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Said Zhang at the meeting, “The complete reunification of the motherland and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is the common aspiration of all the Chinese people and the fundamental task of CCPPNR and the overseas CCPPNR associations.” On the same visit Wu and his entourage met with OCAO deputy director Tan Tianxing and with Sichuan Province UFWD and CCPPNR officials. In 2015, Wu led a delegation to China and met with Guizhou Province UFWD and CCPPNR officials.
New York
Among NACPU’s sister associations in the United States is the New York Association for the Peaceful Unification of China (NYAPUC). Like NACPU, NYAPUC is registered in New York as a domestic non-profit organization. In a 2011 article for NACPU, NYAPUC’s then-vice president Zhu Lichuang (aka Michael Chu) expressed NACPU’s mission as sees it. This mission according to Zhu is to “go deep into overseas Chinese communities to promote peaceful reunification” and “build a strong team against Taiwan independence,” to “use the internet to push propaganda to Western mainstream society,” and to “build the image of a peaceful, righteous, and awakening China.”
Zhu and former NYAPUC President Hua Junxiong (aka Chuenhsiung Hua, George Hua) have made numerous appearances in state-run mainland Chinese media. In 2009, they appeared together in Beijing for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China with an article by Zhu asserting China’s claim on Taiwan for the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots, another Chinese government front organization. In 2010, they appeared together again at CCPPNR protesting President Obama’s meeting with exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. In 2012, they appeared yet again in the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily and at CCPPNR leading an anti-Japanese demonstration in New York with pro-Beijing associates Huang Zhecao and Chen Xianzhong promoting China’s claims on the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. That same year, Hua spoke at length to the state-run Global Times on his work promoting China’s territorial claims; and in 2013, Hua wrote at length at CCPPNR on his “Chinese dream” and admiration for the Chinese Communist Party.
NYAPUC’s current president is Ma Yue and its current vice president is Jiao Shengan; however, Hua Junxiong and Zhu Lichuang have continued to play leading roles in the organization. In August 2017, Ma Yue and Hua Junxiong both appeared at the UFWD website to praise the People’s Liberation Army as a defender of China’s territorial claims. Hua and Zhu Lichuang both appear at the OCAO and COEA websites as overseas COEA council members; and Zhu appears on a Guizhou provincial government website as a council member with the Guizhou provincial CCPPNR along with numerous Communist Party officials. Both have been frequently seen leading pro-China demonstrations in New York.
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Hua Junxiong is a New York realtor who appears also as Chuen-hsiung Hua, C.H. Hua, Chuean Kwa, and George Hua. Hua’s contact information appears frequently in connection with his political activities. Zhu Lichuang operates a travel agency, Asian American Global Travel, and a newspaper, the Asian American Times, in Flushing’s Chinatown in Queens. Zhu’s contact information also appears frequently in connection with his political activities. In addition to his role in NYAPUC, Zhu runs an organization called the “Chinese Anti-Cult World Alliance” from the same location as his businesses in Flushing to assist Beijing in its worldwide persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice outlawed in China since 1999. This organization and Zhu himself (as Michael Chu) are currently defendants in a federal civil rights lawsuit for alleged harassment and attacks against Falun Gong practitioners in Flushing.
Zhu Lichuang and NYAPUC have enjoyed a warm relationship with the Chinese consulate-general in New York; and in particular with former consul-general Peng Keyu. In 2008, Peng was caught on tape admitting that he had personally instigated the same violent attacks on Falun Gong practitioners in Flushing connected with Zhu and his organization. Despite calls for Peng to be investigated and expelled from the United States, citing his actions as a violation of U.S. and international law, Peng remained in New York as consul-general until 2011.
Northern California
Other U.S.-based CCPPNR associations include Chinese for Peaceful Unification – Northern California (CPU-NC), located in the San Francisco Bay Area. CPU-NC’s current president is Zou Zhiqiang (aka Fred Tzou), a Bay Area realtor and insurance agent. Zou was noted in Chinese media for his role in leading protests against Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s January 2017 visit to the Bay Area. The group’s contact information matches that of its current director, Lin Qing (aka Chin Lin) of Cupertino, California.
CPU-NC’s highest-profile member is “honorary president” and prominent San Francisco businesswoman Fang Li Bangqin (aka Florence Fang), the matriarch of a Bay Area “family noted for political hardball,” a former federal official under the first Bush administration, a former owner of the San Francisco Examiner, and a leading figure in the Obama administration’s “100,000 Strong” initiative to promote study in China for U.S. college students, funded in large part by her own Florence Fang Family Foundation. Despite her former role as a U.S. federal official and continuing ties with the U.S. government, Fang has an extensive record of support for Beijing including its claim on Taiwan. Fang is also featured as an overseas director with COEA.
In comments to Chinese media Fang has stated that her “mission” is to “put our ideas about peaceful reunification into mainstream American society” and to “prevent the spread of ‘Taiwan independence’ ideology.” Fang, Lin Qing, and CPU-NC consultant Li Jingfen (aka Betty Yuan, a Bay Area insurance agent) have made numerous appearances at People’s Daily and other Chinese government and state-run media websites, including frequent meetings and photo-ops with high-level Communist Party officials, among whom Fang appears to be something of a celebrity. In these appearances their statements on Taiwan and other issues are virtually indistinguishable from those of the Chinese government.
CPU-NC’s activities are detailed at the group’s website in Chinese. The CPU-NC website is registered under Betty Yuan’s name at her business address in Burlingame, California.
In 2010, Fang Li Bangqin appeared in Beijing for the “Fifth World Conference of Overseas Chinese Friendship Associations” along with NYAPUC vice president Zhu Lichuang. Despite the “friendly” name of the conference, this was an event led entirely by Chinese Communist Party officials; and dedicated entirely to asserting China’s national interests abroad, in particular to “to safeguard China’s national unity and territorial integrity and to realize the complete reunification of China.” Fang and Li Jingfen previously appeared at a 60th anniversary National Day celebration in Beijing in 2009 also attended by Zhu and NYAPUC president Hua Junxiong.
OCAO Deputy Director Tan Tianxing, noted above, met with Fang in 2013 and 2015 and with Lin in 2016 on visits to China. OCAO director and COEA executive Vice President Qiu Yuanping also met with her “old friend” Fang in 2013 and 2014, then again in March 2017. In 2013, TAO spokesman Yang Yi, other Chinese officials, and Hua Junxiong appeared at a “China Peaceful Reunification Americas Summit” hosted by CPU-NC in San Francisco.
Fang, Lin, and other CPU-NC officers have had extensive contacts with UFWD officials in China. As early as 2002, Fang met with then-UFWD head Liu Yandong, also a former COFA president, now a vice premier of China and lead Chinese partner with Fang for the “100,000 Strong” initiative. Fang and Liu met most recently in March 2017. In 2014, Fang met with Hunan provincial UFWD officials. In 2015, Fang met with Wuhan municipal UFWD officials. In December 2016, Lin Qing and former CPU-NC President Li Zhenyu met with Zhejiang provincial UFWD and CCPPNR officials for a “Taiwan Symposium” in Hangzhou emphasizing “anti-independence” activities and “reunification of the motherland.”
Statements from 2006 in People’s Daily say that CPU-NC “identifies itself as a ‘Chinese American’ organization in order to comply with U.S. law” (or perhaps rather to seem in compliance with U.S. law), then roll out a series of Chinese government policies the group was established to support. Like NYAPUC, CPU-NC enjoys a warm relationship with the Chinese consulate-general in San Francisco. Prior to his re-assignment from San Francisco to New York, former consul-general Peng Keyu, noted above, praised CPU-NC for its work promoting China’s foreign policy priorities in the Bay Area. “Over the years,” according to the organization’s news page, “CPU-NC has actively cooperated with the local Chinese consulate to work against ‘Taiwan independence’ and promote national reunification activities, and has some influence in San Francisco’s overseas Chinese community.” In statements from 2013 on her “100,000 Strong” initiative to the Hubei Provincial Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, Fang Li Bangqin described “American ‘grassroots’ youth” as a “target group” of community members and voters whose ideas and opinions are not yet fully formed and would therefore potentially be open to pro-Beijing ideological influence from their mainland Chinese peers while studying in China. Presumably this influence would include pro-Beijing views on the status of Taiwan and other territories claimed by China. These statements re-appeared at her own Florence Fang Family Foundation website. The 2013 inauguration of a language institute at Beijing University to host U.S. students funded by Fang included prominent appearances by UFWD, OCAO, and other Communist Party officials.
A Need to Enforce Laws
China’s “united front” activities in the United States threaten to undermine America’s support for a free and autonomous Taiwan, and pose a broader challenge to the integrity of the American political process. Countering such activities is the purpose of U.S. laws such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act and the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act. Under international law, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations also requires foreign consular officials to comply with the laws of the receiving state and forbids foreign consular interference in the internal affairs of the receiving state.
FARA, unfortunately, is a law noted for its “lax enforcement,” as detailed in a September 2016 audit by the U.S. Justice Department. FARA claims to be a “compliance-based” system, which seems in practice to mean “register if you feel like it, at any time that you happen to find convenient, up to and including never.” FARA is also described as a “largely obscure” law, despite the fact that it has been in effect for almost 80 years and that its enforcement would seem to be an important matter of America’s national security and the integrity of American democracy. Given the extensive recent attention to foreign influence (i.e., Russian influence) on America’s political process, perhaps the time has come to raise FARA out of obscurity and begin enforcing it.
In contrast to FARA, the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act is a new law whose effectiveness (or lack thereof) remains to be seen. However, the original text of the law identifies China (in addition to Russia) as a primary source of foreign propaganda inimical to the interests of the United States and its allies. China’s propaganda efforts are clearly focused on promoting mainland Chinese territorial claims and undermining U.S. and international support for Taiwan. If countering such propaganda is indeed a priority for the U.S. government, then countering China’s “united front” activities would seem to deserve serious attention.
Chinese diplomats in the United States also need to be reminded of their obligation under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to respect U.S. law and refrain from activities aimed at interfering with the U.S. political process. Any political issues Chinese diplomats wish to address, including the status of Taiwan, may be addressed through proper diplomatic channels with the U.S. State Department. “Compliance-based” systems and multinational business interests notwithstanding, America’s federal law enforcement agencies need to begin enforcing the laws that American taxpayers pay them to enforce.
If you're interested in writing for International Policy Digest - please send us an email via [email protected] number of police-reported hate crimes targeting Muslim-Canadians more than doubled over a three-year period — even as the total number of hate crimes dropped.
In 2014, police forces across the country recorded 99 religiously motivated hate crimes against Muslims — up from 45 in 2012.
READ MORE: Trans persons still aren’t counted in Canada’s hate crimes data
READ MORE: Alberta family’s garage vandalized, trucks set ablaze
The figures, published by Statistics Canada this week, reveal changes in the way Canadians experience identity-based discrimination.
(Note: The online cansim tables don’t include data from 2012 or 2013 because Statistics Canada changed its categorization and coverage slightly. Statscan sent us tables for the previous years at our request; we’re using them for comparison where we can but please interpret with caution. Hate crime statistics can say as much about a group’s willingness to report as it does about that group’s degree of victimization.)
Hate crimes were up since 2013 but down overall since 2012 — a total of 1,295 in 2014.
The hate crime rate across Canada is 3.7 per 100,000 people. But that varies from province to province: Ontario is the highest, with 4.8 hate crimes per 100,000 people.
GALLERY: Click through to compare hate crime rates in Canadian provinces and territories
The rates of hate crimes per 100,000 people went up in Calgary and in some of the fast-growing areas of B.C.’s Lower Mainland and the Toronto area.
They improved in Hamilton, Kingston, Peterborough, Red Deer, Regina and Saskatoon.
GALLERY: Click through to compare incidence and rate of hate crimes in Canadian communities
Hate crimes in 2014 were predominantly mischief, with assault and uttering threats a close second and third:
The number of racially motivated crimes targeting black Canadians has dropped to 238 from 295. But you’re still more likely to be harassed, assaulted or have your property vandalized for being black than for any other reason.
Religion is the second most common motivation for hate crime, after race (Quebec is the only province where you’re more likely to be attacked based on your religion than your race).
And while Jewish Canadians are still the most targeted religious group in Canada, those types of attacks have been dropping as attacks on Muslims increased.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims has been swamped with reports of Islamophobic hate crimes: Four in one day this week, says spokesperson Amira Elghawaby — and they’re investigating a fifth.
“We’re deeply, deeply, deeply concerned,” she said.
“We live in a pluralistic society that really celebrates its diversity. And inclusion is the key to public safety. It’s so critical that we get this right.”
READ MORE: Peterborough mosque set ablaze
It isn’t clear whether the increase means there are more xenophobic crimes happening or that more of them are being reported, Elghawaby said.
“We do know that people are often reluctant to report a hate crime because there might be a sense of humiliation, a sense of bringing negative attention to themselves. And not always sure they’re going to get support.”
But she’s seen a spike in response to Islamophobic rhetoric in public discourse — whether during Canada’s election campaign, which featured a tipline for “barbaric cultural practices,” or in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris last fall.
Even the widespread use of “Islamic State” to refer to the power-hungry group terrorizing Iraqi and Syrian civilians while sending radicalized emissaries to blow themselves up in European cities, she says, is “tarring the entire community.”
READ MORE: Cold Lake mosque vandalized
The result is that people feel unsafe in their neighbourhoods, in grocery stores, on public transit.
“Schools are asking for workshops on Islamophobia. This is becoming more top-of-mind, which we welcome,” Elghawaby said.
She argues it’s crucial for witnesses of hatred and ordinary Canadians to step up — it’s not enough to not actively participate in attacks.
“Canadians are overwhelmingly warm, generous, compassionate people who respect diversity.”
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Interactive: Compare hate crime prevalence between Canadian communities.
Note: Coverage, classification and naming conventions have changed in many cases from one year to the next, which means data for some communities could be bifurcated or incomplete. It’s confusing, but we believe there’s still value in the data we have.
Click here to view data »About
"Bity" was an independent project started and developed by Christian J Moss, due to the recent popularity and adoption of the app in the Bitcoin community it`s time to take the app to the next level.
In terms of app development $7000 isn`t necessarily a lot of money, luckily our team is passionate about the app and the development.
The $7000 dollars will be used to add the following features
1. Reintroduction of the send BTC function with support for BIP38 encrypted wallets
2. Allowing the user to view recent transactions
3. The ability to see the current Bitcoin price from the iPhone home screen
4. A Settings page to allow the user to personalise the app e.g. selecting default currency
5. Bitcoin calculator
If we raise more than $7000, depending on the amount we plan to add moreWriting and recording Edit
Composition Edit
Spirit copyright infringement lawsuit Edit
Live performances Edit
Success and legacy Edit
Claims of backmasking Edit
Accolades Edit
Charts Edit
Other versions Edit
A different version of this song by Led Zeppelin is featured on the remastered deluxe 2CD version of Led Zeppelin IV. Titled "Stairway to Heaven (Sunset Sound Mix)", it was recorded on 5 December 1970, at Island Studio, No. 1, in London with engineer Andy Johns and assistant engineer Diggs. This version runs 8:04, while the original version runs 8:02.[78]
Far Corporation cover Edit
The only charting version of "Stairway to Heaven" was released in late 1985 by the British band Far Corporation. It was the first single from their debut album, Division One. Their rendition became an international Top 20 hit, reaching number eight in the United Kingdom and number nine in Ireland.[79] The following year it charted at number 16 in South Africa and number 89 in the United States.[80][81] The song became their greatest hit. Chart history Edit Chart (1985-86) Peak
position Ireland (IRMA)[82] 9 South Africa (Springbok Radio)[83] 16 UK [84] 8 US Billboard Hot 100[85] 89
Other cover versions Edit
References Edit
Further reading EditLast week, researchers at the University of California, Davis, overlaid FEMA’s flood-zone maps on top of satellite imagery of the devastating flooding around Houston after Harvey poured more than 40 inches of rain across the region.
The preliminary assessment found that two-thirds of the inundation occurred outside the federal agency’s 100-year floodplains, where there should be only a 1 percent chance of flooding in any given year. More than half of the deluge happened “outside of any mapped flood zone,” even including 500-year events, in areas that should face only “minimal flood hazard” (see “How Much Is Climate Change to Blame for Tropical Storm Harvey?”).
This, in part, underscores the rare severity of the storm that hovered over the Texas coastline for days. But it also arguably highlights inadequacies in our federal flood risk assessments, since by some calculations Harvey “represents the third ‘500-year’ flood in the Houston area in the past three years,” as the UC Davis researchers note.
That “basically refutes suggestions that Houston has just suffered from random ‘bad luck,’” said Nicholas Pinter, associate director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, in an e-mail. “We scientists are ultra-cautious about reading climate change in any single weather event, and that caution is appropriate. But there is a growing suspicion that the U.S. may be creeping over a meteorological tipping point.”
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The crucial problem is that flood-zone maps are based on historical patterns that are increasingly divorced from the current dangers under changing climate conditions. That, in turn, means that planning policies, building codes, insurance programs, and building patterns based on these assessments can often be dangerously out of date as well. In many cases, we’re constructing cities and flood protections based on the climate of the past rather than the conditions of the future—or even the present. That’s subjecting citizens to ever greater dangers, and society to far higher costs for disaster relief and reconstruction in the aftermath of events like Harvey or, as is looking increasingly likely, Hurricane Irma.
Some scientists have been sounding this warning for years, arguing that flooding and storm risk analysis need to move beyond the “stationary” approach, which assumes that the statistical distribution of events in the past will remain constant moving forward.
“We can’t extrapolate the past into the future because of changes going on in the system,” says Paul Milly, research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, and lead author of a 2008 Science paper titled “Stationarity Is Dead: Whither Water Management?” “Climate change needs to be considered as a possible factor in the changing risks of floods and other hazardous events,” he says.
A 100-year hurricane rainfall event before 2000 could become a roughly one-in-10-year occurrence by 2081.
Among other factors, warmer air holds more moisture, and higher sea levels increase the height of storm surges, all of which can amplify the magnitude and destructive capacity of storms.
Progress toward new methodologies, however, has been slow and uneven, in part because of political complexities—and in part because it’s a challenging science. The climate system is highly complex, our knowledge is incomplete, and projection models generally include broad ranges of potential impacts, dependent on future greenhouse-gas emissions, environmental tipping points, and other factors.
But some scientists are certainly trying to update our understanding of the growing dangers from climate change. Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane researcher and professor of atmospheric science at MIT, recently evaluated the future risk of hurricane rainfall in Boston—and found a stark shift in threat levels as climate change increases the frequency of storms and amount of rain per storm.
A 100-year hurricane rainfall event before 2000 in Boston could become nearly a one-in-10-year occurrence by 2081, meaning it would have around a 10 percent chance of happening in any given year, he found. Likewise, a previously 1,000-year event in the region could become closer to a 50-year occurrence.
In a paper published earlier this year, Emanuel wrote that limited aircraft data for near-coastal Atlantic storms, as well as the need to incorporate projected climate change, required the use of simulated storms. To those, he applied a broad range of climate models, from NOAA, the Met Office Hadley Centre, the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, and other institutions. These models were designed to “simulate the response of both winds and thermodynamic conditions to changing climate.”
In general, the research shows a substantial increase in the number of storms that could intensify just before landfall by 2100. But even if the broad direction is clear, Emanuel noted, it will be difficult to accurately forecast that late shift for any given storm as it approaches, requiring further improvements to hurricane forecasting.
A few cities, and some engineering firms, have already begun to adopt development standards that incorporate future climate- change threats. Notably, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection conducted a comprehensive assessment, and concluded that some $1 billion in assets were under threat from future sea-level rise and storm surges. The analysis added 30 inches of flooding on top of FEMA’s 100-year flood maps, adopting the high-end forecast from the New York City Panel on Climate Change, and ultimately recommended $315 million in facility upgrades.
Similarly, in 2015, President Obama issued an executive order that established new flood standards for federally funded projects that took into account the rising risks of climate change. It required agencies to either build two or three feet above 100-year flood lines, depending on the project type; base new development on 500-year flood elevations; or otherwise determine appropriate construction standards based on the best available climate science.
Less than two weeks before Hurricane Harvey made landfall, President Trump rescinded that order.Bosslogic is known for creating some incredibly cool pieces of fan art. We've posted several pieces of his work in the past, and we have a few new ones showing off some fan posters he made for Captain America: Civil War. Two of them feature Cap punching the shit out of Iron Man in his Extremis armor. One version of the poster shows Cap punching him with his fist, and the other one shows Cap smashing Iron Man's face in with his shield. The artist says that the latter is more of an accurate take. The third poster shows Iron Man blasting through Cap's shield as it shatters.
Both of these look like they would make awesome posters for the upcoming film. I love the crazy energy that they radiate. There's no word on when Marvel might release any footage from this movie, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy the fan-made stuff like this that we see. To catch up on all of our Civil War news, click here.But none of these comparisons are likely to shift public opinion. Some people will continue to see him, rightly, as an imminent danger to this nation and the world, and others will continue to see him as a salvation from it.
You see, part of the problem here is that some people believe, improbably, that virtue can be cloaked in vice, that what he says and what he means are fundamentally different, that the former is acting as a Trojan horse for the latter. One of Trump’s greatest pros is that he has convinced his supporters, all evidence to the contrary, that they are not being conned.
We are a society in search of an instant fix to some of America’s most intractable problems. Politicians of all stripes keep lying to us and saying things are going to be O.K.; that broad prosperity is just around the corner, only requiring minor tweaks; that for some of our issues there are clear good and bad options, rather than a choice between bad and worse options.
Into this mess of stubborn realities steps a simpleton with a simple message: Make America great again. We’ll win so much that you will get tired of winning.
Some folks want to be told that we could feasibly and logistically deport millions of people and ban more than a billion, build more walls and drop more bombs, have ever-falling tax rates and ever-surging prosperity. They want to be told that the only thing standing between where we are and where we are told we could be is a facility at crafting deals and a penchant for cracking down.
This streamlined message appeals to that bit of the population that is frustrated by the problems we face and quickly tires of higher-level cerebral function. For this group of folks, Trump needn’t be detailed, just different. He doesn’t need established principles, as long as he attacks the establishment.Today we’re releasing version 1.5 of Gliph for iOS, which makes it easier than ever to get started and offers the world’s first instant Bitcoin wallet creation via Coinbase. Update: Gliph now also supports BIPS wallet.
In this new release we’ve made Gliph account creation and Bitcoin wallet creation an amazingly near-instantaneous experience.
Changes to Signup
We now streamline the Gliph signup process. The app automatically selects a gliph (username) for you, yet allows you to customize your gliph as an option if you want.
Previously, we forced every new person to immediately choose the Artifacts (symbols) for their gliph. While some folks picked up on the idea of building a gliph out of Artifacts, some found it confusing. Gliph has a lot of new ideas in it. This change represents a step toward streamlining the process of getting started using the Gliph identity platform.
Instant Bitcoin Wallet Creation
Another big change in 1.5 is the “instant” creation of Coinbase accounts. If you’ve never used Bitcoin before, you will be prepared to receive Bitcoin immediately after accepting Coinbase’s Terms of Service.
Gliph magically creates a Coinbase account using a free Gliph Cloaked Email address, offering you a strong level of privacy in your Bitcoin transactions.
We believe signing up for Gliph on iOS is now the fastest and easiest way to get started with a Bitcoin wallet on the planet earth.
We continue to believe that Bitcoin is a very important part of Gliph’s future and are making changes to pave the way for this now. The team is excited about the further integration of Bitcoin into Gliph’s core experience.
Speed Enhancements
This isn’t exactly a part of the iOS release, however Gliph should be speedier for people across the globe. We’ve re-architected the infrastructure Gliph runs on, and now have servers in San Francisco, Ireland and Tokyo. No matter where you live, Gliph should be three to four times faster than it used to be.
Moving the Gliph Store and the New Profile View
You will also notice a new menu item directly below Activity called Profile. It features a steampunk-tastic icon. The Profile View is a new place where you can store and set the basic privacy settings of your facet information (personal data).
Previously, Gliph let you manage your personal data from the Settings view. There was an option called “Edit your Facets and Sharing.” This method of editing your personal information wasn’t obvious for a lot of people, both because they didn’t know what “facets” were and also because the option was buried in a Settings View.
Another change we made to the menu is the removal the Gliph Store. You can still reach the Cloaked Email upgrade options via the “Get More Cloaks” menu option.
Privacy Considerations
Some of our more privacy-oriented folks may react to the appearance of a Profile with concern. We want to allay these concerns: nothing
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being rounded up, stripped and showered against their will. But Capt. Chmiel said local health authorities have "certain powers to quarantine people".[5][6]
The purpose of such quarantine-for-decontamination is to prevent the spread of contamination, and to contain the contamination such that others are not put at risk from a person fleeing a scene where contamination is suspect. It can also be used to limit exposure, as well as eliminate a vector.
The first astronauts to visit the Moon were quarantined upon their return at the specially built Lunar Receiving Laboratory.
New developments for quarantine include new concepts in quarantine vehicles such as the ambulance bus, mobile hospitals, and lockdown/invacuation (inverse evacuation) procedures, as well as docking stations for an ambulance bus to dock to a facility that's under lockdown.
History [ edit ]
According to the records of many Historians, the earliest known incidents of quarantine occurred throughout the Muslim world, with evidence of voluntary community quarantine in some of these reported incidents. The first documented involuntary community quarantine was established by the Ottoman quarantine reform in 1838. The involuntary hospital quarantine of special groups of patients such as lepers started earlier in Islamic history. In 1307 the sixth Umayyad caliph built the first hospital in Damascus and issued an order to isolate lepers from other patients in the hospital. The practice of involuntary quarantine of lepers in general hospitals continued until the year 1431 when the Ottomans built a leprosy hospital in Edirne, where only lepers were admitted and treated.[7]
The word "quarantine" originates from the Venetian dialect form of the Italian quaranta giorni, meaning 'forty days'. This is due to the 40-day isolation of ships and people before entering the city-state of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik, Croatia).[8] This was practiced as a measure of disease prevention related to the Black Death. Between 1348 and 1359, the Black Death wiped out an estimated 30% of Europe's population, and a significant percentage of Asia's population. The original document from 1377, which is kept in the Archives of Dubrovnik, states that before entering the city, newcomers had to spend 30 days (a trentine) in a restricted place (originally nearby islands) waiting to see whether the symptoms of Black Death would develop. Later, isolation was prolonged to 40 days and was called quarantine.[8]
Other diseases lent themselves to the practice of quarantine before and after the devastation of the plague. Those afflicted with leprosy were historically isolated from society, as were the attempts to check the invasion of syphilis in northern Europe in about 1490, the advent of yellow fever in Spain at the beginning of the 19th century, and the arrival of Asiatic cholera in 1831.
Venice took the lead in measures to check the spread of plague, having appointed three guardians of public health in the first years of the Black Death (1348). The next record of preventive measures comes from Reggio in Modena in 1374. The first lazaret was founded by Venice in 1403, on a small island adjoining the city. In 1467, Genoa followed the example of Venice, and in 1476 the old leper hospital of Marseille was converted into a plague hospital. The great lazaret of Marseilles, perhaps the most complete of its kind, was founded in 1526 on the island of Pomègues. The practice at all the Mediterranean lazarets was not different from the English procedure in the Levantine and North African trade. On the approach of cholera in 1831 some new lazarets were set up at western ports, notably a very extensive establishment near Bordeaux, afterwards turned to another use.
International conventions [ edit ]
Since 1852 several conferences were held involving European powers, with a view to uniform action in keeping out infection from the East and preventing its spread within Europe. All but that of 1897 were concerned with cholera. No result came of those at Paris (1852), Constantinople (1866), Vienna (1874), and Rome (1885), but each of the subsequent ones doctrine of constructive infection of a ship as coming from a scheduled port, and an approximation to the principles advocated by Great Britain for many years. The principal countries which retained the old system at the time were Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Greece and Russia (the British possessions at the time, Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus, being under the same influence). The aim of each international sanitary convention had been to bind the governments to a uniform minimum of preventive action, with further restrictions permissible to individual countries. The minimum specified by international conventions was very nearly the same as the British practice, which had been in turn adapted to continental opinion in the matter of the importation of rags.
Isolating a village in Romania whose inhabitants believe that doctors poison those suspected of cholera.
The Venice convention of 30 January 1892 dealt with cholera by the Suez Canal route; that of Dresden of 15 April 1893, with cholera within European countries; that of Paris of 3 April 1894, with cholera by the pilgrim traffic; and that of Venice, on 19 March 1897, was in connection with the outbreak of plague in the East, and the conference met to settle on an international basis the steps to be taken to prevent, if possible, its spread into Europe. An additional convention was signed in Paris on 3 December 1903.[9]
A multilateral international sanitary convention was concluded at Paris on 17 January 1912.[10] This convention was most comprehensive and was designated to replace all previous conventions on that matter. It was signed by 40 countries, and consisted of 160 articles. Ratifications by 16 of the signatories were exchanged in Paris on 7 October 1920. Another multilateral convention was signed in Paris on 21 June 1926, to replace that of 1912. It was signed by 58 countries worldwide, and consisted of 172 articles.[11]
In Latin America, a series of regional sanitary conventions were concluded. Such a convention was concluded in Rio de Janeiro on 12 June 1904. A sanitary convention between the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay was concluded in Montevideo on 21 April 1914.[12] The convention covers cases of Asiatic cholera, oriental plague and yellow fever. It was ratified by the Uruguayan government on 13 October 1914, by the Paraguayan government on 27 September 1917 and by the Brazilian government on 18 January 1921.
Sanitary conventions were also concluded between European states. A Soviet-Latvian sanitary convention was signed on 24 June 1922, for which ratifications were exchanged on 18 October 1923.[13] A bilateral sanitary convention was concluded between the governments of Latvia and Poland on 7 July 1922, for which ratifications were exchanged on 7 April 1925.[14] Another was concluded between the governments of Germany and Poland in Dresden on 18 December 1922, and entered into effect on 15 February 1923.[15] Another one was signed between the governments of Poland and Romania on 20 December 1922. Ratifications were exchanged on 11 July 1923.[16] The Polish government also concluded such a convention with the Soviet government on 7 February 1923, for which ratifications were exchanged on 8 January 1924.[17] A sanitary convention was also concluded between the governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia on 5 September 1925, for which ratifications were exchanged on 22 October 1926.[18] A convention was signed between the governments of Germany and Latvia on 9 July 1926, for which ratifications were exchanged on 6 July 1927.[19]
One of the first points to be dealt with in 1897 was to settle the incubation period for this disease, and the period to be adopted for administrative purposes. It was admitted that the incubation period was, as a rule, a comparatively short one, namely, of some three or four days. After much discussion ten days was accepted by a very large majority. The principle of disease notification was unanimously adopted. Each government had to notify to other governments on the existence of plague within their several jurisdictions, and at the same time state the measures of prevention which are being carried out to prevent its diffusion. The area deemed to be infected was limited to the actual district or village where the disease prevailed, and no locality was deemed to be infected merely because of the importation into it of a few cases of plague while there has been no diffusion of the malady. As regards the precautions to be taken on land frontiers, it was decided that during the prevalence of plague every country had the inherent right to close its land frontiers against traffic. As regards the Red Sea, it was decided after discussion that a healthy vessel could pass through the Suez Canal, and continue its voyage in the Mediterranean during the period of incubation of the disease the prevention of which is in question. It was also agreed that vessels passing through the Canal in quarantine might, subject to the use of the electric light, coal in quarantine at Port Said by night as well as by day, and that passengers might embark in quarantine at that port. Infected vessels, if these carry a doctor and are provided with a disinfecting stove, have a right to navigate the Canal, in quarantine, subject only to the landing of those who were suffering from plague.
Signals and flags [ edit ]
Q), but in modern use indicates the opposite, as a signal of a ship free of disease that requests boarding and inspection. Signal flag "Quebec, " also called the "Yellow Jack" is a simple yellow flag that was historically used to signal quarantine (it stands for), but in modern use indicates the opposite, as a signal of a ship free of disease that requests boarding and inspection.
Plain yellow, green, and even black flags have been used to symbolize disease in both ships and ports, with the color yellow having a longer historical precedent, as a color of marking for houses of infection, previous to its use as a maritime marking color for disease. The present flag used for the purpose is the "Lima" (L) flag, which is a mixture of yellow and black flags previously used. It is sometimes called the "yellow jack" but this was also a name for yellow fever, which probably derives its common name from the flag, not the color of the victims (cholera ships also used a yellow flag).[20] The plain yellow flag ("Quebec" or Q in international maritime signal flags) probably derives its letter symbol for its initial use in quarantine, but this flag in modern times indicates the opposite—a ship that declares itself free of quarantinable disease, and requests boarding and routine port inspection.[21]
Australia [ edit ]
Australia has perhaps the world's strictest quarantine standards. Quarantine in northern Australia is important because of its proximity to South-east Asia and the Pacific, which have many pests and diseases not present in Australia. For this reason, the region from Cairns to Broome—including the Torres Strait—is the focus for many important quarantine activities that protect all Australians.[22] As Australia has been geographically isolated from other major continents for millions of years, there is an endemically unique ecosystem free of several severe pests and diseases that are present in many parts of the world.[23] If other products are brought inside along with pests and diseases, it would damage the ecosystem seriously and add millions of costs in the local agricultural businesses.[24]
The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service is responsible for border-inspection of any products which are brought into Australia, and assess the potential risks the products might harm Australian environment. Visitors are required to fill in the information card truthfully before arriving in Australia, and declare what food and any products made of wood and other natural materials they have processed. If the visitor fails to do so, usually a quarantine fine of 220 Australian dollars are to be paid as quarantine infringement notice, and if not, the visitor may face criminal convictions of fining 100,000 Australian dollars and 10 years imprisonment.
Canada [ edit ]
There are three quarantine Acts of Parliament in Canada: Quarantine Act (humans) and Health of Animals Act (animals) and Plant Protection Act (vegetations). The first legislation is enforced by the Canada Border Services Agency after a complete rewrite in 2005. The second and third legislations are enforced by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. If a health emergency exists, the Governor in Council can prohibit importation of anything that it deems necessary under the Quarantine Act.
Under the Quarantine Act, all travelers must submit to screening and if they believe they might have come into contact with communicable diseases or vectors, they must disclose their whereabouts to a Border Services Officer. If the officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the traveller is or might have been infected with a communicable disease or refused to provide answers, a quarantine officer (QO) must be called and the person is to be isolated. If a person refuses to be isolated, any peace officer may arrest without warrant.
A QO who has reasonable grounds to believe that the traveler has or might have a communicable disease or is infested with vectors, after the medical examination of a traveler, can order him/her into treatment or measures to prevent the person from spreading the disease. QO can detain any traveler who refuses to comply with his/her orders or undergo health assessments as required by law.
Under the Health of Animals Act and Plant Protection Act, inspectors can prohibit access to an infected area, dispose or treat any infected or suspected to be infected animals or plants. The Minister can order for compensation to be given if animals/plants were destroyed pursuant to these acts.
Each province also enacts its own quarantine/environmental health legislation.
Hong Kong [ edit ]
Under the Prevention and Control of Disease Ordinance (HK Laws. Chap 599), a health officer may seize articles he/she believes to be infectious or contains infectious agents. All travellers, if requested, must submit themselves to a health officer. Failure to do so is against the law and is subject to arrest and prosecution.
The law allows for a health officer who have reasonable grounds to detain, isolate, quarantine anyone or anything believed to be infected and to restrict any articles from leaving a designated quarantine area. He/she may also order the Civil Aviation Department to prohibit the landing or leaving, embarking or disembarking of an aircraft. This power also extends to land, sea or air crossings.
Under the same ordinance, any police officer, health officer, members of the Civil Aid Service or Auxiliary Medical Service can arrest a person who obstructs or escape from detention.
United Kingdom [ edit ]
To reduce the risk of introducing rabies from continental Europe, the United Kingdom used to require that dogs, and most other animals introduced to the country, spend six months in quarantine at an HM Customs and Excise pound; this policy was abolished in 2000 in favour of a scheme generally known as Pet Passports, where animals can avoid quarantine if they have documentation showing they are up to date on their appropriate vaccinations.
British quarantine rules after 1711 [ edit ]
The plague had disappeared from England, never to return, for more than thirty years before the practice of quarantine against it was definitely established by the Quarantine Act 1710 (9 Ann.) The first act was called for, owing to an alarm, lest plague should be imported from Poland and the Baltics; the second act of 1721 was due to the disastrous prevalence of plague at Marseille and other places in Provence, France; it was renewed in 1733 owing to a fresh outbreak of the malady on the continent of Europe, and again in 1743, owing to the disastrous epidemic at Messina. In 1752 a rigorous quarantine clause was introduced into an act regulating the Levantine trade; and various arbitrary orders were issued during the next twenty years to meet the supposed danger of infection from the Baltics. Although no plague cases ever came to England all those years, the restrictions on traffic became more and more stringent (following the movements of medical dogma), and in 1788 a very oppressive Quarantine Act was passed, with provisions affecting cargoes in particular. The first year of the nineteenth century marked the turning-point in quarantine legislation; a parliamentary committee sat on the practice, and a more reasonable act arose on their report. In 1805 there was another new act, and in 1823–24 again an elaborate inquiry followed by an act making the quarantine only at discretion of the privy council, and at the same time recognizing yellow fever or other highly infectious disorder as calling for quarantine measures along with plague. The steady approach of cholera in 1831 was the last occasion in England of a thoroughgoing resort to quarantine restrictions. The pestilence invaded every country of Europe despite all efforts to keep it out. In England the experiment of hermetically sealing the ports was not seriously tried when cholera returned in 1849, 1853 and 1865–66. In 1847 the privy council ordered all arrivals with clean bills from the Black Sea and the Levant to be admitted to free pratique, provided there had been no case of plague during the voyage; and therewith the last remnant of the once formidable quarantine practice against plague may be said to have disappeared.
For a number of years after the passing of the first Quarantine Act (1710) the protective practices in England were of the most haphazard and arbitrary kind. In 1721 two vessels laden with cotton goods from Cyprus, then a seat of plague, were ordered to be burned with their cargoes, the owners receiving as indemnity. By the clause in the Levant Trade Act of 1752 vessels for the United Kingdom with a foul bill (i.e. coming from a country where plague existed) had to repair to the lazarets of Malta, Venice, Messina, Livorno, Genoa or Marseille, to perform their quarantine or to have their cargoes sufficiently opened and aired. Since 1741 Stangate Creek (on the Medway) had been made the quarantine station at home; but it would appear from the above clause that it was available only for vessels with clean bills. In 1755 lazarets in the form of floating hulks were established in England for the first time, the cleansing of cargo (particularly by exposure to dews) having been done previously on the ship's deck. There was no medical inspection employed, but the whole routine left to the officers of customs and quarantine. In 1780, when plague was in Poland, even vessels with grain from the Baltic had to lie forty days in quarantine, and unpack and air the sacks; but owing to remonstrances, which came chiefly from Edinburgh and Leith, grain was from that date declared to be a non-susceptible article. About 1788 an order of the council required every ship liable to quarantine, in case of meeting any vessel at sea, or within four leagues of the coast of Great Britain or Ireland, to hoist a yellow flag in the daytime and show a light at the main topmast head at night, under a penalty of[clarification needed]
After 1800, ships from plague-countries (or with foul bills) were enabled to perform their quarantine on arrival in the Medway instead of taking a Mediterranean port on the way for that purpose; and about the same time an extensive lazaret was built on Chetney Hill near Chatham at an expense of which was almost at once condemned owing to its marshy foundations, and the materials sold.[25] The use of floating hulks as lazarets continued as before. In 1800 two ships with hides from Mogador (Morocco) were ordered to be sunk with their cargoes at the Nore, the owners receiving[clarification needed] About this period it was merchandise that was chiefly suspected: there was a long schedule of susceptible articles, and these were first exposed on the ship's deck for twenty-one days or less (six days for each instalment of the cargo), and then transported to the lazaret, where they were opened and aired forty days more. The whole detention of the vessel was from sixty to sixty-five days, including the time for reshipment of her cargo. Pilots had to pass fifteen days on board a convalescent ship. The expenses may be estimated from one or two examples. In 1820 the Asia, 763 tons, arrived in the Medway with a foul bill from Alexandria, laden with linseed; her freight was[clarification needed] and her quarantine dues[clarification needed] The same year the Pilato, 495 tons, making the same voyage, paid quarantine dues on a freight of[clarification needed] In 1823 the expenses of the quarantine service (at various ports) were[clarification needed] and the dues paid by shipping (nearly all with clean bills)[clarification needed] A return for the United Kingdom and colonies in 1849 showed, among other details, that the expenses of the lazaret at Malta for ten years from 1839 to 1848 had been[clarification needed] From 1846 onwards the establishments in the United Kingdom were gradually reduced, while the last vestige of the British quarantine law was removed by the Public Health Act 1896, which repealed the Quarantine Act 1825 (with dependent clauses of other acts), and transferred from the privy council to the Local Government Board the powers to deal with ships arriving infected with yellow fever or plague, the powers to deal with cholera ships having been already transferred by the Public Health Act 1875.[citation needed]
The British regulations of 9 November 1896 applied to yellow fever, plague and cholera. Officers of the Royal Customs, as well as of Royal Coast Guard and Board of Trade (for signalling), were empowered to take the initial steps. They certified in writing the master of a supposed infected ship, and detained the vessel provisionally for not more than twelve hours, giving notice meanwhile to the port sanitary authority. The medical officer of the port boarded the ship and examined every person in it. Every person found infected was certified of the fact, removed to a hospital provided (if his condition allow), and kept under the orders of the medical officer. If the sick could be removed, the vessel remained under his orders. Every person suspected (owing to his or her immediate attendance on the sick) could be detained on board for 48 hours or removed to the hospital for a similar period. All others were free to land on giving the addresses of their destinations to be sent to the respective local authorities, so that the dispersed passengers and crew could be kept individually under observation for a few days. The ship was then disinfected, dead bodies buried at sea, infected clothing, bedding, etc., destroyed or disinfected, and bilge-water and water-ballast (subject to exceptions) pumped out at a suitable distance before the ship entered a dock or basin. Mail was subject to no detention. A stricken ship within 3 miles of the shore had to fly at the main mast a yellow and black flag borne quarterly from sunrise to sunset.
United States [ edit ]
The United States puts immediate quarantines on imported products if the disease can be traced back to a certain shipment or product. All imports will also be quarantined if the diseases breakout in other countries. According to Title 42 U.S.C. §§264 and 266, these statutes provide the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services ("the Secretary") peacetime and wartime authority, respectively, to control the movement of persons into and within the United States to prevent the spread of communicable disease.
Communicable diseases for which apprehension, detention, or conditional release of persons are authorized must be specified in Executive Orders of the President.[26] Executive Order 13295 (Revised List of Quarantinable Communicable Diseases, April 4, 2003) and its amendments (executive orders 13375 and 13674) specify the following infectious diseases: (1) cholera, (2) diphtheria, (3) infectious tuberculosis, (4) plague, (5) smallpox, (6) yellow fever, (7) viral hemorrhagic fevers (Lassa, Marburg, Ebola, Crimean-Congo, South American, and others not yet isolated or named), (8) severe acute respiratory syndromes, and (9) influenza, from a novel or re-emergent source.[27] In the event of conflict of federal, state, local, and/or tribal health authorities in the use of legal quarantine power, federal law is supreme.[28]
The Division of Global Migration and Quarantine (DGMQ) of the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) operates small quarantine facilities at a number of US ports of entry. As of 2014, these included one land crossing (in El Paso, Texas) and 19 international airports.[29][30]
Anchorage
Atlanta
Boston
Chicago
Dallas/Ft. Worth
Detroit
Honolulu
Houston
Los Angeles
Miami
Minneapolis
New York JFK
Newark
Philadelphia
San Diego
San Francisco
San Juan
Seattle
Washington, D.C. (Dulles)
Besides the port of entry where it is located, each station is also responsible for quarantining potentially infected travelers entering through any ports of entry in its assigned region. These facilities are fairly small; each one is operated by a few staff members and capable of accommodating 1-2 travelers for a short observation period.[30] Cost estimates for setting up a temporary larger facility, capable of accommodating 100 to 200 travelers for several weeks, have been published by the Airport Cooperative Research Program in 2008.[30]
United States – history [ edit ]
Quarantine law began in Colonial America in 1663, when in an attempt to curb an outbreak of smallpox, the city of New York established a quarantine. In the 1730s, the city built a quarantine station on the Bedloe's Island.[31] The Philadelphia Lazaretto was the first quarantine hospital in the United States, built in 1799, in Tinicum Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.[32] There are similar national landmarks such as Swinburne Island and Angel Island (a much more famous historic site, Ellis Island, is often mistakenly assumed to have been a quarantine station, however its marine hospital only qualified as a contagious disease facility to handle less virulent diseases like measles, trachoma and less advanced stages of tuberculosis and diphtheria; persons afflicted with smallpox, yellow fever, cholera, leprosy or typhoid fever, could neither be received nor treated there). During the 1918 flu pandemic, people were also quarantined. Most commonly suspect cases of infectious diseases are requested to voluntarily quarantine themselves, and Federal and local quarantine statutes only have been uncommonly invoked since then, including for a suspected smallpox case in 1963.[33]
Also other TB carriers who refuse to wear a mask in public have been indefinitely involuntarily committed to regular jails, and cut off from contacting the world.[34][35]
Other uses [ edit ]
U.S. President John F. Kennedy euphemistically referred to the U.S. Navy's interdiction of shipping en route to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis as a "quarantine" rather than a blockade, because a quarantine is a legal act in peacetime, whereas a blockade is defined as an act of aggression under the U.N. Charter.[citation needed]
In computer science, "quarantining" describes putting files infected by computer viruses into a special directory, so as to eliminate the threat they pose, without irreversibly deleting them.[citation needed]
The Spanish term for quaratine, la cuarantina, refers also to the period of postpartum confinement in which a new mother and her baby are sheltered from the outside world.
Notable quarantines [ edit ]
Quarantine of the convict ship Surry on the North Shore of Sydney Harbour in 1814, the first quarantine in Australia
See also [ edit ]
List of quarantine services in the world [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]Follow us 101.7k
This tasty low-carb coffee is inspired by the famous Bulletproof coffee and Egg coffee. I'm going to show you how you can easily add healthy fats in your diet, boost ketone bodies and lose more body fat!
Blending coconut oil or butter with coffee may sound odd to many of you. In fact, you will be surprised how creamy and delicious it is! If you blend it well, there will be no oil floating on top. Once you try it, you will never go back to your regular coffee! :-)
0 hours, 0 minutes
Hands-on 5 minutes Overall 5 minutes
Nutritional values per serving
3.1 grams 1.3 grams 15.2 grams 45.6 grams 29.7 grams 474 calories
Total Carbs 4.3 grams Fiber 1.3 grams Net Carbs 3.1 grams Protein 15.2 grams Fat 45.6 grams of which Saturated 29.7 grams Calories 474 kcal Magnesium 26 mg (7% RDA) Potassium 249 mg (13% EMR)
Macronutrient ratio: Calories from carbs (2%), protein (13%), fat (85%)
Ingredients (makes 1 serving)
1 cup brewed coffee (240 ml/ 8 fl oz)
1 tbsp virgin coconut oil or MCT oil (15 ml)
1 tbsp unsalted grass-fed butter or ghee (15 ml)
3 egg yolks
1 tbsp collagen (hydrolyzed gelatin)
1 / 4 - 1 / 2 tsp cinnamon
- tsp cinnamon Optional: 3-5 drops of stevia or 1 tsp Erythritol
2 tbsp coconut milk or heavy whipping cream (30 ml)
Tips:
Instead of regular coffee, you can use Swiss water process decaf coffee, black tea or even your favourite herbal tea. Check out this recipe for Tibetan Butter Tea.
If a recipe calls for raw eggs and you are concerned about the potential risk of Salmonella, you can make it safe by using pasteurized eggs. To pasteurize eggs at home, simply pour enough water in a saucepan to cover the eggs. Heat to about 60 °C/ 140 °F. Using a spoon, slowly place the eggs into the saucepan. Keep the eggs in the water for about 3 minutes. This should be enough to pasteurize the eggs and kill any potential bacteria. Let the eggs cool down and store in the fridge for 6-8 weeks.
Make sure you use hydrolysed gelatin (I like Great Lakes Gelatin), as regular gelatin will clump like glue.
A fun way to learn about healthy low-carb eating! Take the Keto Diet Quiz
Print Recipe Download Recipe
Instructions
Separate the egg whites from the egg yolks (don't worry, they egg yolks won't cook & curdle). Reserve the egg whites for another use. Place everything into a blender (or use an immersion blender) and pulse until smooth and frothy. That's it - done! Enjoy!
What makes my coffee blend healthy
Organic coconut oil / MCT oil will help you increase your fat intake and sate your appetite. MCTs in coconut oil boost ketone bodies and will help you burn fat.
will help you increase your fat intake and sate your appetite. MCTs in coconut oil boost ketone bodies and will help you burn fat. Adding healthy fats like butter / ghee is another great way to up fat intake on a ketogenic diet.
is another great way to up fat intake on a ketogenic diet. Organic pastured egg yolks are a great source of fat-soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids. Although there are additional health benefits of eating raw egg yolks, you should generally be picky when eating raw eggs.
are a great source of fat-soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids. Although there are additional health benefits of eating raw egg yolks, you should generally be picky when eating raw eggs. Gelatin is known to have many health benefits such as improving immunity and hormone balance, healing leaky gut and maintaining healthy skin, hair and joints.
is known to have many health benefits such as improving immunity and hormone balance, healing leaky gut and maintaining healthy skin, hair and joints. Cinnamon is great for blood sugar control and may help people with diabetes.
is great for blood sugar control and may help people with diabetes. The macronutrient ratio of this recipe is 2:13:85 (calories from carbs:protein:fat) which makes it perfect for the ketogenic diet.
of this recipe is 2:13:85 (calories from carbs:protein:fat) which makes it perfect for the ketogenic diet. It's very sating and great for breakfast!
Do you like this recipe? Share it with your friends! Pinterest Reddit
Martina Slajerova Creator of KetoDietApp.com I changed the way I ate in 2011, when I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid. I had no energy, and I found it more and more difficult to maintain a healthy weight. That’s when I decided to quit sugar, grains, and processed foods, and to start following a whole-foods-based ketogenic approach to food. More posts by Martina SlajerovaA mysterious group of music, art and design geeks from various corners of the world, The Hotpantz have debuted their first two tracks, Beachside Lover and now Nowhereland!
A mysterious group of music, art and design geeks from various corners of the world, The Hotpantz have debuted their first two tracks, Beachside Lover and now Nowhereland!
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Followed by Nowhereland [type A], [type B] is now available on streaming and now on vinyl exclusively on QRATES. Come along on a journey of deforming and reforming of art, design and pop music.
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※To download, please visit QRATES DL page and type your DL code.When the Data Quality Act turned out not to be the magic bullet they’d hoped for—-it only crippled but did not kill the role of disinterested scientific research in formulating policy—-the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its sponsoring industries had to move up the food chain of federal power. Rather than merely slowing or preventing the enactment of new regulations through the courts, their new strategy moved to block unwanted laws from taking hold in the first place. This approach was well suited to their battle to conquer the forces massing to take on the defining science-versus-business battle of the dawning century: action to rein in global warning. The Chamber’s passion for transparency and truth would soon dwindle as strongly as it had flared during the salt fight.
Alarm bells had burbled for years through the scientific community, but in 1988 they clanged loudly in Washington, when NASA climate scientist James Hansen told a Senate committee that the so-called greenhouse effect was real, man-made, and destined to put life on earth into a state of upheaval.
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Thereafter the heat intensified. In 1990 the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that global warming existed. By 1995 the 2,500 scientists who made up the panel warned that the burning of fossil fuels—-primarily coal and oil—-had moved the earth into an era of climate instability, one that was likely to provoke environmental, economic, and social upheaval.
As the devastating findings kept coming from a steady stream of scientific papers, the Chamber joined an angry chorus of industry groups that made strenuous efforts to shout them down. The Burson-Marsteller public relations firm coordinated a campaign dedicated to sowing continued doubt over the existence of global warming. As part of that effort, headquartered out of the rival National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber lobbied members of Congress against bills, amendments, and U.S. ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which would have signed the United States up for a rollback to 1990 levels of carbon emissions.
And for a few years, with the fossil-fuel-industry-friendly Bush administration in the White House and Republicans leading the House of Representatives, the regulations crew at the Chamber could move on to other urgent priorities, like pouring salt into the American diet.
Then in 2007 Democrats took over the House, and the political sands shifted again. As soon as the new majority took the gavel, a core of leading Chamber members broke ranks to urge federal action to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
The companies that formed the United States Climate Action Partnership were motivated, mostly, by their usual spur: profit. Their executives could see oh so clearly that Congress was poised to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. If a cap-and-trade carbon crackdown could yield a money-making opportunity or competitive advantage—-well, that was something these companies could get behind.
Caterpillar, Duke Energy, General Electric, PG&E, Dow Chemical, Alcoa, DuPont—-the inaugural membership of the Climate Action Partnership had much in common with the list of Chamber board members past and present. The partnership debuted with a promise to deliver a cap-and-trade program “limiting global atmospheric GHG concentrations to a level that minimizes large-scale adverse climate change impacts to human populations and the natural environment.” The pledge, realistically, entailed serious and in some cases costly changes to how U.S. companies did business, not least partnership members. The equipment manufacturer Caterpillar, for one, could suffer mightily if coal mining scaled back. BP stood to suffer cost burdens on its U.S. operations not borne by competitors that refined their oil elsewhere. The arrival of this corporate climate action brigade would appear to put the Chamber in a treacherous position astride a divided business community, much as it had been in the fight over the Clinton health care bill more than a decade earlier. But the reality was that what most of its members wanted really didn’t matter anymore, if a large contributor or two had different priorities. The Chamber still nominally ran major policy positions through committees of members and then the membership itself, and Chamber leadership insisted that its members went through “internal debate” on its climate agenda. But climate activists on the board would later charge that the specifics of hard-line attacks on cap-and-trade never went to a board review.
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In 2008, the year battle in the climate war broke out on the Senate floor, the Chamber received one-third of its $140 million in contributions from just nineteen donors, which each gave $1 million or more. The largest—-like all of them, anonymous—-gave $15.3 million. There’s no way to know if that money came from a member with a dog in the climate fight or, if so, which it was. But the contribution, and a parade of other multimillion-dollar donations that year, was a sure sign of how successfully Donohue had positioned the Chamber as a front group for hire
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implementing the DAP’s unconstitutional terms and in these capacities, cannot rely on the unconstitutionality or invalidity of the DAP as reason to escape potential liability for any unconstitutional act they might have committed.” In a separate opinion, Brion cited the role of Abad and his possible liability. “There are indicators showing that the DBM Secretary might have established the DAP knowingly aware that it is tainted with unconstitutionality.” Abad, seen as the designer of the DAP, has been charged with plunder in connection with the funding program. The petitioners said earlier they also plan to file similar charges against President Aquino once he steps down and loses immunity from suit. However, the Carpio and Brian offered different views when it comes to the liability of proponents and implementors of projects under the DAP. Carpio agreed with the majority position that proponents and implementors are covered by the operative fact doctrine and should therefore enjoy presumption of good faith.“As a rule of equity, the doctrine of operative fact can be invoked only by those who relied in good faith on the law or the administrative issuance, prior to its declaration of nullity… Only those who merely relied in good faith on the illegal or unconstitutional act, without any direct participation in the commission of the illegal or unconstitutional act, can invoke the doctrine,” Carpio pointed out. But Brion insisted that the culpability over the illegal acts should extend to proponents and implementors of DAP projects. “The authors, proponents and implementors of the unconstitutional DAP are not among those who can seek cover behind the operative fact doctrine as they did not rely on the unconstitutional act prior to the declaration of nullity,” he said. Brion also opposed portion of the SC decision penned by Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin that the portion on the liability of “authors” of the DAP is considered an obiter dictum or a “by the way” statement or surplusage not needed or relevant to disposition of the case. “Without the Court’s discussion on the operative fact doctrine and its application to the case, the void ab initio (from the start) doctrine applies to nullify both the acts and the PAPs (projects, activities and programs) that relied on these acts. Hence, the Court’s discussion on the operative fact doctrine is integral to the Court’s decision - it provides how the effect of the Court’s declaration of unconstitutionality would be implemented. The discussion is not, as the ponente vaguely described it, an ‘obiter pronouncement,” Brion stressed. Because of this, Brion said there is a need for the Commission on Audit to investigate the DAP and implement the SC ruling. “Further, in light of my recommendations as regards that implementation of the Court’s ruling on the release of unprogrammed funds and augmentation, I recommend that we provide the Commission on Audit with a copy of the Court’s decision and the records of the case, and to direct it to immediately conduct the necessary audit of the projects funded by DAP,” he said. Voting 13-0 last February 3, the SC unanimously denied the appeal of the Palace on its decision in July last year striking down the withdrawal of unobligated allotments from implementing agencies and their use as savings prior to the end of fiscal year as well as the cross-border transfers of savings of the executive to augment funds of agencies outside the department. They also sustained their earlier finding that the use of unprogrammed funds despite the absence of a certification by the national treasurer that the revenue collections exceeded the revenue targets for non-compliance with conditions in the GAA was illegal. The SC again held that these acts and practices under the DAP violated the constitutional doctrine of separation of powers and the provision prohibiting inter-branch transfer of appropriations. However, the high court reversed its ruling on the act under DAP pertaining to the funding of projects, activities and programs that were not covered by any appropriation in the GAA, which was earlier declared unconstitutional. Partially granting the motion for reconsideration of the office of the solicitor general, the High Court now declared such act as constitutional. The SC agreed with the argument of the solicitor general that there is no constitutional requirement for Congress to create allotment classes within an item and that what is required only is for Congress to create items to comply with the line-item veto of the President.(CBS News) DALLAS - One of the central issues in Monday's Supreme Court ruling on immigration was whether states can police their international borders. In Texas, they've decided to defend themselves from drug smugglers -- and authorities are using a surprising new weapon to combat the cartels.
Video from Texas State Police shows officers chasing a pick-up truck, its bed loaded down with drugs destined for sale in the United States.
The drug runners, once cornered, race back to the border to escape capture.
"They do not care who they run over," said Lt. Charlie Goble, who patrols the Rio Grande Valley. "They do not care how many felonies they commit while they're doing so, their goal is to get away from law enforcement."
The cartels' latest escape technique is something called a "splashdown."
"They just splash their vehicle right into the river," Goble said. "We have seen them jump off 30-foot cliffs into the river."
After the drug runners abandon their vehicles in the river, other cartel members in boats rush in to save their bales of drugs, and whisk them back to the Mexican side of the river, determined to get the drugs back to Mexico.
"The cartels that are controlling these situations -- they're very ruthless," Goble said. "Their life literally depends on them either getting the load to where it's going, or safely getting it back."
Police say the drug traffickers have made these splashdown getaways at least 65 times in the past three years. Texas police don't have the boats they need to stop them -- and the drug runners know it.
"They know once they get back into the water, they're safe," Goble. Said. "All they gotta do is swim home."
The Texas-style solution? Launching its own mini-navy. Six boats, each equipped with multiple machine guns, will soon be patrolling a 54-mile stretch of the Rio Grande.
Steve McCraw heads the Texas Department of Public Safety.
"We're not gonna cede any part of Texas to the Mexican cartels or the gangs that support them," he said. "It's our number one goal to protect Texans from all threats, including criminals -- and certainly the cartels pose a threat to Texas.
How big do you think could the "Texas Navy" water force get?
"As big as it needs to be," McCraw said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it supports the Texas gunboat strategy and will coordinate with state officials on how best to stop smugglers from slipping, or swimming, away.0 0 0
As an entrepreneur the biggest challenge you are faced with is to select the proper entity structure for your business. While many countries allow the typical structures of sole-proprietorship, partnership, or corporation for business ownership, in United States you have the ability to form a Limited Liability Company (LLC). All 50 states now allow the formation of LLC`s. Forming your own LLC may not be as simple as a sole-proprietorship; however, the process is much less than a corporation. Requirement from all 50 states may vary slightly from state to state however all LLC mainly require two main steps to be formed.
1) Articles of Organization – For forming a LLC you need to file Articles of Organization with Secretary of State where you want to form your LLC, and pay the required fees.
2) Operating Agreement – It is not mandatory to draft operating agreement in many states, however it is advisable. Similar to Corporate Bylaws and Partnership Agreements Operating Agreement specifies Company’s Profit Sharing structure, Ownership responsibilities and Ownership changes.
LLC is neither a corporation nor a partnership. It is a type of business ownership that combines several features of corporation and partnership. Owners of LLC are called Members and not shareholders or partners. LLC can have unlimited members and they can be individuals, corporations or other LLCs.
Here are some of advantages of forming a LLC:
Pass-through taxation – LLC are not taxed at the entity level. Profits are taxed at the member level and not at LLC level (no double taxation).
Limited liability – the owners of the LLC, called “members,” are protected from liability for acts and debts of the LLC.
Can be set up with just one person involved or, in some states, one owner which may be an entity itself.
No requirement of an annual general meeting for shareholders (in some states, such as Tennessee and Minnesota, this statement is not correct). You may also not have Minutes of Meeting requirement.
LLCs existence can be perpetual, with lives that extend beyond the illness or even death of their owners, thus avoiding problematic business termination or sole proprietor death.
Much less administrative paperwork and recordkeeping.
Profits / Losses can be shared in different ratios compared to Membership Ratio in the LLC.
Here are some of disadvantages of forming a LLC:
Earnings of most members of an LLC are generally subject to self-employment tax. By contrast, earnings of an S corporation, after paying a reasonable salary to the shareholders working in the business, can be passed through as distributions of profits and are not subject to self-employment taxes.
Since an LLC is considered a partnership for Federal income tax purposes, if 50% or more of the capital and profit interests are sold or exchanged within a 12-month period, the LLC will terminate for federal tax purposes.
If more than 35% of losses can be allocated to non managers, the limited liability company may lose its ability to use the cash method of accounting.
A limited liability company which is treated as a partnership cannot take advantage of incentive stock options engage in tax-free reorganizations, or issue Section 1244 stock.
There is a lack of uniformity among limited liability company statutes. Businesses that operate in more than one state may not receive consistent treatment.
In order to be treated as a partnership, an LLC must have at least two members. An S corporation can have one shareholder. Although all states allow single member LLCs, the business is not permitted to elect partnership classification for federal tax purposes. The business files Schedule C as a sole proprietor unless it elects to file as a corporation.
Some states do not tax partnerships but do tax limited liability companies.
Conversion of an existing business to limited liability company status could result in tax recognition on appreciated assets.
So we can define LLC as a business ownership structure that offers its owners the advantage of limited liability (like corporations) and partnership-like taxation, in which profits are passed through to the owners and taxed on their personal income tax returns.
Contact [email protected] OR Call 210-248-3397, India +91-80-41633973, if you are looking for professional advisory services. GVA is not an attorney or attorney firm. GVA has partnered with NAFEP for Estate Planning services. Unless we expressly state otherwise in this post any tax advice contained in this communication is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing, or recommending to another party any transaction or other matter addressed herein.
.Nine white supremacists were arrested in Arkansas, along with 35 other people, on Wednesday as part of a major crackdown on local gun and drug crime.
The “To the Dirt” investigation was named for the New Aryan Empire slogan, which references the pledge that members of the Arkansas-based white supremacist prison gang are in the group until they die.
Law officials say they began investigating crimes by the white supremacist group and quickly realized their drug trade expanded into other states. Over the course of two years, agents made 59 controlled purchases of methamphetamine and seized more than 25 pounds of meth.
Eight of the indicted white supremacists are members of the NAE, according to law enforcement, while the ninth belongs to the White Aryan Resistance, another Arkansas-based white supremacist prison gang. Indictments were issued for 70 people, with 23 remaining at large.
Members of both NAE and WAR have been involved in a “laundry list of criminal activity,” said Glenn Daniel, a lieutenant in Arkansas’ Russellville Police Department. The NAE was also the subject of a kidnapping and battery case in June that left one man with a stab wound.
“Local law enforcement officials started investigating various crimes being committed by the NAE, including the distribution of methamphetamine,” said a Department of Justice press release. “It soon became apparent that the methamphetamine trafficking in this area went far beyond only NAE members, and the Fifth Judicial District Drug Task Force enlisted the help of the DEA and ATF.”
Law enforcement seized 69 firearms during the course of the investigation, including 45 guns, during the Wednesday morning arrests. Cody Hiland, the newly appointed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, said at a press conference that police found 25 guns in one house and 14 in another. The seized firearms include handguns, rifles, shotguns, and high-capacity assault-style rifles.
“The New Aryan Empire is a white supremacist gang that is involved in drug and gun trafficking,” said Chris Givens, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Arkansas. “Anytime you have that combination of white supremacy ideas mixed with crime you’re going to have problems.”
Givens also said the arrests targeted people at all levels of the drug ring, from suppliers down to smaller street dealers.
“There’s certainly still people dealing methamphetamine in Pope and Yell County, Arkansas,” he said. “However any time there is an indictment of this size it is certainly going to deal a blow to any drug trafficking organization, especially considering that multiple suppliers have been indicted, not just the consumers.”Domestic Violence
“My son and all the women around me feel proud of me for coming out of that horrible situation,” says Sultana
Sultana Yasmeen’s journey to hell and back began from the first week of her marriage. Unwilling to work himself, her husband didn’t agree with Sultana earning a livelihood either. He loathed a working woman so much that he cut her nose and lips off.
Eighteen years later, Sultana’s life couldn’t be more different. Sultana works with children in schools and women in 20 bastis in Hyderabad’s old city through Shaheen Women's Resource and Welfare Association.
She and her colleagues talk to the women about domestic violence, child marriage, how to use the RTI, sexual harassment both at home and on the streets. Through regular visits to schools and collaboration with government officials, they ensure that children do not drop out and are also not married off before legal age. Wherever required, they also provide legal aid.
Her decision to do this work has not gone down well with the men in Talabkatta area of the old city where she lives. In 2013, a rowdy-sheeter from her locality assaulted her and she got him arrested.
“Women voicing opinion remains unacceptable to men and most often because they are taught to feel that way. Gender discrimination is the most overlooked form of violence” she says.
But Sultana has stayed the course, dedicating her time and energy to helping other women realise their basic rights. She not only restarted and completed the Bachelor’s degree in Arts that had been interrupted by her marriage, but in 2013, she also enrolled herself in a Master’s programme in Sociology, which she is currently pursuing.
And earlier this year, in April 2016, her work with Shaheen was recognised in the form of an opportunity to represent the NGO at a workshop on gender violence in the USA. Organised by the American Consulate, the workshop on “Best Practices in Reducing Gender Based Violence” gave Sultana the chance to interact with other survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault from a variety of places and contexts, and learn from these many struggles.
The biggest learning, she has come away with from her American experiences, says Sultana, is the need for women to be educated, financially independent and empowered. “What I saw in the US was that women there are very conscious of their rights, they immediately take action against their husbands, but in India the women still want to go back to their in-laws place even after facing so many problems.”
Looking back at her own journey, she says, “My son and all the women around me feel proud of me for coming out of this horrible situation, and because I am now free and independent. I am not in touch with my in-laws, but they apparently wonder how I got this far, and even reached the US.”
The terrible night
Sultana was in the final trimester of her pregnancy when the savage crime was committed. The doctors, Sultana says, took a while to decide whether to perform the caesarian-section first or the skin-grafting.
“It was the night of March 8, 1998. We didn’t even fight that day. All I remember is being hit by something on my head,” says Sultana.
When she woke up from a coma 20 days later, she recalls running a hand on her belly for reassurance that pregnancy was intact.
However, neither her family nor her in-laws were to be found by her side and she missed them sorely.
"Aisi ladki hamare ghar mein nahin reh sakti (We can’t have such a girl at our place) is what they told me. My brother said he would let me stay if I don’t file a case against my husband,” she says.
Sultana learned the attendant that Sayeeduddin had used a kitchen knife and tailoring scissors. That he had surrendered immediately. And that he got bail.
Recovering at Osmania General Hospital, Sultana found it difficult to deal with her reality. "My upper lip was missing, I had two holes for a nose and there was this days-old baby in my lap. I had no idea how to raise him," she recalls.
For a long time (she doesn't remember the duration exactly), she was fed through a pipe. Not being able to breathe and eat normally was torturous. Equally worrying to her was the fear that her son would get scared looking at her deformed face. "Every time I saw my face in the mirror, I had to control the urge to kill myself," she narrates.
Abusive since the beginning
Sultana was married at the age of 17 to Mohammed Sayeeduddin who was around 15 years older to her. The emotional and physical abuse Sultana suffered was evident from the very first week.
“He took me to Purana Pul (a heritage bridge over Musi river in Hyderabad) one day and asked me to jump off,” says Sultana. On another occasion, he got a bottle of acid and kept it at home to threaten her.
There was no love, trust or any kind of financial support from him, she said, adding she wouldn't have been allowed to walk out of the relationship. Sultana says she never found a reason to live with him. Neither her family nor in-laws could understand her reasons for demanding a separation.
Sayeeduddin owned a tailoring shop, which remained mostly shut until Sultana took charge.
It infuriated him, but running the shop was a necessity, not an exercise to gratify ego, she said.
"A week before the incident, I had gone to live with his sister, he came down to her place and convinced me he will change. I trusted him," Sultana says.
Hounded for fighting injustice
Eight surgeries were performed between 1998 and 2005. The physical pain has reduced, but the memories are still afresh and haunt her.
As Sultana recollects the past, it is apparent that not just her family and in-laws, but even the media endorsed patriarchy.
“A few reporters indulged in character assassination while I was in a coma. A section of the media cooked-up stories about my past. The harassment went on for some time,” says Sultana.
Sayeeduddin died in November 2014, but while alive he was arrested many times, served a short sentence and got out. He wasn’t found in the locality for a few years and was said to be under medication for “some mental illnesses.”
For the first time in a three-hour interview, there are tears in Sultana's eyes.
“While alive, he attempted to kidnap my son thrice. I wanted my son to be safe and he seemed safer when not here (with me),” Sultana said.
Sultana emerged a survivor and is referred to as ‘beta (son)’ by her family, which she doesn’t approve of. And rightly so.The American government is once again stripping funding from non-governmental groups that discuss abortion.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed the executive order known as the "Mexico City Policy" on Monday morning.
The gag order prohibits USAID from funding any group operating internationally that promotes abortion, or tells a person that abortion is legal in their country.
The policy requires NGOs to "neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations."
Its effects are widespread because USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, has a US$ 27 billion budget and often joins forces with other charity groups to offer aid.
Because it is almost impossible to discuss reproductive health without mentioning abortion, and often violates local law to refuse to tell a woman that abortion is legal, NGOs worldwide get stripped of their funding.
Many point out the move by Trump will appease right-wing groups in the U.S. but will actually lead to an increase in abortions worldwide.
That's because as NGOS lose funding, they scale back their efforts to educate men and women in foreign countries about reproductive health and can no longer provide contraceptives.
Political football
The global gag order has been a political football since Ronald Reagan first created the regulation in 1984.
Successive Democratic presidents have rescinded the order, while it was reinstated by their Republican counterparts.
Presidents usually deal with the order on Jan. 22, the day the U.S. Supreme Court issued the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the United States.
Trump signed it one day after the 44th anniversary of Roe. v. Wade.
Republicans supported the move, with Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska saying "the Mexico City Policy reflects our heartfelt compassion for both moms and babies."
The Centre for Health and Gender Equity said the policy will lead to the death of women.
"The global gag rule has been associated with an increase in unsafe abortions and we expect that Trump's global gag rule will cost women their lives," said Serra Sippel, the organization's president.
Marie Stopes International, a global charity that operates in 37 countries and gets funding in part from USAID, estimates the gag order signed by Trump will prevent it from offering contraception to 1.5 million women per year and lead to 2.1 million more abortions in the next three years.
A study by the World Health Organization found that while George W. Bush was in office the number of abortions in sub-Saharan Africa rose as a direct result of his implementation of the policy.
The WHO estimates that 56 million abortions are performed each year but the rate at which they take place is dropping, from 40 per 1,000 women of childbearing age in in 1990-1994 to 35 per 1,000 women of childbearing age in 2010-2014.
Most of the decline is in developed regions of the world, going from 46 to 27 per 1,000 in that timeframe.
Globally, 25 percent of pregnancies end in abortion.Jeb Bradley and the American Payroll Association would have moved New Hampshire workers over to fee-laden payroll cards
Concord, NH – Granite State Progress applauds the New Hampshire House – and specifically, State Representatives Andy White, Chuck Weed, Doug Ley and Michael Cahill – for standing strong to protect workers and small businesses in New Hampshire during the Committee of Conference on HB 357 today.
The New Hampshire House previously voted SB 100, abolishing paper paycheck options, inexpedient to legislate by a strong bi-partisan vote of 235-93. In response, the Senate added the same policy to a pro-worker bill, HB 357, which would have prohibited an employer from using credit history in employment decisions.
“We were disappointed to see the Senate use a pro-active, worker’s rights bill as a vehicle for a policy that would undoubtedly hurt middle and lower income families,” said Zandra Rice Hawkins, director of Granite State Progress. “Granite State Progress applauds the House decision to non-concur on the bill rather than allow Jeb Bradley to abolish paper paycheck options in New Hampshire and push employees without bank accounts over to payroll cards with few to no consumer protections. This special interest legislation would have come at a cost to New Hampshire families and small businesses.”
Passing legislation that abolishes paper paychecks or otherwise forces workers over to fee-laden payroll cards follows a dangerous pattern supported by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Senator Jeb Bradley has been the prime sponsor of such legislation in recent years, going so far as to mislead committee members and fellow legislators about the use of the cards. During the COC today, Bradley attempted to tell conferees that workers would not be charged payroll card fees if they used nationally branded cards, which is not true.
Representing the Senate for the COC were Senators Jeb Bradley, Andy Sanborn, and Andrew Hosmer.
Granite State Progress is a progressive advocacy organization that addresses issues of immediate state and local concern. Granite State Progress works as a communications hub for the progressive community to provide a strong, credible voice in advancing progressive solutions to critical community problems.
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Oct. 11, 2014, 5:53 PM GMT / Updated Oct. 11, 2014, 5:55 PM GMT
MINGORA, Pakistan — In the hometown of Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai, the students at the government-run Girls’ High School Mingora sit cross-legged on sacks and sheets on the floor because there is not enough furniture. The windows are broken, the walls dirty, and the teachers angry. Their anger is not directed at Malala herself, they say, but at a world that lavishes attention on her while ignoring the neglect and violence in her home of Swat Valley.
“It’s all Malala, Malala, Malala,” complained mathematics teacher Saima Khan. “There are hundreds of people who have sacrificed everything and lost everything. No one has given them anything.”
At a cake-cutting ceremony on Saturday, politicians carrying posters of Malala jostled for space with civil society activists. Many residents looked askance at the procession, pointing out that even as leaders paid lip service to Malala’s education drive, they were allowing schools in her hometown to crumble under government neglect and continued military occupation.
“This obviously makes people unhappy. If the government did its job, people wouldn’t have to hate Malala. They feel abandoned,” said Ahmed Shah, Malala's former teacher. Provincial legislator Fazle Hakim said he was big fan of Malala’s education message, but conceded the government had not built a single new school since coming to power a year ago. Troops that arrived here in 2009 continue to use many schools as barracks and bases. “People are upset at the lack of work,” Hakim admitted.
IN-DEPTH
SOCIAL
— ReutersOrganizers for California’s high-speed train just announced that when their bullet train opens, it’ll start service out of the Bay Area, not Southern California like originally planned.
The announcement isn’t a surprise—but it could prove crucial to the success of the already delayed project, which is over two years behind schedule.
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The Los Angeles Times reports today that the first 250-mile stretch of the bullet train will link San Jose to Bakersfield, rather than Fresno to Burbank. Officials for the California High-Speed Rail Authority admitted last month that construction is going to take “a little longer than we said.” The first leg of the $68 billion project is supposed to be done by 2022, and is supposed to whisk passengers from SF to LA in 2.5 hours.
But this total 180-degree change could totally work out to the project’s favor by winning more public support and possibly helping the thing get done.
Part of the reason for all the delays is that the route needs to slice through Southern California’s extensive mountains, which require lots of tunneling during construction. There were many disagreements from an environmental standpoint about which alignment to take. This switcheroo allows organizers more time to deal with Los Angeles’ complex geography. Plus, LA is still working on a plan for revamping its Union Station for HSR. (For what it’s worth, Anaheim’s HSR station has been finished for awhile but since it’s furthest south it seems like it might be last in line to be linked with this new plan.)
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In comparison, the Bay Area alignment is shovel-ready, plus, construction’s already well underway for San Francisco’s Transbay Center: a massive transit hub that will be Northern California’s terminus for the bullet train. The San Jose to San Francisco route is already serviced by Caltrain, which is supposed to share its network with the high-speed train.
But there’s another benefit to starting up north. The futuristic HSR alternative would be a way faster, more appealing option for the increasing amount of Silicon Valley employees who live in San Francisco and surrounding cities, but work down south. This means it could definitely emerge as a solution to SF’s tinted-windowed symbols of gentrification, the “Google buses.” Get tech companies involved in a meaningful way, and there’s even more built-in public support.
The California project might seem like a bunch of empty promises and a bundle of disorganization to some, but hey—unlike the bullet train plan in Texas, at least this one’s actually already being built.
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[Los Angeles Times]Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics said, it is very likely that Amazon will put HQ2 on the East Coast, “preferably the Northeast Corridor.” In that case, New York rises to No. 3 behind Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
“New York gets dinged by its cost structure,” he said.
Amazon is expected to winnow its list of candidates by Dec. 25, but the review process will extend well into 2018.
In addition to New York City’s proposal, the state is putting up its own candidates. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is backing proposals from Western New York and the Finger Lakes; the Syracuse area; the region near Albany; and a metro New York City bid that includes Long Island and parts of the Hudson Valley.
The state’s top economic development official, Howard Zemsky, has crafted an incentive or subsidy package for Amazon, although state officials declined to release details because of the competitive nature of the contest.
In drafting its proposal, the state has had to navigate the upstate-downstate divide, not wanting to be accused of favoring New York City.
Mr. Zemsky also went out of his way at a meeting of the Partnership for New York City on Roosevelt Island on Oct. 3 to assure about 75 top corporate executives that the state was taking the competition seriously. And while the governor and the mayor have had an often fractious relationship, he told the crowd that the state and city were working harmoniously.During the FCC's December meeting, chair Kevin Martin plans to push for a free, but porn-free Internet service that would be available to all Americans. Reports the Wall Street Journal:
The proposal to allow a no-smut, free wireless Internet service is part of a proposal to auction off a chunk of airwaves. The winning bidder would be required to set aside a quarter of the airwaves for a free Internet service. The winner could establish a paid service that would have a fast wireless Internet connection. The free service could be slower and would be required to filter out pornography and other material not suitable for children. The FCC's proposal mirrors a plan offered by M2Z Networks Inc., a start-up backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner John Doerr.
The proposal faces objections from consumer groups -- who say the FCC's filtering will go too far -- and the wireless carriers, who complain that a free Internet would interfere with their own radiowaves (and customer-base).
See Also:
Obama's CTO: Here's Who's In The Running
ISPs To Speed Up P2P Transfers
FCC Approves 'Wi-Fi On Steroids': Good News For Consumers, Bad News For TelcosGordon Edgar Downie CM (February 6, 1964 – October 17, 2017) was a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, musician, writer and activist. He was the lead singer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, which he fronted from their formation in 1984 until his death in 2017. Downie is widely regarded as one of the most influential and popular artists in Canadian music history. [2]
In addition to his career with the Tragically Hip, Downie released five solo albums: Coke Machine Glow (2001), Battle of the Nudes (2003), The Grand Bounce (2010), Secret Path (2016), and Introduce Yerself (2017), and a collaboration with the Sadies, And the Conquering Sun (2014).[3]
Early life [ edit ]
Gordon Downie was born in Amherstview, Ontario, and raised in Kingston, Ontario, along with his brothers Mike and Patrick, and sisters Charlyn and Paula. He was the son of Lorna (Neal) and Edgar Charles Downie, a travelling salesman, later a real estate broker and developer.[4][5] In Kingston, he befriended the musicians who would become The Tragically Hip, while attending the downtown Kingston high school Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute.[6]
Career [ edit ]
The Tragically Hip [ edit ]
Downie formed The Tragically Hip with Rob Baker, Johnny Fay, Davis Manning, and Gord Sinclair in 1983. Saxophone player Davis Manning left the band and guitarist Paul Langlois joined in 1986.[7] Originally, the band played cover songs in local bars and quickly became famous once MCA Records president Bruce Dickinson saw them performing at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto and offered them a record deal.[8]
Downie began pursuing a solo career with the release of Coke Machine Glow in 2001. He published his first poetry and prose collection alongside the album and under the same title.[9] The backing musicians, credited as the Goddamned Band, consisted of indie rock band the Dinner Is Ruined, Josh Finlayson of Skydiggers and singer-songwriter Julie Doiron.[10][11] He released his second solo album, Battle of the Nudes, in 2003 before returning to the studio with the Tragically Hip. His third solo effort, The Grand Bounce, was released in 2010. Both it and Battle of the Nudes are credited as Gord Downie and the Country of Miracles.[12]
Downie performing in 2013
Collaborations [ edit ]
In addition to his solo works, Downie collaborated with several fellow Canadian and international artists. His most famous Canadian collaborations are with Richard Terfry (better known as Buck 65), Dallas Green of City and Colour and Alexisonfire, the Sadies and Fucked Up. Terfry collaborated with Downie on the song "Whispers of the Waves" off the album 20 Odd Years. Terfry composed the track and with the help of Charles Austen, his co-writer, decided Downie's vocals would be the best fit for their song.[13] In 2008, Downie appeared as a guest vocalist on City and Colour's single "Sleeping Sickness".[14] In 2014, Downie released an album with the Sadies called And the Conquering Sun. He commented on working with the Sadies, saying, "I enjoy getting together with those guys; it's a whole other universe. They're writing all the music and I'm writing all the lyrics and we're coming up with some neat stuff. You do it for the company but I'm genuinely shocked by the themes and things you touch based on the music you're singing to. That's really compelling to me." The album consists of ten songs.[15]
On February 2, 2017, Downie joined Blue Rodeo onstage at Massey Hall for a performance of Blue Rodeo's song "Lost Together".[16] This marked his last public appearance before his death.
In other media [ edit ]
Downie had cameo appearances in Men with Brooms, in which the Tragically Hip play a curling team. Downie also made a cameo appearance in the 2008 indie drama Nothing Really Matters, directed by Jean-Marc Piché. Downie also appears in the Trailer Park Boys movie The Big Dirty, in which he and Alex Lifeson play a pair of police officers. More recently, he and other members of the band appeared in the episode of Trailer Park Boys entitled "Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys", in which he is harassed while eating a bologna sandwich at a singles dance. Downie was also featured in the sitcom Corner Gas in the episode "Rock On!" in which the Tragically Hip are shown as a local band practising in the main character's garage. Colin James is also featured in the episode. Downie also appeared in Michael McGowan's 2008 film, One Week. A documentary film, Long Time Running, about the Tragically Hip's summer 2016 cross-Canada farewell concert tour, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2017.[17]
Philanthropic work [ edit ]
Environmentalism [ edit ]
Downie was heavily involved in environmental movements, especially issues concerning water rights. He was board member of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.[18] With Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, Downie helped work on a cause to prevent a cement company from burning tires for fuel.[19] He was also a part of the Swim Drink Fish Music club, a project that unites artists and environmentalists in a music club to raise money for Waterkeeper organizations in Canada.[20]
The Great Moon Gathering [ edit ]
In February 2012 in Fort Albany, Ontario, Downie and the Tragically Hip played at the Great Moon Gathering, a yearly educational conference that takes place in various communities along Northern Ontario's James Bay coast. Its focus is on youth learning and combining Cree education with the contemporary world.[21] The venue was small and not typical of the band. Author Joseph Boyden, who invited them, said their motivation was to "initiate a guerrilla act of love for a people who are so thoroughly underrepresented but now, somehow, overexposed for only their shortcomings. A guerrilla act of love to show the rest of the country what strength and artistry, grace and humour the Cree possess." In addition to the Tragically Hip's performance, Downie sang a song with a
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11, 2011. A high-definition video image transfer was performed and color corrected using the film's original 35 mm film negative, while the original monaural soundtrack was digitally remastered in stereo at 24 bit.[citation needed]
Criterion added a number of bonus features on the releases of the film: a "stills" gallery from both the film itself, as well as behind-the-scenes shots. There is also the original theatrical trailer and an audio interview with director Byron Haskin recorded in 1979. A music video for Victor Lundin's song "Robinson Crusoe on Mars" was created in 2007 specifically for the film's DVD release. A full color booklet is also included with various facts about the film.[10]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]PLEASE USE ONLINE TICKET RESERVATION SYSTEM
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Stephen Colbert took some time on Wednesday's The Late Show to discuss the recent terrorist attack at the Istanbul airport.
"All of our thoughts and prayers and good wishes go to the people who are suffering everywhere in the world in the hands of terrorism," said Colbert. "This time it's Istanbul. It is heartbreaking to see this happen over and over again."
He stopped to say he wanted to address the news organizations who aired footage of the suicide bombing in action.
"Is it really necessary to show us photographs or rolling video of a terrorist exploding?" asked Colbert somberly. "That really seems like advertising for someone's cause in a way that they may like. I don't think we need to see that."
The terrorist attack killed 41 people and injured more than 230 people.AT&T’s new chat bot is named Atticus, presumably after Atticus Finch, the dad-lawyer in the famed Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Or perhaps after Gregory Peck’s portrayal of the World’s Greatest Dad-Lawyer in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird. Maybe it’s named after the super old and very racist Atticus Finch who appears in Harper Lee’s 2015 novel Go Set a Watchman? Hopefully not?
In any case, Atticus the AT&T bot will talk at you about pop culture for hours. He has all kinds of fun trivia about television programs, and according to this video he’s “a goofball!” Also according to this promotional video, “It’s hard to believe he’s not real!”
In Atticus’ own words about himself: “If the Dunphy family is looking for another kid, I’d be happy to join them. I’d be no trouble. Especially since I don’t physically exist. We’d be a real Modern Family.” While Atticus knows a great deal about Modern Family, he appears to know very little about actual families.
He’ll give you fun facts about many different TV shows, including but not limited to How to Get Away with Murder, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, American Horror Story, Pretty Little Liars, and, for some reason, The Office, which ended years ago. It’s nice. A bot that keeps you company through a day of binging on Netflix alone is sort of great idea.
Also, I don’t have enough friends to designate one as my “water cooler conversation” person for each of the 100 television shows I now watch (thank you, golden age of TV!). This feels like a common problem, and maybe bots are the answer.
Unfortunately Atticus isn’t really the ideal audience for me either.
Is there no one in this world — human or bot — who is invested in the careers of Coach Taylor, Jessica Lange’s ex-boyfriend, Fiyero from Wicked, and Emmy-winning Star War guy Ben Mendelsohn? Apparently not. I could follow Atticus’s instruction and contact AT&T’s customer support line, though, to be frank, AT&T customer support is the last place I would go to discuss the complex moral conundrums faced regularly by the Rayburn family.
But you know what they say about the last place you look — that’s always where you find what you’re looking for!The playoff stretch run is here and things are heating up in the American Hockey League! Join your hosts, Craig Elsten and B.J. MacPherson, as they recap the latest successes for the San Diego Gulls, who enter the weekend on an eight-game points streak. Could even more help be on the way in terms of reinforcements from the NHL Anaheim Ducks? Craig and B.J. cover all the hot topics surrounding the team. Then, we’ve lined up not just one but three Gulls interviews for you in a jam-packed podcast! Our feature interview is the captain of the Gulls, Joe Piskula, who is adjusting well to life in San Diego after growing up in Wisconsin. Find out from Joe about the injuries he’s suffered over the course of a frusrating personal year, as well as a heartfelt story about his ailing youth hockey coach Dom Hilger, who the Gulls will be honoring at their April 2nd game. But wait, there’s more! You’ll also hear a “get to know you” interview with the newest Gulls forward, Corey Tropp, and as an added bonus we’ve also included this week’s “State of the Gulls” interview with GM Bob Ferguson. It’s all the good stuff you need to get fired up for another big week of hockey! Gulls In Flight #19: Joe Piskula!
Gulls In Flight #19: Joe Piskula Gulls In Flight
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commentsWASHINGTON (CBS SF & AP) — The White House Friday sent Congress a $44 billion disaster aid request and it immediately came under attack from California’s two U.S. senators because it does not contain any relief for victims of the wine country wildfires.
In a joint statement, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris called the bill “appalling.”
“It’s appalling the White House is choosing to ignore the victims of California’s wildfires,” the senators said. “The latest disaster supplemental request is a completely inadequate response to all of the recent natural disasters, but it’s particularly egregious that no money was included to help Californians rebuild.”
“To help with the recovery, there’s been a bipartisan effort between California’s congressional delegation and Governor Brown to secure $7.4 billion in federal funds for those devastated by the wildfires,” the statement continued. “Despite the Trump administration’s request, we’ll continue that effort to ensure enough funding is included for California in this aid package before it passes Congress.”
The request, President Donald Trump’s third since hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria slammed the Gulf Coast and Caribbean, would bring the total appropriated for disaster relief this fall close to $100 billion — and that’s before most of the money to rebuild Puerto Rico’s devastated housing stock and electric grid is added in.
The new installment would add $24 billion to the government’s chief disaster account and establish a new $12 billion grant program for flood risk mitigation projects. Smaller amounts would go to small business loans and to aid farmers suffering crop losses.
The request followed lobbying by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello, who pressed the White House for far more. There are sure to be attempts to add to the measure as it advances through the House and Senate.
“This request does not come close to what local officials say is needed,” said New York Rep. Nita Lowey, top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.
Even before the measure was delivered, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called it “wholly inadequate.” Cornyn worked in September to nearly double Trump’s initial request for Harvey aid and has been battling with the White House behind the scenes.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded, “I don’t think $44 billion is a low amount and my guess is if you asked any average citizen across this country they wouldn’t feel that it’s low either.”
She said Texas “should step up” and provide state money to the rebuilding efforts. But she said damage assessments in Puerto Rico hadn’t been completed yet and additional requests were expected.
The measure arrives as lawmakers and the White House face numerous budget-related issues by year’s end, including a deadline of Dec. 8 to avert a government shutdown. Top Capitol Hill leaders are also negotiating bipartisan spending increases for the Pentagon and domestic agencies in hopes of passing a catchall government funding bill. They are also seeking to renew a popular program that provides health care to children from low-income families.
The Florida congressional delegation asked for $27 billion. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, said in a statement that the request “doesn’t come close to providing what is needed. People are hurting and they desperately need our help, yet this request has no money to provide housing for evacuees and barely any money for Florida’s citrus growers. That’s unacceptable.”
“Congress needs to pass a more robust disaster bill that actually provides the funding needed to help people recover,” Nelson said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Congress had “proven its commitment to aid those suffering from the natural disasters of the fall.” Ryan said the House would “review the request and work with the administration and members from affected states to help the victims get the resources they need to recover and rebuild.”GYLFI SIGURDSSON is not one to look back with regret.
Everton FC Everton star Gylfi Sigurdsson doesn't have a point to prove
Everton’s £45m midfielder also doesn’t believe he has a point to prove as he prepares to make his Goodison Park debut against former club Tottenham today. In fact, he believes his two-year stay at Spurs was the making of him even though he struggled to make a real impression and was sold to Swansea. “It definitely helped me as a person and as a player,” said the Iceland international. “When I came into Tottenham and when I came out of there to go back to Swansea I was a much better player. “I was more mature, more experienced and I learnt a lot playing with the top players there.” Sigurdsson had spent a successful six months on loan at Swansea from Hoffenheim before opting for a £7m move to Tottenham in the summer of 2012.
Gylfi Sigurdsson: Everton’s possible starting XI with £45m signing GYLFI SIGURDSSON has joined Everton in a deal worth £45m - here’s how the Toffees could line up with their new playmaker. 1 / 13 EVERTON FC Everton's possible XI with Gylfi Sigurdsson: 4-3-2-1
“Am I here with a point to prove? Not at all, there is nothing like that going on” Everton star Gylfi Sigurdsson He made 83 appearances under Andres Villas-Boas and Tim Sherwood but 39 of those were as a substitute in a time of change and managerial upheaval at White Hart Lane. When Mauricio Pochettino arrived in 2014, Sigurdsson felt it was time to return to the Liberty Stadium and nail down a regular starting spot. “I really enjoyed the time there,” he said. “It is a club that I will always look out for the results of and when we are playing them. “Of course I had a few years left on my contract and I probably could have stayed. “It was the time when Pochettino was coming in but I had kind of made up my mind I wanted to change it up and go to Swansea and get some games under my belt which has helped me over the last three years and brought me to Everton. “Am I here with a point to prove? Not at all, there is nothing like that going on.”
Sigurdsson’s signature broke Everton’s transfer record this summer but it was a drawn-out saga that saw him push for a move once it became clear that Ronald Koeman was keen on the 28-year-old. It was still not easy to leave Swansea where he had become their star man and a club that welcomed him back with open arms after he left Spurs. “Will they understand I needed to make this step? Of course I hope so,” he said. “It never got in a negative way when I was leaving. “It’s hard to say goodbye to a team you like playing for, but it’s football and your career is really short and you never know what is going to happen. “In two months’ time you might get injured and your opportunity might be gone. I made my mind and I’m happy that I’m here.” Sigurdsson has already made an impression at Everton with a stunning long-range goal against Hajduk Split in the Europa League qualifiers.
“I was just thinking hopefully the keeper is off his line,” he said. But it is about the long-term future rather than just long-range goals and Sigurdsson is hoping to put down roots after a fairly nomadic career with his three-year spell at Swansea the longest he has been at one club. “That is why I signed a long contract,” he said. “I want to be here for a long number of years. “It will take me to just over 30 I think, wow that feels like a long way. I think things will go past quickly if you’re enjoying time.” Asked if the move will make him a better player, he said: “I hope so, that would be nice. “Of course, the main thing is to be good and playing high up the league.Editor Score Comments
Greg Lalas
Editor-In-Chief
2-0 The time has come for Sporting to finally break their Houston hex. Plus, Claudio Bieler – when he finally gets into the game – is a game-changer that the Dynamo don't have.
Jonah Freedman
Managing Editor
1-0 There's a reason orange is a fall color: This has Dynamo written all over it. They'll keep it tight and frustrate SKC for 90 minutes, then get a goal from an unlikely source (Clark? Boswell? Carrasco???) in extra time. Same as it ever was.
Simon Borg
Senior Editor
1-0 We know what to expect – Sporting will be on the offensive, but they'll have little space to operate and the crosses will be easy pickings for the Dynamo backline. Despite likely missing key players, the Dynamo will still have enough to nick a goal. Sporting Park heartbreak, Part 3.
Kristel Valencia
Editor FutbolMLS.com
2-0 I insist it's foolish for Vermes to leave his DP on the bench while the team's other are not solving the struggles up front and Sporting must rely on defenders to score. Houston knows how to play with SKC's desperation at home and Boniek will kill the party at Sporting Park.
Matt Doyle
Armchair Analyst
1-0 Third time's the charm for Sporting. This one will be ugly, and it'll go all the way to extratime, where the home team will find the winner off a set piece.
Andrew Wiebe
Editor
1-0 Pretty soccer? Probably not. An intense, physical nailbiter? You can bet the house on it after both coaches had two weeks to prepare their charges for this winner-take-all affair.
Jason Saghini
Director of Video
1-0 Is the third time the charm for SKC? This game is a toss up and will be decided on a scrappy set-piece goal in OT, and after two tosses of the coin went to Houston, it finally turns in SKC's favor.
Nick Rosano
Editor
1-0 We're finally here – this is the year that Sporting will finally solve Houston. This one won't be any prettier than the first leg, but Sporting will be able to sneak a goal this time around and look forward to an MLS Cup in Kansas City.In recent years, linguists have begun to increasingly rely on quantitative phylogenetic approaches to examine language evolution. Some linguists have questioned the suitability of phylogenetic approaches on the grounds that linguistic evolution is largely reticulate due to extensive lateral transmission, or borrowing, among languages. The problem may be particularly pronounced in hunter-gatherer languages, where the conventional wisdom among many linguists is that lexical borrowing rates are so high that tree building approaches cannot provide meaningful insights into evolutionary processes. However, this claim has never been systematically evaluated, in large part because suitable data were unavailable. In addition, little is known about the subsistence, demographic, ecological, and social factors that might mediate variation in rates of borrowing among languages. Here, we evaluate these claims with a large sample of hunter-gatherer languages from three regions around the world. In this study, a list of 204 basic vocabulary items was collected for 122 hunter-gatherer and small-scale cultivator languages from three ecologically diverse case study areas: northern Australia, northwest Amazonia, and California and the Great Basin. Words were rigorously coded for etymological (inheritance) status, and loan rates were calculated. Loan rate variability was examined with respect to language area, subsistence mode, and population size, density, and mobility; these results were then compared to the sample of 41 primarily agriculturalist languages in [1]. Though loan levels varied both within and among regions, they were generally low in all regions (mean 5.06%, median 2.49%, and SD 7.56), despite substantial demographic, ecological, and social variation. Amazonian levels were uniformly very low, with no language exhibiting more than 4%. Rates were low but more variable in the other two study regions, in part because of several outlier languages where rates of borrowing were especially high. High mobility, prestige asymmetries, and language shift may contribute to the high rates in these outliers. No support was found for claims that hunter-gatherer languages borrow more than agriculturalist languages. These results debunk the myth of high borrowing in hunter-gatherer languages and suggest that the evolution of these languages is governed by the same type of rules as those operating in large-scale agriculturalist speech communities. The results also show that local factors are likely to be more critical than general processes in determining high (or low) loan rates.
Copyright: © 2011 Bowern 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.
None of the claims for higher HG lexical borrowing rates have been investigated systematically across a variety of language families. Here, we examine the dynamics of loans in 122 HG and AG languages from AUS, NAM and SAM. The sample contains the largest collection of hunter-gatherer lexical etymologies to date. We compare the results obtained from this sample with a set of AG and urban (URB) languages from the World Loanword Database project [1], [20] (hereafter WOLD). The present study is the first to empirically establish overall loan rates in basic vocabulary for such a broad sample of languages, and to examine the impact of size of area occupied by the language group, subsistence mode, population size, density, and mobility on rates of borrowing. We find that loan levels vary both within and among regions. We find low levels of borrowing in an array of languages with different demographic, ecological, and social conditions. The causes of especially low levels of borrowing in SAM, and the rare cases of exceptionally high borrowing, are explored. There is little support for claims that HG languages are significantly different from AG languages. instead, local social and historical factors prevail. Claims that tree-building is impossible in these language due to rates of loans are thus incorrect; rates overall are an order of magnitude smaller than the loan rates which lead to loss of phylogenetic signal using lexical data [21].
Dixon [6] argues that roughly equal socio-economic status between HG groups should facilitate transfer in both directions. Dixon's claim is not specifically about hunter-gatherers, but about groups in “equilibrium,” particularly groups in Australia. However, because of the framing of his model and the treatment of agriculture and organized warfare as punctuation events, Dixon's arguments apply particularly to hunter-gatherers. Nettle [9] appeals to general processes which he argues apply specifically to Australia, but which result from demographics which are characteristic of hunter-gatherer groups. Additionally, where relations exist between hunter-gatherers and their agriculturalist neighbors, the tendency for the hunter-gatherers to be perceived as having relatively low social status might lead to greater borrowing between these groups [19]. All these works lead to a picture that languages spoken by HG communities are different from other languages.
Social and demographic factors influence language change in both HG and non-HG groups via their effects on the rates and types of linguistic items that are borrowed [9], [14]. Because HG groups often have different demographic profiles from AG groups, such as smaller population sizes and tighter in-group social network structures [10], [12], it might be expected that changes conditioned by these factors would apply to HG and AG groups unequally. Phenomena proposed to guide processes of borrowing have included a language's structural profile [15] and, in certain cases, cultural constraints that severely penalize language mixing [6], [16]. In the former case, the amount of morphology that words contain has been linked to borrowability [17], [18].
The category ‘hunter-gatherer’ is defined principally with respect to food production – i.e., limited or no practice of agriculture. However, hunter-gatherer food production strategies vary in extent of cultivation, flora and fauna domestication, and food storage [10], [11]. They also vary with respect to social and demographic factors that can affect language change, such as sedentism, population size and density, settlement patterns, and social hierarchies, as well as in the degree of interaction with their neighbors and complexity of their social network organization [12]. Such variation may occur both across groups and over time; this is particularly the case in the SAM and NAM regions, where some groups have shifted back and forth between subsistence foci [13].
Previous studies of borrowing are based on highly restricted samples from individual languages or small regions that lack standardized data sets, and results may therefore not be generalizable to other places and times. Some surveys [1] are standardized but contain too few languages to test for connections between rates of borrowing and demography. Here we redress these limitations by surveying loan rates in a large sample of hunter-gatherer (HG) and small-scale agriculturalist (AG) languages on three continents (Australia (AUS), North America (NAM), and South America (SAM); see Figure S1 ). These areas have adequate standard data sets, and they vary substantially with respect to the demographic, ecological, and social factors that are likely to affect borrowing.
Darwin [2], [3] suggested that patterns of human biological and linguistic variation might correspond because of parallel tree-like evolution in isolated human groups. This tree analogy is often used by linguists to justify the use of phylogenetic methods to reconstruct the evolutionary process for a group of languages [4], [5]. However, some linguists have argued that lateral transmission or borrowing among languages is rife, making lexical phylogenetic methods inappropriate for reconstructing linguistic evolution [1], [6] – [8]. Lexical phylogenetic methods may be especially inappropriate for hunter-gatherer languages, where it has been suggested that rates of borrowing are particularly high [6], [9]. Such claims are not, however, based on broad-scale empirical work which measures loan rates.
Borrowing in our AUS, NAM, and SAM sample is lower than in the WOLD dataset, where the mean number of loanwords in the 204-word sample under consideration was 10.24% (median 5.3%, SD 11.02; the difference is significant (p 0.001). The WOLD dataset is smaller than the dataset constructed for this paper, containing only 41 opportunistically sampled languages from across the world. Though the dataset samples a wide range of languages, it does not control for differences in demography; moreover the authors [1] report that their sample is likely to overestimate loan averages because of a tendency to sample languages independently known in the literature for relatively high rates of borrowing.
Linguistic exogamy overall was highly significant (p = 0.001) and associated with high borrowing in the total sample. This implies that exogamy is a likely factor in driving loans in the absence of other social prohibitions on language mixing (as are found in the SAM case study, where exogamy was not significant).
Our results reveal no association between rates of lexical borrowing and numbers of speakers (p = 0.735). Most languages in the HG sample have current speaker populations under 5,000 individuals. Three of the SAM groups are considerably larger, and we note that many indigenous groups within our sample have experienced profound demographic changes since European arrival that are not well documented. Within areas, however, small populations were predictive of higher loan rates. Density is not significant (p = 0.600) overall, and note that while low population density was a significant factor in both NAM and AUS, in the former it correlated with low loan levels, while in the latter low density populations had higher loan levels. Mobility is significant overall (p = 0.010), and within NAM and SAM, though not within AUS. Note that in SAM and NAM, mobile populations showed opposite trends, with lower loan levels in NAM but higher ones in SAM.
Mean borrowing rates for all HGs in our sample was 6.38%, median 3.44%, SD 8.85; for agriculturalists the figures are mean of 5.15%, median 1.95%, SD 8.1. Differences between HG and AG groups are significant overall but skewed by the AUS area (which has no AG groups); within areas there is no significant difference. Thus individual area variation is more important than any general tendencies of HG or AG languages.
In all areas, little basic vocabulary is borrowed, despite substantial variation across the regions in the level of contact between groups, social status, subsistence modes, ecology, and demographic situations. In SAM, no language borrowed more than 10% of the sample vocabulary (all were in fact much lower). In NAM, 90% of the languages borrowed 10% or less, while in AUS 62% had 10% or fewer loans. SAM can be characterized as uniquely low-borrowing, with 58% of the languages borrowing either 0 or 1 item. Only 26% of languages in NAM and 7.5% of languages in AUS borrowed at such low rates. Thus, while in all areas borrowings are low, in SAM they are markedly so. Figure 3 plots the distribution of loans for each of the case study areas, the WOLD dataset, and the aggregated sample. The difference between all case study regions was significant (p<0.01).
Australian groups are all traditionally hunter-gatherers, so subsistence levels were not compared. All lived in mobile bands but the degree of mobility varied greatly between a seasonal round mainly within clan estate territories over relatively short distances of 50 km or less in the regions with more natural resources, to long-distance nomadic travel in the arid zones. Exogamy between language groups was not obligatory in most areas, but residential bands tended to include speakers of more than one language. Small populations are more likely to have higher loan levels than medium or large ones (p = 0.015), and languages spoken by groups with low population density are more likely to have higher loans than densely populated groups (p = 0.023); this is the reverse of the NAM case study, were low density populations had lower loans. Moreover, once outliers are removed in the AUS sample, small group size becomes less significant (p = 0.090) and low population density is non-significant (p = 0.560). Mobility is not significant (p = 0.208). Exogamy is also significant (p = 0.039).
Line plot of loan levels in Australia (AUS), North America (NAM) and South America (SAM) compared to the aggregate sample (ALL) and the languages from Haspelmath and Tadmor (2009) [1], showing an overall similarity in the distribution of loan levels by language across regions and sample type.
In summary, the two areas of Australia that have received greatest attention in the literature for loans are revealed with a more representative language sample to be the most atypical. Figure 3 plots the distribution of Australian loan levels versus those of other languages outside the country (the SAM and NAM case study regions; our sample combined, and the WOLD dataset). Our findings are in agreement with another study of rates in Australian languages; Alpher and Nash [34] examined loans in 14 languages of the Cape York region, and found that rates of lexical replacement by borrowing in this area were maximally between 10% and 24%, within (though toward the upper end) of the variation found in the current survey, and well below the rates claimed by Dixon [6].”
The AUS sample also includes Yolngu languages from Eastern Arnhem Land, which have been prominent in claims regarding the frequency of Australian lexical borrowing [33]. Heath found high rates of shared lexicon between Ngandi and Ritharrngu. Our sample showed Ritharrngu's borrowing rate at 22%, with 25 loans coming from Ngandi. Others loans include 2 from English, 7 from Wubuy, and 2 from Djambarrpuyngu. Ngandi loan rates are lower, but 19 of the 21 loans in the sample come from Ritharrngu. A-barra ‘wind’ is from the Austronesian language Makassar, though possibly via Ritharrngu or another Yolngu language, and dhaku ‘small’ is from Rembarrnga. Symmetrical borrowing has increased the percentage of ‘shared’ vocabulary across these languages, which straddle the Pama-Nyungan–Non-Pama-Nyungan border. Note, however, that in no cases here does the presence of high levels of symmetrical borrowing prevent recovery of family affiliations, a point also noted by Heath [30].
Despite intensive contact, the number of loan items in basic vocabulary for most languages is smaller than the cases previously cited, with a mean of 9.4% (median 5.54%, SD 11.01). The data reveal considerable variation in loan rates, even among languages that had extensive interaction with their neighbors. The results range from 0% loans to 48%. The highest figures (above 30%) are found in a few languages in the Victoria River District. A second small group of languages has approximately 25% of their basic vocabulary borrowed. 35 languages have figures of 10% or less, and another 10 have loan levels less than 20%. The languages with highest loan figures are Gurindji (49%), Mudburra (38%) and Gooniyandi (33%). These three languages were clear outliers ( Fig. 1, Table S2 ). When these outliers were eliminated, the mean number of loans in the AUS sample dropped to 6.61%, in line with values reported in other regions.
High borrowing related to language contact has featured prominently in historical analyses of Australian languages. Especially influential has been the work of Heath [29], [30], but others have reported high levels of borrowing in other parts of the country [31], [32]. High borrowing is reported for the sole example of an Australian language in WOLD [32], where the Ngumpin-Yapa language Gurindji has borrowed almost 50% of list items. Borrowing is also high in Gurindji in our sample, at 48% in the basic vocabulary, but this high level is atypical of the Australian languages in our large sample.
Mobility (p = 0.048), population size (p = 0.045), and population density (p = 0.046) were significant factors in the NAM area. Mobile populations and populations with low density of settlement had significantly lower rates, while those with small populations were predictive of higher rates. With respect to food production, HG groups had mean 4.4% loans, median 2.8%, SD 5.23, while agriculturalists had consistently lower figures (mean 1.1%, median 0.66%, SD 1.26; p = 0.051). No groups preferred linguistic exogamy.
Aboriginal California exhibits a high level of linguistic diversity, with more than 100 languages in 7 major lineages [25], [26]. Many of the language communities were small, and there were intricate relationships among them, including shared ceremonial activity, trade, and intermarriage, which yielded extensive multilingualism. In most California languages loan rates are low in spite of this intensive contact. For instance, Takic (Uto-Aztecan) and Yuman languages in southern California all exhibit very low rates of loans in our sample of basic vocabulary, although Hinton [27] reported phonological convergence among them. However, our sample confirmed a few cases of extensive linguistic interchange. The Yukian language Wappo exhibits so much influence from unrelated languages of the region that its genetic affiliation with Yukian has been controversial [26]. Wappo in our sample exhibits a loan rate in basic vocabulary of 14.3%. Callaghan [28] documented striking phonological convergence of Lake Miwok to the neighboring Pomoan languages, and the Wintun language Patwin, and Lake Miwok in our sample exhibits a loan rate of 11.4%. These rates are relatively high in the North American context, where the maximum loan figure is 24% and 41 of the 47 languages in the sample have loan levels under 10%.
Loan rates are low regardless of social status in SAM. For example, among Vaupés agriculturalists, who are of relatively high status compared to the hunter-gatherers, Tukanoan groups exhibit only 0–1% loans, and Arawak Tariana has under 2%, despite the fact that its speakers are currently shifting to Tukano. The Vaupés hunter-gatherers all have relatively low social status coupled with intensive interaction with horticulturalists. They also exhibit low borrowing, e.g., under 2% among the Nadahup languages, mostly from Tukanoan, and approximately 4% for the Kakua of the Kakua-Nukak group, many from its hunter-gatherer Nadahup neighbors. The Nukak language, also of the Kakua-Nukak group, but spoken outside the Vaupés, has about 2% loanwords, also mostly from Tukanoan languages. Other northwest Amazonian languages show similarly low rates of borrowing, despite a range of different contact situations. No clear loans were identified for any of the Yanomami languages, for example, despite their engagement with Carib and neighboring peoples.
There is ample evidence for variation in the type and intensity of contact among different groups in the region. For example, speakers of Huaorani (a language isolate located on the Ecuador-Peru border) have historically maintained minimal interaction with neighboring groups. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the multilingual peoples of the Vaupés region in eastern Colombia and northwest Brazil. For the more horticulturalist Vaupés peoples (East Tukanoans and some Arawaks), this multilingualism derives principally from their practice of obligatory marriage across language groups, known as linguistic exogamy. For the foraging peoples of the region (Nadahup and Kakua), widespread but unreciprocated bilingualism is an outcome of their intensive ‘client’ relationship with their horticulturalist neighbors [16], [23]. Among the Vaupés peoples, cultural attitudes condemning language mixing impede lexical borrowing and code-switching, but do not appear to be a significant obstacle to grammatical diffusion [16], [23], [24]. Neither food production strategies nor exogamy are significant predictors of loan rates in this area (p = 0.668 and p = 0.576 respectively).
The SAM sample draws from ten distinct language families, reflecting the high linguistic diversity of the northwest Amazon. Borrowing rates are uniformly low in these languages, with no language exhibiting more than 4% loans in its basic vocabulary, and most ranging between 1–2%. The rate is low in the region despite substantial variation in the level of contact between groups, social status, subsistence modes, and demographic situations.
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and sell offs of public assets, such as airports, seeds, ports and other infrastructure built up with public money or toil.
This neoliberal agenda is based on state-corporate extremism, which has across the world resulted in national states submitting to the tenets of the Wall Street-backed pro-privatisation policies, deregulation, free capital flows, rigged markets and unaccountable cartels. It is the type of extremism that is depicted as being anything but by the corporate-controlled media.
Powerful corporations are shaping the ‘development’ agenda in India and the full military backing of the state is on hand to forcibly evict peoples from their land in order to hand it to mineral extracting and processing industries, real estate interests and industry.
Moreover, the deal that allows the Monsanto/Syngenta/Walmart-driven Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture in return for the US sanctioning and backing the opening up of India’s nuclear sector to foreign interests has shown who is setting the agenda for agriculture, food and energy.
Almost 300,000 farmers have taken their lives since 1997 and many more are experiencing economic distress or have left farming as a result of debt, a shift to (GM) cash crops and economic ‘liberalisation’ (see this). And yet the corporate-controlled type of agriculture being imposed and/or envisaged only leads to bad food, bad soil, bad or no water, bad health, poor or falling yields and an impending agrarian crisis.
It’s not difficult to see where policy makers’ priorities lie. In a recent TV interview (watch here), food policy analyst Devinder Sharma highlighted such priorities:
“Agriculture has been systematically killed over the last few decades. And they are doing deliberately because the World Bank and big business have given the message that this is the only way to grow economically… Sixty percent of the population lives in the villages or in the rural areas and is involved in agriculture, and less than two percent of the annual budget goes to agriculture… When you are not investing in agriculture, you think it is economically backwards, not performing. You are not wanting it to perform. You are ensuring that the price they get today under the MSP (Minimum Support Price) has also being withdrawn. Leave it to the vagaries or the tyranny of the markets… Twenty-five crore people in this country are agricultural landless workers. If we give these people land, these people are also start-ups, these people are also entrepreneurs… But you are only giving these conditions to industry… agriculture has disappeared from the economic radar screen of the country… 70 percent of the population is being completely ignored…”
Farmers have been imbued with the spirit of entrepreneurship for hundreds of years. They have been “scientists, innovators, natural resource stewards, seed savers and hybridisation experts” who have increasingly been reduced to becoming “recipients of technical fixes and consumers of poisonous products of a growing agricultural inputs industry” (see here).
In his interview, Devinder Sharma went on to state that despite the tax breaks and the raft of policies that favour industry over agriculture, industry has failed to deliver; and yet despite the gross under-investment in agriculture, it still manages to deliver bumper harvests year after year. Furthermore, when farmers are prioritised, politicians are accused of populism and playing to a vote bank. Yet when industry receives subsidies, hand outs and tax breaks, it is called ‘reform’and portrayed as contributing to ‘growth’:
“When we talk about budgets, it’s going to be populism or reforms. What is reforms? … if you don’t give anything to industry, they call it ‘policy paralysis’. But if you give them all kinds of dole then they think it is growth, they think it is a dream budget. In the last 10 years, we had 36 lakh crore going to the corporates by way of tax exemptions. Where are the jobs? They just created 1.5 crore jobs in the last ten years. Where are the exports? … The only sector that has performed very well in this country is agriculture. Year after year we are having a bumper harvest. Why can’t we strengthen that sector and stop the population shift from the villages… Why do you want to move the population just because Western economists told us we should follow them. Why? Why can’t India have its own thinking? Why do we have to go with Harvard or Oxford economists who tell us this?”
With GDP growth slowing and automation replacing human labour the world over in order to decrease labour costs and boost profit, where are the jobs going to come from to cater for hundreds of millions of former agricultural workers or those whose livelihoods will be destroyed as transnational corporations move in and seek to capitalise industries that currently employ tens of millions (if not hundreds of millions)?
Are they to become what Arundhati Roy calls the “ghosts of capitalism,” the invisible, shoved-aside victims of neoliberalism who are deemed surplus to requirements?
India’s development is being hijacked by the country’s wealthy ruling class and the multinational vultures who long ago stopped circling and are now swooping. Meanwhile, the genuine wealth creators, the entrepreneurs who work the fields and have been custodians of the land and seeds for centuries, are being sold out to corporate interests whose only concern is to how best loot the economy.
As they do so, they churn out in unison with their politician puppets the mantra of it all being in the ‘national interest’ and constituting some kind of ‘economic miracle’.Staircase and Desktop in One
The staircase is an integral part of many houses. However, in most cases such structural elements occupy too much valuable space inside the building. That’s why there invented stairs with alternating steps. Although they look scary, and in some cases they may seem unsafe at all, such stairs occupy less than a half space compared to conventional counterparts.
Staircase with Desktop by Mieke Meijer
Object élevé by Mieke Meijer
Dutch designer Mieke Meijer decided to develop this concept and combined similar staircase with a desk and shelves, which resulted in a unique element of the interior, called Object élevé, that can complement any home interior.
Multifunctional furniture is very popular, especially for a small living space. Such furniture saves space. It is multifunctional and quite comfortable. Designers are constantly coming up with new solutions, looking for options of multifunctional and ergonomic furniture, creating items such as this unique staircase.
This is not just a staircase, in the sense that we are accustomed to see it. This is an example of a multifunctional furniture that both doubles storage space, and hides the workspace.
The unique combination of materials (oak and black steel), in addition to the form, makes this piece of furniture very interesting and standing out in the interior. Design of the stairs is quite simple, and quite suitable for a minimalist style of modern apartments.
The staircase is divided into two parts, both the upper and the lower parts can be adapted to the needs of a user. Shelving and storage space are harmoniously integrated into the stairs, and are great for storage and location of needed items.
There are panels of different heights, which complement the stairs. They can be used as a table. The lower section has broader stairs, but every upper stair becomes narrower and steeper.
Installation Object élevé was developed by Meijer and his colleagues from his Mieke Meijer design studio through the request of the owner of a cottage in Wassenaar (town in the southern part of the Netherlands).
Leave a ReplyAMD’s Fusion Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) was introduced at CES this year and was shown in various forms. But just what is Fusion?
What is Fusion?
Fusion is the overall name for the technology behind AMD’s hybrid CPU/GPU lineup, and represents their strategy for the current generation (and presumably future) of processors.
The Fusion APU contains both the CPU cores and a DirectX 11 GPU on the same die.
The currently available Brazos platform pairs one or two 64-bit Bobcat CPU cores with a Radeon HD 6000-series GPU in a single package. The platform is comprised of two members targeting the ultra-portable notebook/netbook and low-power desktop markets: Ontario and Zacate.
Ontario (C-series models) consists of single and dual-core processors designed for extremely low power usage (9 watts maximum). Currently the CPU portion is clocked at speeds of up to 1.2GHz. It integrates a Radeon HD 6250 with a core configuration of 80:8:4 (Unified Shaders:Texture Mapping Units:Render Output Units) clocked as high as 280MHz. Future revisions are expected to implement AMD’s TurboCORE technology which will increase CPU and GPU clock speeds on an as-needed and as-able basis.
Zacate (E-series models) consists of single and dual-core processors designed for low power usage (18 watts max). Currently the CPU portion is clocked at speeds of up to 1.6GHz, with a 1.65GHz part expected sometime in the third quarter. It integrates a Radeon HD 6310 with a core configuration of 80:8:4 (Unified Shaders:Texture Mapping Units:Render Output Units) clocked as high as 500MHz. Future revisions are expected to implement AMD’s TurboCORE technology which will increase CPU and GPU clock speeds on an as-needed and as-able basis.
The Lynx platform, aimed at the mainstream desktop, is expected to be released sometime this summer.
SAPPHIRE sent their PURE E350 motherboard/CPU combo for review, and since it’s such a new type of platform the Icrontic community was polled for usage cases they wanted to see. These usage cases will be covered in a followup article soon.
Specs
Form factor: Mini-ITX
APU: AMD E-350 Zacate family Dual-core, 1.6GHz GPU Configuration: 80:8:4 (Unified Shaders:Texture Mapping Units:Render Output Units), 500MHz (Evergreen family)
Northbridge: Hudson M1
Memory support: 2×204-pin DDR3 800/1066 SO-DIMM
Maximum RAM: 8GB (2x4GB)
Single channel memory
Expansion slots 1x PCI Express 2.0 x16 (electrically x4) 1x mini PCI Express x1
SATA ports: 5x SATA 6.0Gb/s
eSATA ports: 1x eSATA 3.0Gb/s
Audio: Realtek ALC892 (8 channel)
Marvell 88E8057 Gigabit LAN
Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
Video ports HDMI, DVI, VGA
USB ports: 4x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0
The SAPPHIRE PURE E350 retails for $139.99 (a $20 MIR is available). It comes with a one year warranty, which is much shorter than other manufacturers (three years seems to be the standard).
Also available is the SAPPHIRE PURE E350 White, a lower cost version ($109.99) which lacks one SATA port (4 total), eSATA, surround/digital audio ports, USB 3.0 and the mini PCIe slot. It does, however, use desktop RAM but is still limited to single channel and DDR3-1066 speeds.
The SAPPHIRE PURE E-350 is laid out pretty well. The board is less than seven inches long per side, but it doesn’t feel cramped even when installed in its case (for the review a Thermaltake Element Q was used). Its extremely low vertical clearance allows for a large array of case types from a mini tower down to a low profile case. The heatsink is surprisingly small, and uses a 40mm fan for cooling. A mini PCI Express slot sits next to the PCI Express x16 slot. The Bluetooth antenna extends from the board just above two of the USB ports, but doesn’t extend any further than the VGA and DVI ports. In the box is an I/O shield, some SATA cables, a manual, and the driver disc.
Test setup
CPU: AMD Fusion E-350 (dual core 1.6GHz)
Motherboard: SAPPHIRE PURE Fusion E-350
RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3-1066 204-pin SO-DIMM @7-7-7-20 (laptop RAM)
Storage: OCZ Vertex 2 60GB
PSU: 250W
Benchmarks
It should be pretty obvious that this is not a system meant for “benchmark bragging rights”, unless those bragging rights involve low power usage and noise as you’ll see below. As Fusion is a very unique product and is not in the same class of hardware as previously reviewed hardware, its numbers will be presented on their own. Also of note is that while the overall numbers will be low, the platform’s true capabilities aren’t really shown by the benchmark suite.
Power & Heat
Brazos is designed for low power computing, and it does an excellent job of keeping its draw to a minimum. Idle power usage is 21 watts. A grand total of 38 watts for the full system under load is far less than your average computer or game console.
The Fusion E-350 seems to run a little warm, but that’s because of the relatively small heatsink and fan. I’m actually impressed that there’s only a 21 degree difference between idle and load temperatures.
Synthetic Benchmarks
PCMark Vantage
PCMark Vantage tests overall system performance in a variety of common tasks such as photo editing, video editing, music, gaming, communications, productivity, and security. An overall score and individual scores for each test component are provided.
3DMark 11
3DMark 11 tests the DirectX 11 capability of a system including tessellation, compute shaders, and multithreading. It’s a pretty intense benchmark and visually stunning to boot (this is quite helpful when watching multiple runs of a benchmark).
3DMark Vantage
3DMark Vantage is a DirectX 10 benchmark application. It provides two GPU tests, two CPU tests, and six feature tests. Tests include shadow maps, cloth simulation, ray-tracing effects, physics, pixel shaders, and parallax occlusion mapping.
The Zacate family of CPUs isn’t good for hardcore gaming, but it does make an excellent general use system and does extremely well for an ultraportable system.
SiSoft Sandra 2011
SiSoft Sandra’s CPU and RAM tests examine the potential processing power and bandwidth for a system.
Sandra agrees, the Fusion E-350 isn’t a computing powerhouse, but that’s not what it was designed for. The single channel memory controller tops out at DDR3-1066 speeds. Filling only one or both memory slots doesn’t make a difference in performance.
wPrime
wPrime is a multithreaded benchmark program that tests the CPU by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions, performs several iterations to increase the accuracy of the results, and then confirms the calculation results. This process is then repeated for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum. Our test data requests a maximum value of 32,000,000.
DirectCompute Benchmark
DirectCompute Benchmark tests general-purpose computing on both the CPU and GPU. It uses both DirectCompute and OpenCL APIs to calculate large quantities of FFT-like data and memory transfers.
I wouldn’t really use the Fusion E-350 for GPGPU.
Real Applications
H.264 transcoding
For transcoding we use Handbrake build svn3758, taking The Matrix from two sources (Blu-ray and DVD) to H.264-encoded.m4v files. The Blu-ray source is used to produce content at both its native 1080p and 720p, while the DVD of the same movie is used for standard definition (480p) H.264 transcoding.
Handbrake doesn’t take advantage of AMD’s AVIVO transcoding acceleration, so anything other than DVD quality is going to be really slow.
MP3 encoding
LAME’s command-line MP3 encoder will be used for this test. The test CD will be converted using these settings: 256kbps q0 VBR MP3. This conversion process demonstrates single-core efficiency.
The Fusion E-350 does a respectable job of converting our test CD to MP3.
Games – best playable settings
The requirement for playability is a minimum framerate of 30fps. Some of the games in our benchmarking suite don’t report minimum rates. In those cases we’ll use the average reported rate and determine whether noticeable choppiness or slowed play occurs and base the evaluation on those factors.
Crysis: Warhead: For some reason, Crysis: Warhead wouldn’t do anything but crash. Others have been able to get it working, so it’s most likely a configuration issue on my end. If I can get it sorted out, I’ll provide an update in the community features article.
Metro 2033: Not playable – 4/16/7 fps (min/max/avg) @ 1024×768, DirectX 9, Quality low, AAA Antialiasing, 4xAF (absolute lowest settings).
Aliens vs Predator: Mostly playable – 32fps avg @ 640×480, Texture quality low, Shadows off, 1xAF, SSAO off, DX11 Tessellation off, 0xMSAA
H.A.W.X.: Playable – 35fps avg @ 1280×720, 0xAA
H.A.W.X. 2: Mostly playable – 27fps avg @ 800×600, 0xAA, all settings low.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Playable – 7/36/16 fps (min/max/avg) @ 1280×720, Low quality settings
Batman: Arkham Asylum: Mostly playable – 8/66/41 fps (min/max/avg) @ 640×480, 0xAA, Low quality settings
Lost Planet 2: Not playable – 24fps avg @ 640×480, 0xAA, Motion blur off, Shadows off, Detail settings low
The SAPPHIRE PURE E-350 probably shouldn’t be picked up for an as-is gaming system. The Radeon HD 6310 just isn’t powerful enough to run most games. There are some exceptions and some that are close to playable at minimum resolutions and settings, but out of the box it’s not suitable for high-end games. Other gaming options and some additional titles will be explored in the followup “community features” article.
Multi-display
The SAPPHIRE PURE Fusion E-350 does support multiple monitors, but is limited to two at the most. This is possibly due to a lack of DisplayPort as an option (more than two displays almost always requires a DisplayPort connection or adapter now) Fortunately it can be any combination of available display outputs on the board. Using a dual display setup is as easy with the SAPPHIRE board as it is with any normal desktop system and it works just as well.
Given the gaming scores, I don’t believe subjecting this system to Eyefinity gaming would be productive.
Conclusions
The standard benchmarks might not make the SAPPHIRE PURE Fusion E-350 look terribly good, but that’s more an issue with the benchmark suite than the platform itself. The suite is geared towards a traditional system with a discrete GPU, and anything with an IGP will struggle. For general day-to-day computing and quite a few special tasks, though, this board works very well, a fact which will be made clear in the second part of the review.
The only real complaint I have about the SAPPHIRE PURE Fusion E-350 is its short warranty. Everyone else seems to offer a three year warranty while SAPPHIRE offers only one year. This is minor, easily correctable, and I hope it gets done.
The community features article is coming soon. This is where the SAPPHIRE board will be put to use in real scenarios our community members requested.
For now, I’ll have to leave it at this: the SAPPHIRE PURE Fusion E-350 is a great product at a good price, and is awarded the Icrontic Stamp of Approval.The deal was presented last week after months of painstaking talks US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned of "dramatic consequences" if Washington and Baghdad do not agree a security deal on US forces in Iraq. He said if there were no Status of Forces Agreement the US would have to "basically stop doing anything". Iraq's cabinet is demanding changes to a draft deal already agreed with Washington that would allow US forces to stay in Iraq until 2011. Mr Gates said the US had "great reluctance" to renegotiate. "I don't think you slam the door shut, but I would say it's pretty far closed," he said. "The consequences of not having Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa) and of not having a renewed UN authorisation are pretty dramatic." Failure to finalise the Sofa or renew a UN mandate would mean US operations would have to be suspended. The UN mandate for US-led coalition forces expires at the end of the year. We just have to let the Iraqi political process play out
Robert Gates "What really needs to happen is for us to get this Sofa done. It's a good agreement. It's good for us. It's good for them. It really protects Iraqi sovereignty," Mr Gates said. The Sofa was presented last week after months of painstaking US-Iraq talks. But on Tuesday Iraqi government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said the cabinet had "agreed that necessary amendments to the pact could make it nationally accepted". He did not specify what changes would be required. Mr Gates, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, said: "We just have to let the Iraqi political process play out." But he added: "Clearly the clock is ticking." Mr Gates said a new UN mandate was not necessarily a "clean" option. "So that's not a solution without peril itself," he said. A UN Security Council vote would be needed and analysts say there could be a threat of a Russian veto. Sticking point The draft agreement calls for a drawdown of US combat forces from Iraq by the end of 2011 and includes US concessions on immunity for US troops who break Iraqi law. The US and Iraqi governments had previously said the pact was final and could not be amended - only accepted or rejected by the Iraqi parliament. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. But Mr Dabbagh said ministers would meet over the coming days to "give their opinions and consult and provide the amendments suggested" before submitting the amended draft to the US negotiating team. The cabinet must approve the draft before it can be sent to parliament for a vote. Apart from the two main Kurdish parties, political leaders have so far withheld their support for the deal. The draft has also been strongly opposed by the faction led by radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr, who brought thousands of supporters on to the streets of Baghdad on Saturday in protest. Immunity for US military personnel and contractors is thought to be one of the key sticking points, the BBC's Jim Muir reports from Baghdad. The pact is said to grant Iraqi judicial authorities limited ability to try US troops and contractors for major crimes committed off-duty or off-base - and only then if a joint US-Iraqi committee agrees. About 144,000 of the 152,000 foreign troops deployed in Iraq are US military personnel.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionk = 2 and substring length n = 2. In general there are many sequences for a particular n and k but in this example it is unique, The de Bruijn sequence for alphabet sizeand substring length. In general there are many sequences for a particularandbut in this example it is unique, up to cycling.
In combinatorial mathematics, a de Bruijn sequence of order n on a size-k alphabet A is a cyclic sequence in which every possible length-n string on A occurs exactly once as a substring (i.e., as a contiguous subsequence). Such a sequence is denoted by B(k, n) and has length kn, which is also the number of distinct substrings of length n on A; de Bruijn sequences are therefore optimally short. There are ( k! ) k n − 1 k n {\displaystyle {\dfrac {\left(k!\right)^{k^{n-1}}}{k^{n}}}} distinct de Bruijn sequences B(k, n).
The sequences are named after the Dutch mathematician Nicolaas Govert de Bruijn. According to him,[1] the existence of de Bruijn sequences for each order together with the above properties were first proved, for the case of alphabets with two elements, by Camille Flye Sainte-Marie in 1894,[2] whereas the generalization to larger alphabets is originally due to Tatyana van Aardenne-Ehrenfest and himself.
In most applications, A = {0,1}.
History [ edit ]
The earliest known example of a de Bruijn sequence comes from Sanskrit prosody where, since the work of Pingala, each possible three-syllable pattern of long and short syllables is given a name, such as 'y' for short–long–long and'm' for long–long–long. To remember these names, the mnemonic yamātārājabhānasalagām is used, in which each three-syllable pattern occurs starting at its name: 'yamātā' has a short–long–long pattern,'mātārā' has a long–long–long pattern, and so on, until'salagām' which has a short–short–long pattern. This mnemonic, equivalent to a de Bruijn sequence on binary 3-tuples, is of unknown antiquity, but is at least as old as Charles Philip Brown's 1869 book on Sanskrit prosody that mentions it and considers it "an ancient line, written by Pāṇini".[3][4][5][6][7]
In 1894, A. de Rivière raised the question in an issue of the French problem journal L'Intermédiaire des Mathématiciens, of the existence of a circular arrangement of zeroes and ones of size 2 n {\displaystyle 2^{n}} that contains all 2 n {\displaystyle 2^{n}} binary sequences of length n {\displaystyle n}. The problem was solved (in the affirmative), along with the count of 2 2 n − 1 − n {\displaystyle 2^{2^{n-1}-n}} distinct solutions, by Camille Flye Sainte-Marie in the same year.[1] This was largely forgotten, and Martin (1934) proved the existence of such cycles for general alphabet size in place of 2, with an algorithm for constructing them. Finally, when in 1944 Kees Posthumus conjectured the count 2 2 n − 1 − n {\displaystyle 2^{2^{n-1}-n}} for binary sequences, de Bruijn proved the conjecture in 1946, through which the problem became well-known.[1]
Karl Popper independently describes these objects in his The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), calling them "shortest random-like sequences".[8]
Examples [ edit ]
Taking A = {0, 1}, there are two distinct B (2, 3): 00010111 and 11101000, one being the reverse or negation of the other.
= {0, 1}, there are two distinct (2, 3): 00010111 and 11101000, one being the reverse or negation of the other. Two of the 2048 possible B(2, 5) in the same alphabet are 00000100011001010011101011011111 and 00000101001000111110111001101011.
Construction [ edit ]
A de Bruijn graph. Every four-digit sequence occurs exactly once if one traverses every edge exactly once and returns to one's starting point (an Eulerian cycle). Every three-digit sequence occurs exactly once if one visits every vertex exactly once (a Hamiltonian path).
The de Bruijn sequences can be constructed by taking a Hamiltonian path of an n-dimensional de Bruijn graph over k symbols (or equivalently, an Eulerian cycle of an (n − 1)-dimensional de Bruijn graph).[9]
An alternative construction involves concatenating together, in lexicographic order, all the Lyndon words whose length divides n.[nb 1]
An inverse Burrows—Wheeler transform can be used to generate the required Lyndon words in lexicographic order.[10]
De Bruijn sequences can also be constructed using shift registers[11] or via finite fields.[12]
Example using de Bruijn graph [ edit ]
Directed graphs of two B(2,3) de Bruijn sequences and a B(2,4) sequence. In B(2,3). each vertex is visited once, whereas in B(2,4), each edge is traversed once.
Goal: to construct a B(2, 4) de Bruijn sequence of length 24 = 16 using Eulerian (n − 1 = 4 − 1 = 3) 3-D de Bruijn graph cycle.
Each edge in this 3-dimensional de Bruijn graph corresponds to a sequence of four digits: the three digits that label the vertex that the edge is leaving followed by the one that labels the edge. If one traverses the edge labeled 1 from 000, one arrives at 001, thereby indicating the presence of the subsequence 0001 in the de Bruijn sequence. To traverse each edge exactly once is to use each of the 16 four-digit sequences exactly once.
For example, suppose we follow the following Eulerian path through these vertices:
000, 000, 001, 011, 111, 111, 110, 101, 011,
110, 100, 001, 010, 101, 010, 100, 000.
These are the output sequences of length k:
0 0 0 0 _ 0 0 0 1 _ _ 0 0 1 1
This corresponds to the following de Bruijn sequence:
0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1
The eight vertices appear in the sequence in the following way:
{0 0 0 0} 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 {0 0 0 1} 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 {0 0 1 1} 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 {0 1 1 1} 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 {1 1 1 1} 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 {1 1 1 0} 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 {1 1 0 1} 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 {1 0 1 1} 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 {0 1 1 0} 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 {1 1 0 0} 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 {1 0 0 1} 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 {0 0 1 0} 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 {0 1 0 1} 0} 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 {1 0 1...... 0 0} 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 {0 1...... 0 0 0} 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 {1...
...and then we return to the starting point. Each of the eight 3-digit sequences (corresponding to the eight vertices) appears exactly twice, and each of the sixteen 4-digit sequences (corresponding to the 16 edges) appears exactly once.
Example using inverse Burrows—Wheeler transform [ edit ]
Mathematically, an inverse Burrows—Wheeler transform on a word w generates a multi-set of equivalence classes consisting of strings and their rotations.[10] These equivalence classes of strings each contain a Lyndon word as a unique minimum element, so the inverse Burrows—Wheeler transform can be considered to generate a set of Lyndon words. It can be shown that if we perform the inverse Burrows—Wheeler transform on a word w consisting of the size-k alphabet repeated kn-1 times (so that it will produce a word the same length as the desired de Bruijn sequence), then the result will be the set of all Lyndon words whose length divides n. It follows that arranging these Lyndon words in lexicographic order will yield a de Bruijn sequence B(k,n), and that this will be the first de Bruijn sequence in lexicographic order. The following method can be used to perform the inverse Burrows—Wheeler transform, using its standard permutation:
Sort the characters in the string w, yielding a new string w' Position the string w' above the string w, and map each letter's position in w' to its position in w while preserving order. This process defines the standard permutation. Write this permutation in cycle notation with the smallest position in each cycle first, and the cycles sorted in increasing order. For each cycle, replace each number with the corresponding letter from string w' in that position. Each cycle has now become a Lyndon word, and they are arranged in lexicographic order, so dropping the parentheses yields the first de Bruijn sequence.
For example, to construct the smallest B(2,4) de Bruijn sequence of length 24 = 16, repeat the alphabet (ab) 8 times yielding w=abababababababab. Sort the characters in w, yielding w'=aaaaaaaabbbbbbbb. Position w' above w as shown, and map each element in w' to the corresponding element in w by drawing a line. Number the columns as shown so we can read the cycles of the permutation:
Starting from the left, the cycles are: (1) (2 3 5 9) (4 7 13 10) (6 11) (8 15 14 12) (16).
Then, replacing each number by the corresponding letter in w' from that column yields: (a)(aaab)(aabb)(ab)(abbb)(b).
These are all of the Lyndon words whose length divides 4, in lexicographic order, so dropping the parentheses gives B(2,4) = aaaabaabbababbbb.
Algorithm [ edit ]
The following Python code calculates a de Bruijn sequence, given k and n, based on an algorithm from Frank Ruskey's Combinatorial Generation.[13]
def de_bruijn ( k, n ): """ de Bruijn sequence for alphabet k and subsequences of length n. """ try : # let's see if k can be cast to an integer; # if so, make our alphabet a list _ = int ( k ) alphabet = list ( map ( str, range ( k ))) except ( ValueError, TypeError ): alphabet = k k = len ( k ) a = [ 0 ] * k * n sequence = [] def db ( t, p ): if t > n : if n % p == 0 : sequence. extend ( a [ 1 : p + 1 ]) else : a [ t ] = a [ t - p ] db ( t + 1, p ) for j in range ( a [ t - p ] + 1, k ): a [ t ] = j db ( t + 1, t ) db ( 1, 1 ) return "". join ( alphabet [ i ] for i in sequence ) print ( de_bruijn ( 2, 3 )) print ( de_bruijn ( "abcd", 2 ))
which prints
00010111 aabacadbbcbdccdd
Note that these sequences are understood to "wrap around" in a cycle. For example, the first sequence contains 110 and 100 in this fashion.
Uses [ edit ]
B (10, 4) sequence. The 2530 substrings are read from top to bottom then left to right, and their digits are concatenated. To get the string to brute-force a combination lock, the last three digits in brackets (000) are appended. The 10003-digit string is hence "0 0001 0002 0003 0004 0005 0006 0007 0008 0009 0011 … 79 7988 7989 7998 7999 8 8889 8899 89 8999 9 000" (spaces added for readability). One possible(10, 4) sequence. The 2530 substrings are read from top to bottom then left to right, and their digits are concatenated. To get the string to brute-force a combination lock, the last three digits in brackets (000) are appended. The 10003-digit string is hence "0 0001 0002 0003 0004 0005 0006 0007 0008 0009 0011 … 79 7988 7989 7998 7999 8 8889 8899 89 8999 9 000" (spaces added for readability).
The sequence can be used to shorten a brute-force attack on a PIN-like
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been out with a friend when she accepted a lift home from Mr Cassim, who then raped her.
Mr Cassim was convicted on a retrial at Isleworth Crown Court in January 2012.
She then claimed she was groped inside the Windsor Castle pub in Hounslow in July 2012, then attacked in an alleyway close to the car-park of a nearby medical centre.
Beale, from Bedfont in Middlesex, denies four counts of perjury and four counts of perverting the course of justice at Southwark Crown Court
The man said to have grabbed her crotch in the pub was later identified as Noam Shazad by police and arrested on 17 August 2012, the court heard.
Injuries allegedly sustained during the gang rape were'self-inflicted', jurors were told.
She reported another serious sexual assault on 2 September 2013 by two men, neither of whom were ever identified.
She then reported a gang rape by four men at knife point in Felktham, west London on 17 November 2013 - Luke Williams and Steven McCormack were the only two attackers she named.
Beale is also charged with perjury relating claims she had never had sexual intercourse with a man before Mr Cassim raped her, when she had in fact had regular sex with her boyfriend as a young teenager.
Beale, from Bedfont in Middlesex, denies four counts of perjury and four counts of perverting the course of justice.
The trial continues.Glenn Beck (Screenshot/Right Wing Watch)
Reports of an active shooter at the Washington Navy Yard early this morning turned out to be a false alarm. But that didn’t stop Glenn Beck from saying the non-existent shooter was a Muslim during his radio show, Right Wing Watch reports.
Authorities responded after an employee at the yard reported hearing shots fired, prompting the facility to be locked down. The Navy Yard was the site of a deadly 2013 shooting rampage that took the lives of 12 people.
“Yes of course they’re Muslim, but they were just ‘stressed out,’ that’s what we’ll probably find out,” Beck said sarcastically. “And it has nothing to do with Islam.”
Beck said he is tired of the explanation of “a lone gunman who has nothing to do with Islam, it’s just his three middle names and his last name are Muhammad… I’m tired of the [politically correct] stuff.”
He also said that gunmen responsible for mass shootings “rarely turn out to be a conservative.”
“We’re gonna lose our guns, we’re gona lose our guns. With the shootings, they’re just gonna start taking away guns,” he said, adding that if somebody had a gun during the mass shooting in Charleston on June 17 “they could have stopped the racist.”
A recent study by the New America Foundation found that, “Almost twice as many people have died in attacks by right-wing groups in America than have died in attacks by Muslim extremists” since September 11, 2001, as reported by the Global Post.
Beck’s leap from a Muslim shooter to looming gun confiscation came shortly after the emergency call was made at 7:30 a.m. Eastern, prompting a massive law enforcement response.
“I didn’t get a sense of panic or chaos, it was such an overwhelming response from the police,” said Navy Yard employee Karl Shipps. “It was obvious that it was very well-orchestrated.”
By the time Shipps arrived for work, the entire block had been shut down by police.
“It was very impressive,” he said. “I’ve never seen so many police cars in my life.”
An all-clear was called later in the morning, and authorities are unsure of what the noise may have been that caused a worker to believe she heard gunshots, NBC News reports.
Watch Beck’s broadcast here, via Right Wing Watch:First-ever indoor swiftwater rescue training facility opens in Austin Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved First responders train in rushing water. (Dugan/KXAN 2017) [ + - ] Video
AUSTIN (KXAN)-- When first responders train for rescue scenarios, they can only recreate Mother Nature's wrath to a certain point. Fathom Academy in north Austin is working to change that.
Barton Bollfrass is the CEO of Fathom Academy and was inspired to start the business after serving in the U.S. Navy.
"We tailor everything as best we can -- environmentally, psychologically -- to allow people to run through scenarios in a safe, controlled environment so that we can give them the better chance of rescuing people and surviving," Bollfrass said.
Fathom Academy says this is the first indoor swift water rescue training facility of its kind anywhere in the world. A pool of water replicates the flow, rise and temperature of a flood situation.
"Hurricanes are going to keep hitting us and swift water rescues are going to keep happening," Bollfrass said. "Giving first responders someplace and even civilians a place that's realistic gives them a better chance."
Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved First responders are able to train scenarios multiple times (Dugan/KXAN 2017)
Copyright by KXAN - All rights reserved First responders are able to train scenarios multiple times (Dugan/KXAN 2017)
Georgetown firefighter and retired Coast Guard member, Sean Arndt, helps to train crews at Fathom Academy. He feels this type of training is going to make crews more prepared for emergency situations.
"We control the scenario, what we can do it," Arndt said. "We can make the water slow and then fast, which in turn lets you practice at a slow speed, then work your way up to the more in-depth rescues."
Arndt says that departments often face challenges every year due to the unpredictability of the weather.
"We always have water, it's hard to train for swift water during a drought," he explained. "If the water is not running, the river is not running, it's hard to get flow. Here we have flow every day. We can do it in the summer and the winter. It's a more controlled environment."
Fathom Academy is similar to a movie set. Thunder, rain, lighting and even cries for help are often simulated so that first responders are training in as a close to an emergency situation as possible.
The design of the facility and training scenarios were recreated with help from those who experience these situations first hand.
Arndt points out that this facility allows them to practice more than once in a shorter amount of time. It also allows them to simulate scenarios that they wouldn't be able to recreate in Mother Nature, such as rescuing someone from a submerged vehicle.
"You'll get to actually practice going up to the vehicle, getting someone out of the vehicle, putting a life jacket on them after they get out of the vehicle. Really you only practice that when it's time, when you actually have a rescue," Arndt said.
"You start to see that danger fade away," Bollfrass said. "All that's left is someone who knows the scenario, knows how to do it and it's quickly. You can create something you have yet to encounter and run it through to it's fruition."Judge R. Michael Wagner presided over a change of name hearing in October 2015 involving a Belton transgender boy.
The boy is referred to as Nathan or N.N.H. in court documents.
Nathan, now 15, whose sex at birth was female, identifies as male. He petitioned to change his birth name, Natalie, to Nathan.
Nathan had been known by his preferred name by teachers and peers during his attendance at the Belton Middle School/Freshman Center. However, substitutes would sometimes use his birth name while calling roll, according to Nathan’s mother, Rachel Andersen. She added it was humiliating for her son.
After the judge’s ruling, the family decided to pull Nathan from the school, opting for a home-schooled education.
“After the judge ordered what he did, Nathan just bawled and bawled and bawled,” Andersen said. “We had to talk with him about not committing suicide.”
The boy’s attorney, Blaine Elliott, cited 33 other cases in which Wagner presided over a name change request for a minor. In those 33 instances, Elliott wrote in a brief to the court of appeals, Wagner never ordered a mental evaluation. Elliott also pulled all change of name cases from 2009 through September at the 17th Judicial Circuit and found neither Wagner nor any other judge ever ordered a mental evaluation.
“(Nathan) is the only exception,” Elliott wrote in the brief. “Only when confronted with a minor who fails to conform to traditional gender stereotypes does (Wagner) seek to appoint a guardian ad litem or order a petitioner to undergo a mental evaluation. This is clear evidence of discrimination.”
Before Nathan’s hearing, Wagner asked for a guardian ad litem, or appointed guardian, for Nathan despite the fact that the boy’s mother was serving as his guardian and legal representative in court. The boy’s father is deceased, court documents show.
After the family refused Wagner’s request, the judge ordered the boy undergo a mental evaluation at the hearing, saying he had the child’s best interests in mind, according to court testimony.
“This is the first case that this court has had like this,” Wagner said at the hearing, an oblique reference to the fact that Nathan is transgender. Wagner then addressed Nathan directly: “This is a life-changing situation; it’s not a simple name change. It’s something that may be in your best interest — I don’t know.”
The judge added he was considering factors such as Nathan’s age, potential discomfort or embarrassment and the child’s relationship with his parents.
“I have … a duty to make sure it’s in the child’s best interest,” Wagner said.
Nathan’s mother immediately responded by saying, “And I have a duty as a parent …” before Elliott interrupted and spoke for the family, according to testimony.
Wagner, in a brief to the Court of Appeals, called R.S.A.’s comment an “outburst” and said she was “demanding and agitated” before him.
Nathan and his mother had earlier asserted that the name change was in Nathan’s best interest, according to testimony.
The mental evaluation order essentially blocked Nathan from changing his name.
But eight months after the hearing, in June, Elliott applied for a writ of prohibition against Wagner’s mental evaluation order. The legal maneuver can be granted by higher courts in cases in which a lower court judge is exercising excessive authority.
The Western District Court of Appeals granted the writ of prohibition Tuesday, reversing Wagner’s mental evaluation order.
Citizens can change their name in Missouri upon proof that the change is proper and not detrimental to any other person. Elliott said the type of mental evaluation ordered by Wagner could cost thousands of dollars and was not necessary for Nathan’s request.
The appellate judges, Lisa Hardwick, Karen Mitchell and Gary Witt, agreed. They ruled a person’s mental state does not “directly relate” to such a case. They called Wagner’s concerns for Nathan’s mental condition “conclusory,” or lacking supporting evidence.
The judges also disagreed with Wagner’s assertion that he was authorized to order a mental evaluation because he was acting as a family court judge.
“[T]here is no evidence in the record that the 17th Judicial Circuit has designated such a court,” the opinion, written by Hardwick, stated.
At Nathan’s hearing, Wagner recommended Nathan see Lisa Coleman, a licensed clinical social worker in Kansas City, for his mental evaluation.
Coleman, when reached by phone Wednesday, said judges had never before recommended clients to her for a mental evaluation in a change-of-name case.
She added, however, that any mental evaluation she would perform for a trans person would not be done to diagnose mental illness but to empower and prepare the person for his or her transition.
She said she would discuss coping skills, supportive resources and positive influences in peer and familial relationships with incipient trans clients.
“Everybody has to make their own choice of who they are,” Coleman said, “but to make that kind of a change alone sets you up for a whole lot of stress that can impact the success of transitioning from one gender to another.”
Nathan had begun his physical transformation with hormone shots before the October 2015 hearing, Andersen said. The family’s healthcare covers the cost of Nathan’s hormones, Andersen added, because gender dysphoria is a recognized medical condition.
“I think it’s insane that the medical field and state can’t deny it. They have to cover it for these kids, and yet he can’t get his name changed,” Andersen said.
A court clerk for Wagner, Tera Brewer, wrote by email that Wagner “wishes he could talk … but he can’t. This is a pending case and the Judge hasn’t ruled yet.”
Tony Rothert, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, said a change of name petition is typically the easiest step in the process of changing one’s identity.
But the next step is more difficult. Changing the gender marker on a birth certificate, Rorthert said, requires a trans person to provide proof of a surgical procedure that has resulted in change of sex.
However, some judges are more lenient than others in applying that requirement.
“Different courts have interpreted it more loosely,” Rothert said. He added some courts may consider psychological changes or surgery to the chest area as grounds for approving a change to one’s gender marker.
“That’s up to the judge’s interpretation,” Rothert said.
In Nathan’s case, the appellate judge’s ruling sends his change of name petition back to the 17th Judicial Circuit. The petition must still be approved by a judge in Cass County.
Elliott said he will likely request a new judge in Nathan’s case in the coming days.
In a July 2015 email to a clerk, Elliott first requested scheduling a change-of-name hearing for Nathan. He wrote that such hearings typically take about 10 minutes.
Elliott wrote in a brief to the court of appeals that Wagner’s order for a mental evaluation constituted a form of sex discrimination against Nathan because he is transgender.
“In the instant case, there is no doubt that had (Nathan) sought to change his name from Natalie to another traditionally female name, (Wagner) would not have ordered him to undergo a mental evaluation,” Elliott wrote. “(Wagner) can simply not offer any constitutionally sufficient justification for the discriminatory treatment.”
Wagner and his attorney, Nancy Garris, contended in their brief to the appellate court that sex did not factor in Wagner’s decision. Instead, they wrote that Nathan’s testimony did not match his “demeanor, voice inflection and actions,” causing Wagner to question Nathan’s free will in the matter.
Wagner also stated his concern in the brief that Nathan’s mother was coercing him to seek the name change.
Elliott disputed the judge’s claim.
“I think it’s fair to say that anyone who has ever had children would probably not want to go through this … would want their child to have an easy life,” Elliott said. “But being Nathan, you’re opening yourself up to discrimination, to others who treat you as not the same, as different.”
On Aug. 12, 2015, Elliott wrote an email to a circuit clerk employee, requesting that the judge set aside five minutes to hear Nathan’s case the next day. Elliott wrote that Nathan expressed hope that the process would be complete before the start of the school year.
The same day, the clerk wrote Elliott that Wagner would be able to meet the next day, but less than an hour later she wrote a second email, saying, “It turns out, Judge will not be able to hear this tomorrow. Judge would like to speak with you.”
Elliott said he met with Wagner the next day. During that meeting the judge requested the guardian ad litem in the case, according to Elliott.
Later, in their brief to the appeals court, Garris and Wagner wrote that Nathan was “agitated and vehemently opposed” to the guardian ad litem appointment during the in-chambers conference.
Except, according to Elliott, Nathan was not present at the conference.
“These are utter fabrications,” Elliott wrote to the Court of Appeals.
Throughout Wagner and Garris’ brief, Nathan is referred to by the feminine pronoun “she.”
In Elliott’s briefs and the appellate judges’ opinion document, Nathan is referred to throughout by the masculine pronoun “he.”
The appellate judges did not rule on Elliott’s claim of sex discrimination against Wagner. They wrote that their first finding in the case — that Wagner exceeded his authority by ordering the mental evaluation — was sufficient enough for the judges to issue their opinion. Elliott said Wagner will not face punitive consequences following the ruling.
“A name’s a name,” Elliott said. “It doesn’t make a person who they are.”Mike Paulus, photos by Eric Christenson
The State Theatre, at the corner of S. Farwell Street and Eau Claire Street in downtown Eau Claire.
Appearing this week on the side on The State Theatre, right on South Farwell Street – running through the heart of downtown Eau Claire – you can see a large mural in progress. Eagled-eyed Bon Iver fans will probably recognize the artwork and symbols echoing images released by the band on social media over the last week (and in this teaser video).
What's more, a handful of related (number-based) murals have appeared in cities around the world, such as London, Brooklyn, and Minneapolis (see below), popping up on social media and picked up by music sites like Pitchfork and Stereogum – who believe this is proof of a new Bon Iver album to be announced on Friday night during Bon Iver's set of all-new music at the Eaux Claires Music and Arts Festival.
Check out our interview about Eaux Claires 2016 with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon.
So far, the mural in Eau Claire seems to be bigger and more complex than the others, but its imagery and themes relate directly to those around the world. Or more likely, the ones around the world are all linking back to this one here at home. Pay attention out there. It's a safe bet more murals are on the way around the globe – or may already be out there undiscovered.
As of Wednesday morning, the most detailed parts of the Eau Claire mural were still in progress.
Will Bon Iver announce a new album on Friday, the band's first new album since 2011's Grammy-winning Bon Iver, Bon Iver? Well, you can do the math on that one. We'll tell you what we can on Friday.
Check out the other Bon Iver murals
Mural in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (via Reddit
Mural in Uptown Minneapolis (via Nicholas Dahl
Mural in London (via Karen Millar
Bon Iver teaser videoAndre Villas-Boas, centre, has been Zenit boss since March 2014
As far as team photos go, Zenit St Petersburg's will take some beating.
The Russian club, managed by former Chelsea and Tottenham boss Andre Villas-Boas, won their domestic league with two games to spare last weekend.
And just how did the Villas-Boas and his players celebrate? By dressing in traditional Russian clothing, as you do.
A picture was posted by former Manchester City player Javi Garcia on his Instagram account featuring a sharp-looking Garcia and his equally snappily-dressed team-mates, which includes former Arsenal forward Andrey Arshavin, surrounding Villas-Boas.
Zenit's title win, the fourth in their history, came in Villas-Boas's first full season in charge.
Zenit drew 1-1 with Ufa on 17 May to secure the Russian Premier League titleFernando Torres for £95m! Chelsea owner Roman's amazing deal to land Liverpool superstar
Chelsea will try to push through the signing of Fernando Torres on Monday with a stunning £95million transfer package they believe will trigger an escape clause in the Liverpool striker’s contract.
Roman Abramovich is ready to commit the staggering sum to secure the service of Torres, with £50m needed to activate the clause they are now confident exists.
A further £45m will be guaranteed to the 26-year-old in a five-year deal that would see him earn £175,000 a week.
Hitting the road: Fernando Torres arrives at Liverpool's training HQ on Monday
Liverpool were already preparing for life without the World Cup and European Championship winner on Sunday night.
Having signed Luis Suarez, they will also try to land Ashley Young from Aston Villa and Blackpool’s Charlie Adam before the transfer window closes at 11pm on Monday.
Villa manager Gerard Houllier has already said Young is not for sale, and the club are trying to secure him on a new contract. However, that has not stopped new Anfield co-owner John W Henry contacting Villa owner Randy Lerner in a bid to mitigate the loss of Torres.
Liverpool will need to move fast to sign Young and Adam. But they are clearly prepared to let Torres go despite having publicly rejected the transfer request he submitted on Friday.
They will also be in a position to increase dramatically the bid for Adam after being rebuffed on
several occasions by the club’s manager Ian Holloway. They have already bid £6.5m and it is expected they will make a further offer of around £8m. Blackpool are understood to be looking for £12m.
On Liverpool's radar: Aston Villa's Ashley Young (left) and Blackpool star Charlie Adam (right)
Kenny Dalglish would still like to see Nicolas Anelka arrive from Chelsea as part of any deal — not least because, unlike Suarez, he is eligible for the Europa League — but Carlo Ancelotti is extremely reluctant to see the French striker leave Stamford Bridge when he remains such an important
member of his squad.
While Chelsea are prepared to offer a younger player, Abramovich accepts it will take a significantly increased cash offer to get the deal done before the deadline.
Having been given permission to return late from a mini-break in Spain, Torres, 26, missed the Sunday morning training session. He did, however, train alone at Melwood on Sunday afternoon, with his agents in close attendance.
Charlie Adam
The Spaniard, whose £110,000-a-week deal runs until the summer of 2013, handed in an official transfer request at the end of last week, and the two clubs have been in negotiations over the weekend.
Liverpool, who paid £21m for Torres in July 2007, may be tempted to hang on to the striker and let the transfer window close without a deal. However, they fear being left with a disillusioned star who would rather be at another club could be the worst of all worlds.Illustration: EcoMotors
Advertisement
With all the buzz surrounding electric cars, it’s worth remembering that internal combustion engines remain an active area of technology development. For example, a Michigan-based start-up called EcoMotors has created a new type of engine that could improve fuel economy by 20% compared to conventional turbo diesel engines—and be built at a lower production cost. Yesterday, EcoMotors announced the creation of a joint venture to start building these engines in China.
The company's Opoc engine breaks with conventional designs in a number of ways to reduce weight and volume while saving fuel. It has two cylinders, which each house two pistons. That increases the power density because pistons need to travel half the distance, according to the company. The two-stroke engine also uses electrical control systems in place of mechanical components to precisely regulate combustion, it says.
An electrically controlled clutch, for example, allows the engine to operate with both two-cylinder modules operating, or with one turned off to save fuel while driving. Although EcoMotors plans to initially manufacture diesel engines, the basic architecture can also work with gasoline, natural gas, or biofuels.
With serious air-quality problems and government mandates for fuel efficiency, China represents a large market for this type of technology. "For customers in China, it will ultimately provide access to affordable technology that will have a positive influence on the country’s transportation emissions,” said EcoMotors' president Amit Soman in a statement.
Automakers around the world are making a number of incremental changes to internal combustion engines to meet fuel efficiency mandates. Ford Motor's EcoBoost, for example, uses a turbo and direct injection to improve efficiency and power density. At the same time, there are number of companies pursuing completely new engine designs. In addition to EcoMotors, other start-ups include Grail Engine Technologies, Achates Power, Liquid Piston, and Pinnacle Engines.
As a company, six-year-old EcoMotors has had a relatively quick journey from company founding to commercialization, although it's been a slightly different path than first envisioned. When I spoke to CEO Donald Runkle four years ago, he envisioned bringing the engine to market by licensing the technology to U.S. automakers or making engines itself.
Instead, an affiliate of Chinese automaker First Auto Works Group will finance construction of a $US 200-million plant to start manufacturing 100 000 engines per year with EcoMotors opposed piston design. With the deal, EcoMotors, which attracted investment from Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures, will see its novel technology come to life at large-scale next year.
For many energy technology companies, China offers a very large market and a place where government policies make it feasible to raise the capital required to build manufacturing plants or large-scale demonstration projects. “This partnership will demonstrate how (EcoMotors) technology can be developed and delivered practically to important and growing markets,” investors William Lese said in a statement. Last April, EcoMotors signed a separate deal with to build an engine plant with auto parts conglomerate Zhongding Power in China.Britain’s Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Party back extradition of Assange
By Chris Marsden
27 August 2012
Britain’s largest pseudo-left groups have lined up behind the demand that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be extradited to Sweden.
Both the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party echo the propaganda of the liberal media that Assange must face rape charges and that the allegations of sexual assault have nothing to do with the efforts of the United States, Britain, Sweden and other governments to silence him and destroy WikiLeaks.
The SWP’s Tom Walker writes, “Julian Assange must face rape charges, not US revenge.” He notes the fate of Bradley Manning, “the US soldier accused of leaking state secrets who has so far spent more than 800 days behind bars without trial in military prison.” He points out that Manning has been chained hand and foot and mostly held “in solitary confinement for 23 to 24 hours a day and denied clothes and blankets at night.”
But he does so only to then claim that the “case of Assange…is far more problematic” because his extradition to Sweden, thwarted by his being granted asylum by Ecuador, is “for arrest and questioning over accusations by two women of rape and sexual assault.”
“Assange and some of his supporters have refused to take the rape allegations seriously,” he complains, before admitting, “We know that Assange faces a secret ‘sealed indictment’ in the US, and a grand jury has been convened against Wikileaks.”
To square the circle, he urges the Swedish authorities to guarantee that Assange will not be extradited to the US, which would “clear the way for him to face his accusers.”
Walker is, of course, well aware that Sweden has refused to give such an undertaking and that it would be meaningless even if it did so.
The Socialist Party reproduces an edited article by one of its Australian co-thinkers bearing the telling headline, “No Extradition to the USA.” The article tacitly supports Assange’s extradition to Sweden, arguing that “in a society where crimes against women are often ignored and trivialised, such allegations cannot be dismissed and should be properly investigated...”
“It is important for socialists to reject any idea that some rape does not need to be taken seriously,” the SP insists, going so far as to compare Assange’s supporters with the US Republican senatorial candidate Todd Akin, who created a stir last week with his reactionary and ignorant remark about “legitimate rape.”
The SWP and SP had maintained a deafening silence on the attempt to railroad Assange. The SWP last published a five-sentence item on Assange on March 5, 2011, and the SP last wrote on the issue on December 15, 2010!
The reason for their reticence is now clear. Both have long been in agreement with the extraordinary campaign by the right-wing as well as the nominally liberal press to tar Assange as a sexual criminal, but were reluctant to say so publicly. Now the time to procrastinate is over. To do so would risk alienating the upper layers of the petty-bourgeoisie to which they are oriented—those who have long promoted the politics of gender and race in opposition to class-based socialism—and who are now being whipped up against Assange.
The media’s howls of outrage over Assange’s alleged conduct in bed, the high-sounding posturing as defenders of women and the invocations of natural justice are so much hot air. The sole aim of the press pack is to muddy the political waters, conceal the real issues at stake, and intimidate those opposed to extradition by casting them as misogynists or even “defenders of rape.”
There is nothing to distinguish the SWP and SP’s stand from that of various faux liberal commentators such as Owen Jones, who wrote in the Independent that people such as Assange who “do otherwise commendable work” if “presented with rape allegations” must “face them like anybody else… Let’s be clear, rape is rape.”
What unites all of these media commentators, the ex-left included, is an insistence that the allegations (no charges have been laid) against Assange are grave and must be taken seriously. By “seriously” they mean entirely uncritically and, above all, without reference to the context in which they were made. To do otherwise, they insist, is to somehow question not only his two accusers, but to endorse the exploitation of womankind by predatory males everywhere.
This endlessly repeated injunction must be rejected. It is only in the deeply disoriented circles to which the Guardian, Independent, et al. cater, of which the SWP and SP are an essential component, that the presumption of innocence can be replaced by an insistence that all women tell the truth and all men are liars and sexual predators.
The reason why there are still no charges placed against Assange is that the claims made by his accusers are not credible. His relations with the two women were consensual. Indeed, both of the women had repeated sexual encounters with Assange over an extended period, including after the alleged incidents that led to their complaints.
The European arrest warrant against Assange alleges “unlawful coercion” when he purportedly held plaintiff one down with his body weight and sexually molested her by allegedly failing to use a condom. The same accusation of not using a condom is made for plaintiff two, along with a claim that she was asleep when sex was initiated by Assange. The final claim is that he “deliberately molested” plaintiff one by pressing his erect penis against her body.
The police statements made by the women make no reference to a stated lack of consent or threat of force and refer to a split condom, rather than a failure to use one. The testimony regarding Miss W (plaintiff two) being asleep is contradicted by her own tweets—referring as they do to being only “half-asleep.” Plaintiff one had thrown a party for Assange after the alleged incident of sexual assault against her and invited Assange to stay in her room afterwards.
The women had initially gone to the police after conferring with one another, but then only to insist that Assange take an HIV test, which, in an extraordinary breach of standard procedure, the police did. The women did not allege rape.
That is why the initial investigation of August 20, 2010 was dropped and an arrest warrant against Assange cancelled the next day by one of Stockholm’s chief prosecutors, Eva Finne, who said in a statement to the press: “I don’t think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape.”
The reissue of the warrant took place only after the intervention of Swedish Chief Prosecutor Marianne Ny on September 1, 2010.
Under normal circumstances, such flimsy and unsubstantiated allegations would not be considered the basis for criminal charges, especially after the two women were allowed to confer and give evidence together by the police. But these are not normal circumstances.
Whatever weasel words are employed by his accusers, the levelling of sex allegations against Assange was clearly politically motivated. It was done only after consultation between the police, public prosecutors and the Swedish government.
Equally, the determination of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government in the UK to deport Assange, even if this means breaking diplomatic relations with Ecuador, can have nothing other than political motives. This is, after all, a country that worked might and main to ensure that the fascist mass murderer Augusto Pinochet was not extradited to Spain.
Those journalistic hacks who deny the involvement of Washington in these events know they are lying. They do so because of a shared desire to see Assange silenced. Those such as the SWP and SP who insist that the threat of his being shipped off to the US should not impede a supposed struggle against gender-based violence are more shame-faced, but contribute to the same outcome.Young (Photo: Submitted )
The cases against a former Waupun police officer continue to grow.
The Fond du Lac Police Department confirmed that investigators have referred charges to the Fond du Lac County District Attorney’s Office against former Waupun Police Lt. Brad Young in connection with nine burglaries in the city.
Businesses mentioned in the report include Citi Financial; 439 N. Pioneer Road, Euphoria, 976 E. Johnson St.; Sisters Nail Salon, 976 E. Johnson St.; Automotive Supply Co., 417 N. Pioneer Road; Sombreros, 445 N. Pioneer Road; Creations Hair Studio, 491 N. Pioneer Road; the former Coaches Corner, 121 N. Pioneer Road; Optivision, 437 N. Pioneer Road; and Whispering Springs Golf Course, 380 Whispering Springs Drive.
The burglaries were reported in 2010 and 2011.
Young was arrested following an alleged multi-county crime spree in 2013. Following his arrest on Aug. 6, 2013, several law enforcement agencies began taking a second look at unsolved burglaries, including the City of Fond du Lac.
“Anytime we become aware of someone arrested for a series of burglaries, we view them as a possible suspect to see if they were involved in unsolved burglaries in our community,” said Fond du Lac Assistant Police Chief Steve Klein. “Our investigators were able to go back and look at a number of unsolved break-ins here in Fond du Lac and were able to tie Mr. Young to these outstanding burglaries.”
Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney said referrals were forwarded to former Green Lake District Attorney Kyle Sargent for conflict and consolidation reasons. While Sargent is now an Assistant District Attorney in Outagamie County, he is serving as a special prosecutor in the case, Toney said.
Attempts to reach Sargent were unsuccessful.
To date, Young has been charged in Barron, Burnett and Green Lake counties with multiple crimes including burglary. He is still waiting for an initial appearance in Waushara County where he’s accused of burglarizing a tavern.
A plea and sentencing hearing has been set for next month in Green Lake County where Young is charged with breaking into two grocery stores in Berlin and Markesan and a town of Green Lake restaurant. Young was arrested on Aug. 6, 2013, following a statewide manhunt.
After his arrest Young resigned from the Waupun Police Department, where he’d been an officer for 22 years.
Contact Colleen Kottke at (920) 907-7968 or [email protected]; Twitter: @ColleenKottke.
Read or Share this story: http://fondul.ac/1tJeplXEmail the show [email protected] or call 1-412-573-1934 or Speakpipe!
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During the two and a half hour meeting, numerous parents expressed skepticism over the district's commitment to repair the unsafe conditions at the school and keep it open. Superintendent Dr. J. Thomas Morton told them that all information about the building, which was closed on Thursday because of an unsafe wall, would be shared publicly.
"We don't know what the extent of the problem is with the building," he said. "We do know it is structurally unsound."
On July 1st cracks found in the back wall of the gym/aud
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seemed to be having on the streets, buildings, buses, subways, and other public spaces.
The notably clean and well-kept public spaces in the country of Singapore are likely to make quite an impression on visitors. The same can be said for the items in Singapore law that enforce and ensure the spic and span public spaces. One such law is the well-publicized ban on chewing gum, which was implemented in Singapore in 1992.
In addition to this cost, the improper disposal of chewing gum in Singapore was threatening the function and efficiency of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT). The MRT is a system of trains that, at the time, was the largest and most expensive public project executed in Singapore. Vandals were leaving the chewing gum in the doors of the MRT trains, preventing the doors from properly closing. This not only interrupted the service of the MRT trains, but was extremely costly to repair.
So, in January of 1992, Singaporean law adopted a new ban on chewing gum. The ban on chewing gum in Singapore outlawed import, sale, and manufacture of chewing gum. The ban on the import and manufacture of gum was enforced immediately, and a short grace period was allowed for merchants to sell their remaining supplies, and for the public to chew whatever gum they had left.
When the ban on chewing gum in Singapore was first implemented, opportunistic smugglers began to bring in chewing gum from neighboring Malaysia and Johur Bahru. Smugglers and other delinquents who defied the ban, when caught, were publicly shamed by the government. Illegal import of chewing gum even applies to bringing a few pieces into the country for personal use, a fact which demonstrates the serious nature of the ban on chewing gum in Singapore.
In terms of Singaporean law, the ban on chewing gum in Singapore can be considered an extension of the littering law. Therefore, the act of chewing gum in Singapore is associated with similar penalties to those imposed for littering. The littering law requires a fine of $500 to $1,000 US Dollars (USD) for first time offenders. Repeat offenders may be fined up to $2,000 USD and assigned a Corrective Work Order (CWO).
When serving a CWO for violating littering laws, offenders are made to clean public spaces, often while wearing a bright colored jacket. The media may also be invited to cover the event, increasing the severity of the penalty though additional public shame. The CWO as a penalty for chewing gum in Singapore was reportedly implemented in November of 1992.
In March of 2004, following the United States – Singapore Free Trade Agreement (USSFTA), Singaporean laws banning chewing gum were revised. The ban was lifted, only partially, to allow the sale of chewing gum considered to have health benefits. This includes products such as dental-health gum, and nicotine gum to assist people who want to quit smoking.
These chewing gums can only be sold in pharmacies, and consumers must provide name and ID. Pharmacists who sell the gum without collecting the required information can be fined up to $2,940 USD and jailed for two years. The penalties for violating restrictions on chewing gum in Singapore, such as fines, Corrective Work Orders, and jail time, are often considered severe by outsiders. Similar fineable activities include spitting in public and not flushing public toilets.BETTING on professional sports is currently illegal in most of the United States outside of Nevada. I believe we need a different approach.
For more than two decades, the National Basketball Association has opposed the expansion of legal sports betting, as have the other major professional sports leagues in the United States. In 1992, the leagues supported the passage by Congress of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or Paspa, which generally prohibits states from authorizing sports betting.
But despite legal restrictions, sports betting is widespread. It is a thriving underground business that operates free from regulation or oversight. Because there are few legal options available, those who wish to bet resort to illicit bookmaking operations and shady offshore websites. There is no solid data on the volume of illegal sports betting activity in the United States, but some estimate that nearly $400 billion is illegally wagered on sports each year.
Times have changed since Paspa was enacted. Gambling has increasingly become a popular and accepted form of entertainment in the United States. Most states offer lotteries. Over half of them have legal casinos. Three have approved some form of Internet gambling, with others poised to follow.For the second straight year, a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning organization has been named the American Hockey League Most Valuable Player.
The AHL announced on Friday afternoon that Syracuse Crunch center Tyler Johnson has been named the 2012-2013 MVP. Former Bolt Cory Conacher won the Les Cunningham Award last year on the Calder Cup champion Norfolk Admirals.
“I’m pretty surprised and to be honest, it wasn’t something I was thinking about during the season, but I’m honored,” Johnson said in a release on the Lightning’s official website. “It’s an award that is presented to an individual, but really it’s a team award, so I have to thank all of my teammates and my coaches.
“They’ve been unbelievable in helping me get to this point.”
Johnson leads all AHL skaters with 33 goals heading into the final week of the season. In 60 games, he also has 60 points, ranking 10th in the league.
Johnson’s feat is made more impressive by the fact that he spent 14 games playing with the big club in Tampa Bay last month. He scored three goals, six points and garnered a plus-3 rating during his stint.
“It’s a great league, one of the best in the world, so to be recognized for it is really special,” said the undrafted 22-year-old. “The guys who I compete with and against every night are top-notch players, so I really can’t express it any other way. It’s just awesome.”
Johnson will lead the Crunch into the Calder Cup Playoffs, as they have already clinched a playoff spot and are fighting for the East Division crown with the Binghamton Senators. Their final three regular-season games are Friday, Saturday and Sunday.By Cho Mu-hyun
Korea has decided to ban trade for commercial game items from the second half of this year as a measure aimed at encouraging students to not waste time.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has announced that it is planning to halt all virtual item trades with a new law, to be announced sometime next month.
“The main purpose of the games is for entertainment and should be used for academic and other good purposes,” said Kim Kap-soo, head of the ministry’s content policy division, Wednesday.
The government official also stressed item collecting for commercial use is a serious hindrance to creating a healthy game culture.
Korea is the world’s most-wired society with the Internet penetration rate standing at above 93 percent, data from government agencies said. Korea is also the home of the world’s biggest smartphone and TV manufacturer _ Samsung.
For online role-playing games, the law prohibits users from using programs that allow in-game characters to hunt and collect items without the need of a player controlling them.
The ministry calculates that over 60 percent of items exchanged on the market were obtained by the use of automatic programs. Such programs and other method are impinging in the way of on-line games’ negative reputation, the government agency said.
Those who violate this law will face up to a 50 million won fine, at a maximum, and five years in jail.
For arcade games, game providers will be unable to list in-game items in their accounts as property, or handout gift certificates for item purchases. In 2007, the then popular arcade game Sea Story handed out certificates that were quickly exchanged or sold for cash, and the government is concerned that a similar incident may reoccur.
The ministry said that arcade game businesses that keep books registering items and scores (that can be exchanged for cash) has risen to 1,500 as of April. There were only 50 such businesses in 2009.
In a statement, the ministry says item trades contribute to many problems in society, including teenage crime, and felt that a solution was required.
The ministry is planning to give active guidelines to provincial administrations and have the police department actively enforce the new law. The government is also heightening prevention of gambling and other illegal activities using games.
Korea is a hub for online role-playing games, which have also drawn concern because of the booming trade in virtual money and items.Anyone who has ever set about tracing their Irish ancestry knows it isn’t always easy. Decades of immigration, names in two different languages, and the 1922 fire that destroyed Ireland’s Public Records Office all complicate the search.
Late night host Conan O’Brien and actress Lisa Kudrow both understand this, as they recently commiserated on his show about how difficult finding your Irish roots can be.
Kudrow is the executive producer for the genealogy TV show “Who Do You Think You Are?”. O’Brien explains that he was approached by the show’s team about appearing on an episode, and is wondering why they haven’t gotten back to him with information on his family after he gave them basic info and a DNA sample.
“…You’re tough!” she says and bursts out laughing. “It’s tough, Irish ancestry is really tough.”
They go on to joke about how Irish genealogy is hard because everyone had the same names and everyone was drinking, which we take some issue with, but Kudrow does make some good points about using parish records, prison records and poor house (not whore house, Conan) records as valuable resources.
Have you have a hard time tracing your Irish ancestry? Were there any resources that helped? Share your experience in the comment section, below.Lauren Hill's family announced on her Facebook page on Tuesday that they have signed her up for hospice care.
Her family said they originally planned to do so in October or early November, but it got delayed to allow her to play in her first college basketball game on Nov. 2. Hill, who has an inoperable brain tumor, scored her first career points in that game and was later named the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Week.
• Lauren Hill gave the jersey from her first college game to Devon Still
The game had a sold out crowd of more than 10,000 fans and raised more than $70,000 for pediatric brain cancer research.
Doctors have told Hill that she won't live beyond December. From the Facebook post, which can be read in full here:
"We are excited to have additional resources coming to our home. We have already been able to get supplies to help make things easier here at home." "Overall [Lauren] has been in good spirits this week and staying busy with special projects. In a funny, goofy mood tonight."
• Lauren Hill now has her own Wheaties box
- Molly GearyOpting to handle your bills online keeps a lot of paper out of the bin, but the devices you use to go online eventually die anyway. If this “e-waste” ends up in a landfill, the energy and materials that went into manufacturing and delivering those devices are lost. And besides being unsustainable, disposal can expose people to hazardous metals and compounds.
Apart from a story here and there about a new e-waste recycling project, it’s hard to get an idea of just how much e-waste is getting tossed around the world. A new report from the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union helps paint a picture by providing some global statistics.
Altogether, the report estimates that nearly 45 million tons of electronics were thrown out in 2016—and only about 20 percent of it is known to have been recycled. The report puts the value of the raw materials in that 45 million tons of e-waste at about $55 billion ($9 billion from smartphones alone), but most of that waste isn’t being recovered.
There are, of course, huge differences in e-waste from one region to another. Africa, for example, accounted for only about five percent of the total e-waste generated—roughly zero of which was recycled. Europe and Russia combined to generate about 28 percent of the world’s e-waste, but recycled it at a higher average rate of 35 percent. That’s partly due to recycling rates of around 70 percent in Switzerland, Sweden, and Norway.
The United States produced 14 percent of e-waste and recycled less than a quarter of it—just above the global average. China, which has four times the population of the US, came in at about 16 percent of the world’s e-waste, with about 18 percent getting recycled.
The trend for e-waste is, of course, upward, with about four percent more being produced every year. The report highlights the tremendous scale of changes in the use of technology over the last decade. In 2007, only about 20 percent of the world’s population was online, but that number has since increased to nearly 50 percent. That’s more people using more devices, while recycling efforts lag behind.
And many of those new devices are smartphones with incredibly short lifecycles. The average smartphone, the report notes, is only used for less than 2 years before it gets replaced. (On the flip side, many devices have gotten smaller, which means a little less material in each one.)
In an interesting example, the report zeroes in on chargers, specifically. Of the 45 million tons of e-waste, power adapters account for at least a half million tons. Chargers, obviously, aren’t being tossed because they’re obsolete, but they go along for the ride. The International Telecommunication Union has worked on standards for chargers, which could serve longer useful lives if compatibility was expanded.
On a positive note, the report states that six more countries (most notably India) have added rules covering e-waste management since 2014. That means two-thirds of the Earth’s population now lives in countries with at least some rules that encourage safe disposal and recycling. And that’s a start.
Correction: This article initially described power adapters as accounting for a million tons of e-waste. A million tons of power adapters are manufactured every year, but the estimated portion that is currently disposed of each year is 500,000 to 600,000 tons.EL SEGUNDO – Los Angeles Lakers forward Brandon Ingram has been named to the NBA’s All-Rookie Second Team, it was announced today. This is the third consecutive season that a Laker has been honored with an All-Rookie team selection and Ingram is the fifth Laker in team history (Kobe Bryant and Travis Knight in 1996-97, Nick Van Exel in 1993-94 and D’Angelo Russell in 2015-16) to be awarded Second Team honors.
The second overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft played in 79 games (40 starts) in 2016-17, averaging 9.4 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 28.9 minutes per game. He finished the year ranked eighth among rookies in points and 10th in rebounds, and was one of 10 American rookie and sophomore players selected by the league’s assistant coaches to participate in the Rising Stars Challenge at NBA All-Star 2017.
In 11 games played (11 starts) in March, Ingram notched 13.5 points (.517 FG%), 4.1 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.0 steals per game. Ingram continued his strong play in April, scoring in double- figures in 16 of his last 17 games played.
The Kinston, NC native scored 10+ points 36 times and 20+ points twice, including a career-high 22-point performance on February 26 against the San Antonio Spurs.This is a list of notable people who were born in the Channel Island of Jersey, or have been resident there, including current Jersey residents.
Some persons may not be listed here, but are listed in other related articles, shown under the See also section.
All those listed should have an article dedicated to them.
Actors [ edit ]
Seymour Hicks
Architects [ edit ]
Edward Bartley, architect (1839–1919)
Artists [ edit ]
Athletes [ edit ]
Business people [ edit ]
Criminals [ edit ]
Francis Joseph Huchet, murderer (died 1959 aged 32)
Edward Paisnel, sex offender (1925–1994)
Linguists [ edit ]
Geraint Jennings, linguist, politician (b. 1966)
Musicians [ edit ]
Nerina Pallot
Rulers, politicians, soldiers [ edit ]
Sir Walter Raleigh
Scientists [ edit ]
Television and radio personalities [ edit ]
Writers [ edit ]
Other notables [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]Image copyright Reuters Image caption Ukrainian forces recaptured Sloviansk when pro-Russian insurgents retreated on Saturday
Outside the police station in Sloviansk, there is a giant barricade made of concrete blocks. It wasn't built by the police, but by the pro-Russia insurgents who seized the town three months ago.
Now the fighters are gone. And a convoy of Ukrainian army vehicles is pulling up to take down the wall.
The military commander here tells me how significant it is that the army has retaken this town.
"Sloviansk was one of the strongholds of the militants," he explains. "It's like when you've been standing on two legs and you suddenly have one of your legs taken away from you. That's what losing Sloviansk is like for the insurgents."
But what is it like for the residents now the fighters have left town?
Walking around Sloviansk, it feels eerily quiet and vey empty.
Many of the town's 120,000 residents fled weeks ago. I see a string of apartment blocks damaged during the so-called "anti-terrorist operation".
The town suffered sustained artillery shelling. That's what eventually forced the insurgents to withdraw.
Image copyright AP Image caption Much of Sloviansk is quiet after many of its residents fled
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Loaves of bread are being distributed to a population that suffered shortages over the past few weeks
For those residents who remain, the authorities are distributing humanitarian aid: loaves of bread, tinned meat and bottled water. But that is not enough to convince everyone here that they have been liberated.
"The Ukrainian army bombed and shelled us for two months," Roman tells me outside Sloviansk City Hall. "The military keeps praising itself for having defended us. In fact they were killing us."
A man on a bicycle overhears our conversation.
"What's the matter with you?" he says to Roman. "There hasn't been any shooting for two days here now. Aren't you pleased about that?"
I get chatting to the man on the bike, whose name is Igor.
Image caption Inside the security services' basement, where the insurgents kept prisoners
Image caption Near the basement insurgents put up this sign: "Don't litter or you'll be sent to the cellar!"
"What was the point of all this bloodshed we've had the last three months?" Igor asks. "Was it worth it just so some people could hang up their separatist flags?"
I visit one of the most infamous buildings in Sloviansk: the local headquarters of the Ukrainian security service. When they were in control here, the pro-Russia militants locked some of their hostages in the cellar.
Down in the dark basement I find mattresses the hostages slept on; the leftovers of a prison meal - a bowl of soup and a piece of bread. Washing facilities were basic: a plastic water bottle attached to the wall with a bucket underneath.
When the insurgents retreated, they took some of their hostages with them. Others were left unguarded and able to go free.
Back outside the police station, I notice a flag that wasn't there before. It's red and black: the banner of the Ukrainian ultranationalist group Right Sector. That will make some people feel deeply uncomfortable in this mainly Russian-speaking town.
As for the Ukrainian authorities, they have their own concerns. The insurgents say that many of their fighters from Sloviansk have now relocated to the regional capital Donetsk. They claim they're determined to fight on.In the next few months, surgeons in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou will carefully drill through the skulls of people with Parkinson’s disease and inject 4 million immature neurons derived from human embryonic stem cells into their brains. Then they will patch the patients up, send them home and wait.
This will mark the start of the first clinical trial in China using human embryonic stem (ES) cells, and the first one worldwide aimed at treating Parkinson’s disease using ES cells from fertilized embryos. In a second trial starting around the same time, a different team in Zhengzhou will use ES cells to target vision loss caused by age-related macular degeneration.
The experiments will also represent the first clinical trials of ES cells under regulations that China adopted in 2015, in an attempt to ensure the ethical and safe use of stem cells in the clinic. China previously had no clear regulatory framework, and many companies had used that gap as an excuse to market unproven stem-cell treatments.
“It will be a major new direction for China,” says Pei Xuetao, a stem-cell scientist at the Beijing Institute of Transfusion Medicine who is on the central-government committee that approved the trials. Other researchers who work on Parkinson’s disease, however, worry that the trials might be misguided.
Both studies will take place at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in Henan province. In the first, surgeons will inject ES-cell-derived neuronal-precursor cells into the brains of individuals with Parkinson’s disease. The only previous trial using ES cells to treat Parkinson’s began last year in Australia; participants there received stem cells from parthenogenetic embryos—unfertilized eggs that are triggered in the lab to start embryonic development.
In the other Zhengzhou trial, surgeons will take retinal cells derived from ES cells and transplant them into the eyes of people with age-related macular degeneration. The team will follow a similar procedure to that of previous ES-cell trials carried out by researchers in the United States and South Korea.
Qi Zhou, a stem-cell specialist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Zoology in Beijing, is leading both efforts. For the Parkinson’s trial, his team assessed hundreds of candidates and have so far have picked ten who best match the ES cells in the cell bank, to reduce the risk of the patients’ bodies rejecting the cells.
The 2015 regulations state that hospitals planning to carry out stem-cell clinical work must use government-certified ES-cell lines and pass hospital-review procedures. Zhou’s team completed four years of work with a monkey model of Parkinson’s, and has met the government requirements, he says.
Parkinson’s disease is caused by a deficit in dopamine produced by brain cells. Zhou’s team will coax ES cells to develop into precursors to neurons, and will then inject them into the striatum, a central region of the brain implicated in the disease.
In their unpublished study of 15 monkeys, the researchers did not observe any improvements in movement at first, says Zhou. But at the end of the first year, the team examined the brains of half the monkeys and found that the stem cells had turned into dopamine-releasing cells. He says that they saw 50% improvement in the remaining monkeys over the next several years. “We have all the imaging data, behavioural data and molecular data to support efficacy,” he says. They are preparing a publication, but Zhou says that they wanted to collect a full five years’ worth of animal data.
Maturity concerns
Jeanne Loring, a stem-cell biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, who is also planning stem-cell trials for Parkinson’s, is concerned that the Australian and Chinese trials use neural precursors and not ES-cell-derived cells that have fully committed to becoming dopamine-producing cells. Precursor cells can turn into other kinds of neurons, and could accumulate dangerous mutations during their many divisions, says Loring. “Not knowing what the cells will become is troubling.”
But Zhou and the Australian team defend their choices. Russell Kern, chief scientific officer of the International Stem Cell Corporation in Carlsbad, California, which is providing the cells for and managing the Australian trial, says that in preclinical work, 97% of them became dopamine-releasing cells.
Lorenz Studer, a stem-cell biologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City who has spent years characterizing such neurons ahead of his own planned clinical trials, says that “support is not very strong” for the use of precursor cells. “I am somewhat surprised and concerned, as I have not seen any peer-reviewed preclinical data on this approach,” he says.
Studer’s and Loring’s teams are part of an international consortium that coordinates stem-cell treatments for Parkinson’s. In the next two years, five groups in the consortium plan to run trials using cells fully committed to becoming dopamine-producing cells.
Regenerative neurobiologist Malin Parmar, who heads one of the teams at Lund University in Sweden, says that the groups “are all rapidly moving towards clinical trials, and this field will be very exciting in the coming years”.
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on May 31, 2017.This is “The NFL Beat” and for the first time in my life I have writer's block. I keep thinking, "Where do I even start?" Yet, you my loyal reader, know by now I have never been one to back down to a challenge. Take a deep breath, and start from the beginning with me. By the end, I predict I will be ranting as usual.
Lucas Oil Stadium. Let's start here. Adorned on its most prominent northeast corner by a nearly 100-foot-tall image of Peyton Manning, the venue this week hosted the NFL Scouting Combine, an event which showcased his likely eventual replacement. I was there, and it was sick my friends. I talked with everybody and saw everything. Now I'm here to spill it:
This is the best NFL draft class in years. I honestly believe it may be the best in my lifetime as a fan and follower of the draft. The only position I see any possible significant weakness in is at the DE position, which features a lot of players at the top of the board like Quinton Coples (UNC), Melvin Ingram (South Carolina), Whitney Mercillus (Illinois) and Nick Perry (USC). Boom-or-bust type prospects who could range in productivity levels from complete bust to situational player to absolute superstar. Then you have guys with question marks like Alabama's Courtney Upshaw. Can he transition to a 4-3 pass rusher with his hand in the dirt after standing up as an OLB for his whole college career? He told me he can. I believe him. Even Vinny Curry, who looks like an absolute beast on film, played at Marshall against weak competition. The point is everyone knows the rest of the draft is stacked. We have two once-every-25-year QBs. We have the best RB since Adrian Peterson. We have a cornerback at the top of the board in Morris Claiborne who is basically a more technical version of his playmaking former teammate at LSU, Patrick Peterson. Along the defensive line there are eight players who have, up until now, been given first-round grades by virtually every analyst and draftnik out there. If this DE group shows up and rises to relative NFL prominence, the 2012 NFL Draft will be looked back on as a monster.
Lets talk about Michael Bush. What the heck. From everything I'm hearing, the Raiders would love to keep Bush onboard as a running back committee compliment to Darren McFadden, but after putting on such a beastly last half of the 2011 season filling in for the injured Run DMC, the free agent will simply command too big a contract for the Raiders to take on. I would be absolutely shocked if they franchised him given what I've been told by sources close to the organization. I had the chance to address Raiders new head coach Dennis Allen regarding a myriad of topics at his press conference, and one thing that really stood out to me was how much he loves McFadden. He said as the former defensive coordinator for the AFC West division rival Broncos, McFadden was the player that gave him the most trouble game-planning for. When asked about the possibility of trading McFadden and retaining Bush as the team's primary runner, Allen said, "There is a 100% chance that Darren McFadden will be a Raider next season."
One team that I have been told will take a long look at making a move for Bush is the Cincinatti Bengals. This bit of insider knowledge was validated somewhat when I asked Bengals Head Coach Marvin Lewis about former Longhorn running back Cedric Benson, and his status with the Bengals as his contract is set to expire. He didn't sound like a guy who expected him back. The general sentiment regarding fellow former Longhorn Jordan Shipley is drastically different, however. After being placed on the injured reserve early in the 2011 season due to a torn ACL, the team has full confidence in Shipley to return to his starting slot receiver position and do so in excellent form. The area of concern in the Bengals' receiving corps is at the No. 2 WR position occupied in 2011 by the much-maligned Jerome Simpson. I was told by one source with knowledge of the situation that even if there were no off-the-field issues, Simpson was still a No. 4 WR at best, and the only reason anyone knows him is because of one all-time highlight-reel TD catch. He'll flip ya, flip ya for real.
I start this paragraph wondering if anyone caught my The Usual Suspects reference at the end of the last paragraph. One of the usual suspects you caught me marveling over on Sundays this season was Carolina's dynamic rookie QB Cam Newton. We at Rosterwatch call him "the Prototype." Robert Griffin III told the NFL media during his press conference that he is both faster and a better passer than Newton. We saw that he is most certainly faster, running a 40 time a full.2 seconds faster than Newton did last year. Newton chose to throw at the combine, and did so with great success. Griffin deferred showcasing his arm to scouts until his pro day in Waco at Baylor March 21 where yours truly will be in attendance. Lost in some of the hype surrounding Griffin's freakish athletic display this week is that Stanford's Andrew Luck, the most dynamic passing prospect the league has seen since John Elway, is pretty damn athletic himself. He compared favorably to the aforementioned Newton in virtually all explosive testing drills. What a QB class.
Quick Hits
- Chiefs GM Scott Pioli shot me down when I addressed him regarding the team's possible interest in Peyton Manning citing that he is currently signed by the Colts and he could not talk about it due to (presumably) tampering rules in the new CBA. Chiefs new HC Romeo Crennel was more forthcoming when asked the same question the next day saying "if" (Manning was made a free agent) he would be "crazy not to consider it."
- When I interviewed Memphis DT Dontari Poe I was scared for my life. The man is a beast. He reminds you exactly of Vince Wilfork as a nose tackle prospect and went on to put up 44 reps on the bench and run a sub-5-second 40 time. He showed brilliant, instinctive bend and quick, decisive footwork in cone and bag drills. Oh yeah, he weighs 346 pounds. My God. Coming into the week most thought that LSU's Michael Brockers would steal the show as far as defensive line prospects. Now, I would not be surprised to see Poe as the first DT off the board and would be shocked to see him slide into the second half of the first round.
- Michael Floyd (Notre Dame) looked the best out of all wide receivers in drills by most every scout's account, while Kirk Cousins (Michigan State) was largely thought to have had the best throwing day of any of the QBs who took part in passing drills.
- I watched both QB groups sitting next to fellow Pro Football Writers Association member, ESPN's John Clayton, who was tracking Oklahoma State QB Brandon Weeden for his pool contribution article in the official group release. Weeden did not have a great day. The professor had him completing only 17 of 29 passes against the air, and struggling most mightily throwing to his right, oddly enough.
- The most intelligent player I interviewed at the combie was former Texas Longhorn Emmanuel Acho. In speaking with multiple sources, most believe he is, like his brother, a fourth- or fifth-round prospect with immense upside potential to outperform that billing.
- I asked every wide receiver prospect I interviewed who the toughest DB they faced in their career was. The two names that came up most consistently were Janoris Jenkins (University of Northern Alabama – previously Florida) and Leonard Johnson (Iowa State).
- Boise State QB Kellen Moore is not good.
- Every DB who faced Oklahoma State's Justin Blackmon in college told me the same thing when I asked them about their matchup with him. They all said he is not the fastest, but he is incredibly hard to cover because he is a master of changing the speed of his play throughout the game, and even during routes. You never know when he is going to burst into or out of cuts, and it really makes it hard to know how much space to give him through certain windows. Sources close to the Carolina Panthers say that they are praying that Blackmon's slow 40-time will allow him fall to their pick at No. 9.
- The kid I am rooting for most in this process is Cal WR Marvin Jones. I got to know Marvin at the Senior Bowl like a lot of these guys, and he is just such a great young man. He's a stand-up kid with a young family and a genial, gentle sense of seriousness and responsibility. If history has shown us anything, intrinsic "seriousness" is one of the most valuable intangibles in a prospect. It also helps that he has serious wheels.
- Two prospects who are a little under-the-radar that scouts think very highly of are LSU WR Rueben Randle and Montana CB Trumaine Johnson. Expect both to go earlier than most mock drafts have them slated.
- In addressing Alabama defenders Dont'a Hightower and Courtney Upshaw, I asked both the same question: I felt they were in a unique position to compare 2011's top RB prospect, Mark Ingram, to 2012's top RB prospect, Trent Richardson, having faced both in practice at Alabama. They both said largely the same thing: Both players have great vision, Ingram is "shiftier" while Richardson has more straight-line power and loves contact.Whew, what a weekend!
Grand Prix Las Vegas was an incredible experience. I’m currently still processing everything I learned from the event. While I’ll be continuing with the second part of someday soon, that day is not today.
Today’s post, instead, is about something that you’re more likely to encounter than a many-thousand player Grand Prix. You could encounter it at your local store’s next PPTQ, or even at FNM.
Today’s post is about backups.
At GP Vegas, I was involved in a few situations where a backup could be considered as a fix, or where I was consulted to approve one. Here are a couple of them! What would you do in these situations? Let us know in the comments!
As usual for these sorts of scenarios, you may assume that no one is cheating, but feel free to draw attention to any situations that seem especially suspicious. Further, you may assume these scenarios are at Competitive REL, and that you have the ability to conduct backups.
Service with a Guile
Annie controls Guile, Hearthfire Hobgoblin, and Ethercaste Knight. Nunu controls a Tumble Magnet with three charge counters and a Runed Servitor. Annie says “Combat?” Nunu says, “Sure.” Annie attacks with all her creatures, and Nunu blocks Guile with the Runed Servitor. Annie says, “OK, take 5.” Nunu replies, “Yes, and we both draw a card.” Both players mark the damage and draw a card from the Servitor’s trigger; Annie now has four cards in hand. In her postcombat main phase, Annie plays a Blood Ogre and puts a counter on it from bloodthirst, then passes the turn. Then Annie realizes that Runed Servitor shouldn’t have been able to block Guile, and calls for a judge. Do you rewind? How far? What factors influence your decision?
What’s Black and Blue and Sorcery Speed Only?
Lumiel is playing against Belial. On her turn, Lumiel casts Dimir Guildmage and passes the turn. Belial untaps, draws, and says, “Go.” Lumiel taps eight mana and says, “On your end step, Dimir Guildmage, targeting you twice, discard two cards.” Belial discards two cards. Shiva the spectator interrupts and asks the players to call a judge. Do you rewind? Why or why not? What if Belial had done something on his turn?
Sweet Oracle O’ Mine
Axl is fighting Noel. Axl has just cast Etched Oracle with sunburst of four, leaving him with no cards in hand. At her first opportunity, Noel casts Smash to Smithereens targeting Axl’s Oracle. Axl says, “In response, I’ll activate Etched Oracle’s ability and draw.” Axl picks up four cards from his library, and Noel calls for a judge. What do you do?
Bless You!
Aladdin attacks Nala with a 2/2 Stormblood Berserker. Nala’s only creatures are Dimir Guildmage and Spikeshot Elder. Nala blocks the Berserker with both of her creatures, stacking them on top of each other so the Guildmage is closer to the Berserker. Aladdin passes priority. Nala then casts Apostle’s Blessing targeting her Dimir Guildmage, and names red. Aladdin passes and lets Nala’s Blessing resolve, then casts a Blessing of his own. When it resolves, Aladdin names black, and moves Nala’s creatures so that the Spikeshot Elder is closer to his Berseker. Nala calls for a judge. What do you do? Does your response change at all if the Berserker is a 1/1 or a 3/3?
Mis-Clique
In Atom’s draw step, Nebula casts Vendilion Clique and announces she’s targeting Atom with the trigger. Atom reveals his hand, and Nebula selects Chimeric Mass. Atom puts Chimeric Mass into his graveyard, and neglects to draw a card. Nebula then Lightning Bolts Atom’s Court Homunculus. When Atom puts Court Homunculus into his graveyard on top of Chimeric Mass, the players realize Atom’s mistake, and call for a judge. What do you do?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on any or all of these scenarios! Don’t be afraid of “being wrong”: asking questions is how we learn! Besides (spoiler alert), these
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– and not just with Obama. There were, of course, principled civil libertarians on the left, like Salon’s Glenn Greenwald and Firedoglake’s Marcy Wheeler who kept banging the drum with undiminished fury. But many progressives seemed prepared to assume that Bush’s War-on-Terror policies would be out the door close on the heels of their author – conspicuously muting their outrage even as the reasons for it persisted. Meanwhile, the right – disappointingly if not entirely surprisingly – managed to fuse a penchant for breathless Stalin analogies with an attitude toward expansive surveillance powers and arbitrary detention authority that ranged from indifference to endorsement.
So it’s a little encouraging to see evidence over the last few weeks that burgeoning progressive disenchantment with Obama along a number of dimensions seems to be bringing these issues back into sharper focus. In a recent interview in Der Spiegel, Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame (described by the paper as a “lefty icon”) blasted Obama for “continuing the worst of the Bush administration in terms of civil liberties.” ACLU director Anthony Romero declared himself “disgusted” with the president, and Kevin Drum of Mother Jones catalogued a slew of reasons to agree with that appraisal. The real test of an issue’s salience, however, is whether it makes The Daily Show, and so perhaps the most significant bellwether is Jon Stewart’s decision to devote an unusually long and blistering segment to Obama’s failure to live up to his rhetoric on civil liberties and executive power:
Democrats have spent most of the past decade playing defense against “soft on national security” attacks from the right, on the assumption – borne out thus far – that the base wasn’t going to punish them for folding on civil liberties issues. But while many progressive complaints now being aired are themselves the product of an unrealistic view of presidential puissance, this really is one sphere where the president has enormous latitude to unilaterally affect policy. It’s therefore also a set of issues where scant progress can’t easily be blamed on Republican obstructionism.
During the Bush era, we saw the brief emergence of a small but hardy left-right “strange bedfellows” coalition opposed to the FISA Amendments Act. Now I find myself wondering: If progressive grumblings on this front continue and grow louder, will the Tea Party movement that’s sprung up in the intervening years realize that their own rhetoric logically commits them to the same position? And if they do, will civil libertarians on the left be open to resurrecting that odd alliance?The term brogue ( BROHG) generally refers to an Irish accent. Less commonly, it may also refer to certain other regional forms of English, in particular those of Scotland or the English West Country.[1][2]
The word was first recorded in 1689.[3] Multiple etymologies have been proposed: it may derive from the Irish bróg ("shoe"), the type of shoe traditionally worn by the people of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, and hence possibly originally meant "the speech of those who call a shoe a 'brogue'".[4] It is also possible that the term comes from the Irish word barróg, meaning "a hold (on the tongue)", thus "accent" or "speech impediment".[5] A famous false etymology states that the word stems from the supposed perception that the Irish spoke English so peculiarly that it was as if they did so "with a shoe in their mouths".[6]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
^ brogue, noun. Cambridge Dictionaries Online. ^ Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language. OUP Oxford. 978-0192806376 McArthur, Tom and Roshan (2005).. OUP Oxford. ISBN ^ The Story of English. Viking Press. ISBN 978-0670804672 McCrum, Robert et al. (1986).. Viking Press. ^ brogue, Online Etymology Dictionary ^ Merriam-Webster Online (2012). "brogue". Merriam-Webster Online. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. ^ Irish English As Represented in Film. Peter Lang Pub Inc. p. 4. ISBN 978-3631586822 Walshe, Shane et al. (2009).. Peter Lang Pub Inc. p. 4.There he was on morning television telling the nation that a key plank in his government’s first budget was a dud after all. That would be the $7 Medicare co-payment, the one he defended in May as “right and fair and proper, and that is why it will happen under this government”. Unravelling right there on Channel Nine was a year’s worth of insistence that this was an adult government, more competent and trustworthy than its Labor predecessor.
Now, seven months later, this stunning reassessment from the prime minister: “The bulk billing arrangements are absolutely protected for children, for pensioners, for veterans, for people in nursing homes and other aged-care accommodation. This is a way of making Medicare sustainable and fair. It’s a better policy package than the one we announced on budget night.”
Just as stories of the Rudd office’s dysfunction began seeping into the media for months before he was brought down as prime minister in 2010, persistent reports are beginning to appear about the Abbott office.
The Today host followed up somewhat incredulously, “Doesn’t that suggest your policies were flawed at the outset?” Bold as brass, Tony Abbott shot back that it suggests the system is working as it should. “The government puts a proposal forward, it goes into parliament; it’s debated, it’s modified, it’s improved.” He even praised the nation’s founders for giving us a senate as a house of review – a far cry from the negative, unpatriotic, obstructionist chamber that has been frustrating his government’s attempts to repair the budget. It was a frank admission the non-government majority was in fact saving the Coalition from itself.
Labor’s Bill Shorten thinks that task is not yet finished. He accuses the government of introducing a GP tax “through the back door” and will move to disallow in the senate a $5 cut to the rebate the government pays doctors. He says, “Tony Abbott doesn’t think his policies are wrong, he is just changing his tactics because he personally and his government is in political disarray.”
The Fairfax Ipsos poll earlier in the week bolsters that view. It found that the electorate rates Abbott as incompetent and untrustworthy as his much-maligned Labor predecessor Julia Gillard at her lowest point. A postmortem of the co-payment saga shows the causes of the dramatic demise of the prime minister and the government’s standing is all their own work.
Back in February, on the eve of the Griffith byelection, the prime minister slammed talk of a Medicare co-payment as a Labor scare campaign that he had knocked on the head. He insisted, “Nothing is being considered, nothing has been proposed and nothing is planned.” Three months later, it was up in lights, in the budget, as jarring as the Kings Cross Coca-Cola sign. What mystifies and angers some on the backbench is the political cack-handedness of it all. “Did no one war-game the package for its saleability?” one MP asks in frustration. Apparently not, although Health Minister Peter Dutton told the ABC, “We had offered up the co-payment in the May budget as a measure which we knew would need to be compromised on.” That prompts the question: were children, pensioners and the aged all pawns in a political game? Or worse: was he prepared to open the government up to the charge of unfairness as part of his negotiating strategy? He, like the prime minister, can hardly complain if voters are disinclined to believe anything he says in future.
But there is also an element of “mean and tricky” in the government’s scrapping of the $7 co-payment. The new package still raises $3.5 billion – almost as much as the policy it is supposedly replacing. The Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) says it is the same policy by stealth. CEO Michael Moore says, “This $5 cut in the Medicare rebate is in effect a pay cut for doctors. Have government ministers taken a pay cut themselves? This is comparable to the minimal pay increase offered to the military.” The PHAA says GPs are being forced to do the government’s dirty work: “Either they lose $3 billion from their own pockets or drag it from the wallets of the bulk of their patients.” There are, it must be remembered, 15 million Australians not covered by the exemptions.
The underlying assumptions for any co-payment are both economically and medically flawed. The government argues a “price signal” is needed to make Medicare sustainable. Senate independent Nick Xenophon says, “If people are discouraged from seeing their GP – that will mean more people will end up in hospital.” Medicare on the government’s own admission is costing $20 billion annually, the states’ hospitals cost $140 billion. And, of course, we know early detection of disease is the best and cheapest medicine. So much for the efficacy of a “price signal”.
The prime minister can’t lay all the blame for the disarray at the feet of his ministers. He, unlike John Howard, chaired most meetings of the Expenditure Review Committee as it prepared the budget. The tentacles of his office reach deep into senior colleagues’ bailiwicks. Veteran press gallery journalist Laurie Oakes wrote last weekend that the decision to sack Treasury head Martin Parkinson was taken in the Abbott office without consulting the treasurer. A chief of staff such as Peta Credlin can only act in such a way if she has the full authority of the prime minister. Joe Hockey did his best to stave it off without success. Oakes all but blamed the prime minister’s office (PMO) for last week’s page one story in The Daily Telegraph targeting Hockey for incompetence and the government’s woes. The headline, “Joe’s on the nose”, angered the treasurer and had his staff wondering who could see it as helpful. Perhaps to shore up Abbott is one view. Whatever is going on, it points to disruptive internal politics. And goes a long way to explaining why the government’s performance has been so “ragged”.
Hockey isn’t the only senior minister with PMO troubles. Liberal deputy leader and foreign minister Julie Bishop has reportedly decided she will no longer take orders from Credlin, and other cabinet members feel the same. Just as stories of the Rudd office’s dysfunction began seeping into the media for months before he was brought down as prime minister in 2010, persistent reports are beginning to appear about the Abbott office. One of the more colourful was in The Australian. The relationship between Bishop and Credlin is said to have irretrievably broken down. The paper quotes a frontbencher saying, “They are like two Siamese fighting fish stuck in the same tank.” There are on-the-record denials all round, but Bishop has been publicly flexing her muscles.
The Australian Financial Review had an on-the-record interview with the foreign minister where she confirmed she had to overturn a Credlin ban on her travelling to the United Nations climate change conference in Lima, Peru. She did it by raising the matter in a cabinet meeting only to be mightily miffed when she later discovered Trade Minister Andrew Robb was going along as a “chaperone”. Robb was part of the putsch that ended Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership back in 2009, over his support for an emissions trading scheme. He, like the prime minister, wouldn’t want Bishop going rogue with signals in Lima that Australia was prepared to do anything really meaningful with emission reductions. These concerns, however, are more paranoia than a real possibility. The foreign minister is on the record as a friend of coal but she still seems more attuned to the changing politics of global warming than her leader and his most senior staffer.
And on the face of it, Bishop has had a big win in Lima. She announced to applause at the conference that Australia would after all contribute $200 million to the Green Climate Fund. It’s designed to help developing nations combat climate change and is a favourite with United States President Barack Obama. He angered our government by championing it at his Queensland University speech during the G20. Bishop was careful to make the announcement in the name of “Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott”.
It’s quite a change of heart for Abbott. One year ago he told Alan Jones on 2GB, “One of the things that’s on the agenda is a climate finance fund and we’re not going to be making any contributions to that. We’re attempting to scale back the increase in our overseas aid commitments and that’s why we won’t be making new commitments in this area.”
It doesn’t stop there. Abbott has flagged another rethink is under way on his “signature” paid parental leave scheme. Clive Palmer unkindly linked that policy to Credlin, only to apologise later. But some on the backbench are hoping it’s a better makeover than the co-payment. Liberal senator Ian Macdonald wants it shelved. “The PPL sends all the wrong messages and has to be postponed until the budget is in order,” he says.
Abbott is very protective of his chief of staff. He told parliament Credlin is “the fiercest political warrior I’ve ever worked with”. That is probably half the trouble. She and Abbott are birds of a feather. In opposition, uncompromising pugnacity served them well. Government requires different skills. Pitting your chief of staff against senior ministers is not one of them.
But the prime minister is now listening, he says, and he’s proud of it: “This is a government which is determined to be better tomorrow than we are today.”
He may have to ditch more than policies to achieve the goal.For other people named Princess Beatrice, see Princess Beatrice (disambiguation)
Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom, VA, CI, GCVO, GBE, RRC, GCStJ (Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore; later Princess Henry of Battenberg; 14 April 1857 – 26 October 1944) was the fifth daughter and youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Beatrice was the last of Queen Victoria's children to die, 66 years after the first, her elder sister Alice.
Beatrice's childhood coincided with Queen Victoria's grief following the death of her husband Albert, Prince Consort on 14 December 1861. As her elder sisters married and left their mother, Queen Victoria came to rely on the company of her youngest daughter, whom she called "Baby" for most of her childhood. Beatrice was brought up to stay with her mother always and she soon resigned herself to her fate. Queen Victoria was so set against her youngest daughter marrying that she refused to discuss the possibility. Nevertheless, many suitors were put forward, including Louis Napoléon, Prince Imperial, the son of the exiled Emperor Napoleon III of France, and Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, the widower of Beatrice's older sister Alice. She was attracted to the Prince Imperial and there was talk of a possible marriage, but he was killed in the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879.
Beatrice fell in love with Prince Henry of Battenberg, the son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Julia von Hauke and brother-in-law of her niece Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. After a year of persuasion, Queen Victoria, whose consent was required pursuant to the Royal Marriages Act, finally agreed to the marriage, which took place at Whippingham on the Isle of Wight on 23 July 1885. Queen Victoria consented on condition that Beatrice and Henry make their home with her and that Beatrice continue her duties as the Queen's unofficial secretary. The Prince and Princess had four children, but 10 years into their marriage, on 20 January 1896, Prince Henry died of malaria while fighting in the Anglo-Asante War. Beatrice remained at her mother's side until Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901. Beatrice devoted the next 30 years to editing Queen Victoria's journals as her designated literary executor and continued to make public appearances. She died at 87, outliving all her siblings, two of her children, and several nieces and nephews including George V and Wilhelm II.
Early life [ edit ]
Queen Victoria holding Princess Beatrice in 1862
Beatrice was born at Buckingham Palace.[1] She was the fifth daughter and youngest of the nine children of the reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria, and her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (later the Prince Consort). The birth caused controversy when it was announced that Queen Victoria would seek relief from the pains of delivery through the use of chloroform administered by Dr John Snow. Chloroform was considered dangerous to mother and child and was frowned upon by the Church of England and the medical authorities.[2] Queen Victoria was undeterred and used "that blessed chloroform" for her last pregnancy.[3] A fortnight later, Queen Victoria reported in her journal, "I was amply rewarded and forgot all I had gone through when I heard dearest Albert say 'It's a fine child, and a girl!'"[4] Albert and Queen Victoria chose the names Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore: Mary after Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester, the last surviving child of King George III of the United Kingdom; Victoria after the Queen; and Feodore after Feodora, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, the Queen's older half-sister. She was baptised in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace on 16 June 1857. Her godparents were the Duchess of Kent (maternal grandmother); the Princess Royal (eldest sister); and the Prince Frederick of Prussia (her future brother-in-law).[5]
The daughters of Queen Victoria mourn the loss of their father. Beatrice is standing in the centre.
From birth, Beatrice became a favoured child.[6] The elder favourite daughter of Prince Albert, the Princess Royal, was about to take up residence in Germany with her new husband, Frederick ("Fritz") of Prussia. At the same time, the newly arrived Beatrice showed promise. Albert wrote to Augusta, Fritz's mother, that "Baby practises her scales like a good prima donna before a performance and has a good voice!"[7] Although Queen Victoria was known to dislike most babies, she liked Beatrice, whom she considered attractive. This provided Beatrice with an advantage over her elder siblings. Queen Victoria once remarked that Beatrice was "a pretty, plump and flourishing child... with fine large blue eyes, [a] pretty little mouth and very fine skin".[8] Her long, golden hair was the focus of paintings commissioned by Queen Victoria, who enjoyed giving Beatrice her bath, in marked contrast to her bathing preferences for her other children. Beatrice showed intelligence, which further endeared her to the Prince Consort, who was amused by her childhood precociousness.[6]
He wrote to Baron Stockmar that Beatrice was "the most amusing baby we have had." Despite sharing the rigorous education programme designed by Prince Albert and his close adviser, Baron Stockmar, Beatrice had a more relaxed infancy than her siblings because of her relationship with her parents.[9] By four years of age, the youngest, and the acknowledged last royal child, Beatrice was not forced to share her parents' attention the way her siblings had, and her amusing ways provided comfort to her faltering father.
Queen Victoria's devoted companion [ edit ]
Princess Beatrice in 1868. Her late childhood brought little companionship since Prince Leopold, the sibling closest to her age, could not play because of his haemophilia
In March 1861, Queen Victoria's mother Victoria, Duchess of Kent, died at Frogmore. The Queen broke down in grief and guilt over their estrangement at the beginning of her reign.[10] Beatrice tried to console her mother by reminding her that the Duchess of Kent was "in heaven, but Beatrice hopes she will return".[11] This comfort was significant because Queen Victoria had isolated herself from her children except the eldest unmarried, Princess Alice, and Beatrice.[12] Queen Victoria again relied on Beatrice and Alice after the death of Albert, of typhoid fever, on 14 December.[13]
The depth of the Queen's grief over the death of her husband surprised her family, courtiers, politicians and general populace. As when her mother died, she shut herself off from her family—most particularly, the Prince of Wales, (whom she blamed for her husband's death),[14] with the exception of Alice and Beatrice. Queen Victoria often took Beatrice from her cot, hurried to her bed and "lay there sleepless, clasping to her child, wrapped in the nightclothes of a man who would wear them no more."[15] After 1871, when the last of Beatrice's elder sisters married,[16] Queen Victoria came to rely upon her youngest daughter, who had declared from an early age: "I don't like weddings at all. I shall never be married. I shall stay with my mother."[17] As her mother's secretary, she performed duties such as writing on the Queen's behalf and helping with political correspondence.[18] These mundane duties mirrored those that had been performed in succession by her sisters, Alice, Helena and Louise.[19] However, to these the Queen soon added more personal tasks. During a serious illness in 1871, the Queen dictated her journal entries to Beatrice, and in 1876 she allowed Beatrice to sort the music she and the Prince Consort had played, unused since his death fifteen years earlier.[19]
The devotion that Beatrice showed to her mother was acknowledged in the Queen's letters and journals, but her constant need for Beatrice grew stronger.[20][21] The Queen suffered another bereavement in 1883, when her highland servant, John Brown, died at Balmoral.[22] Once again, the Queen plunged into public mourning and relied on Beatrice for support. Unlike her siblings, Beatrice had not shown dislike for Brown, and the two had often been seen in each other's company; indeed, they had worked together to carry out the Queen's wishes.[23]
Marriage [ edit ]
Possible suitors [ edit ]
Although the Queen was set against Beatrice marrying anyone in the expectation that she would always stay at home with her, a number of possible suitors were put forward before Beatrice's marriage to Prince Henry of Battenberg. One of these was Napoléon Eugéne, the French Prince Imperial, son and heir of the exiled Emperor Napoleon III of France and his wife, Empress Eugénie. After Prussia defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon was deposed and moved his family to England in 1870.[24] After the Emperor's death in 1873, Queen Victoria and Empress Eugénie formed a close attachment, and the newspapers reported the imminent engagement of Beatrice to the Prince Imperial.[25] These rumours ended with the death of the Prince Imperial in the Anglo-Zulu War on 1 June 1879. Queen Victoria's journal records their grief: "Dear Beatrice, crying very much as I did too, gave me the telegram... It was dawning and little sleep did I get... Beatrice is so distressed; everyone quite stunned."[26]
Louis Napoléon, Prince Imperial, to whom Beatrice was romantically attached in the 1870s
After the death of the Prince Imperial, the Prince of Wales suggested that Beatrice marry their sister Alice's widower, Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse. Alice had died in 1878, and the Prince argued that Beatrice could act as replacement mother for Louis's young children and spend most of her time in England looking after her mother.[27] He further suggested the Queen could oversee the upbringing of her Hessian grandchildren with greater ease.[27] However, at the time, it was forbidden by law for Beatrice to marry her sister's widower.[28] This was countered by the Prince of Wales, who vehemently supported passage by the Houses of Parliament of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, which would have removed the obstacle.[27] Despite popular support for this measure and although it passed in the House of Commons, it was rejected by the House of Lords because of opposition from the Lords Spiritual.[29] Although the Queen was disappointed that the bill had failed, she was happy to keep her daughter at her side.[27]
Other candidates, including two of Prince Henry's brothers, Prince Alexander ("Sandro") and Prince Louis of Battenberg, were put forward to be Beatrice's husband, but they did not succeed. Although Alexander never formally pursued Beatrice, merely claiming that he "might even at one time have become engaged to the friend of my childhood, Beatrice of England",[30] Louis was more interested. Queen Victoria invited him to dinner but sat between him and Beatrice, who had been told by the Queen to ignore Louis to discourage his suit.[31] Louis, not realising for several years the reasons for this silence, married Beatrice's niece, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Although her marriage hopes had been dealt another blow, while attending Louis's wedding at Darmstadt, Beatrice fell in love with Prince Henry, who returned her affections.[32]
Engagement and wedding [ edit ]
Princess Beatrice in her wedding dress, Osborne, 1885. Beatrice wore her mother's wedding veil of Honiton lace.
When Beatrice, after returning from Darmstadt, told her mother she planned to marry, the Queen reacted with frightening silence. Although they remained side by side, the Queen did not talk to her for seven months, instead communicating by note.[33] Queen Victoria's behaviour, unexpected even by her family, seemed prompted by the threatened loss of her daughter. The Queen regarded Beatrice as her "Baby" – her innocent child – and viewed the physical sex that would come with marriage as an end to innocence.[34]
Subtle persuasions by the Princess of Wales and the Crown Princess of Prussia, who reminded her mother of the happiness that Beatrice had brought the Prince Consort, induced the Queen to resume talking to Beatrice. Queen Victoria consented to the marriage on condition that Henry give up his German commitments and live permanently with Beatrice and the Queen.[35]
Beatrice and Henry were married at Saint Mildred's Church at Whippingham, near Osborne,[36] on 23 July 1885.[35] Beatrice, who wore her mother's wedding veil of Honiton lace, was escorted by the Queen and Beatrice's eldest brother, the Prince of Wales.[37] Princess Beatrice was attended by ten royal bridesmaids from among her nieces: Princesses Louise (18), Victoria and Maud of Wales; Princesses Irene and Alix of Hesse and by Rhine; Princesses Marie, Victoria Melita and Alexandra of Edinburgh; and Princesses Helena Victoria and Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein. The bridegroom's supporters were his brothers, Prince Alexander of Bulgaria and Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg.[38]
The ceremony – which was not attended by her eldest sister and brother-in-law, the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia, who were detained in Germany; William Ewart Gladstone; or Beatrice's cousin, Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, who was in mourning for her father-in-law[39] – ended with the couple's departure for their honeymoon at Quarr Abbey House, a few miles from Osborne. The Queen, taking leave of them, "bore up bravely till the departure and then fairly gave way", as she later admitted to the Crown Princess.[40]
Queen Victoria's last years [ edit ]
After a short honeymoon, Beatrice and her husband fulfilled their promise and returned to the Queen's side. The Queen made it clear that she could not cope on her own and that the couple could not travel without her.[41] Although the Queen relaxed this restriction shortly after the marriage, Beatrice and Henry travelled only to make short visits with his family. Beatrice's love for Henry, like that of the Queen's for the Prince Consort, seemed to increase the longer they were married. When Henry travelled without Beatrice, she appeared happier when he returned.[41]
The addition of Prince Henry to the family gave new reasons for Beatrice and the Queen to look forward, and the court was brighter than it had been since the Prince Consort's death.[42] Even so, Henry, supported by Beatrice, was determined to take part in military campaigns, and this annoyed the Queen, who opposed his participation in life-threatening warfare.[43] Conflicts also arose when Henry attended the Ajaccio carnival and kept "low company",[44] and Beatrice sent a Royal Navy officer to remove him from temptation.[44] On one occasion, Henry slipped away to Corsica with his brother Louis;[35] the Queen sent a warship to bring him back.[35] Henry was feeling oppressed by the Queen's constant need for his and his wife's company.[44]
Despite being married, Beatrice fulfilled her promise to the Queen by continuing as her full-time confidante and secretary. Queen Victoria warmed to Henry, as she often did with other handsome, strong men.[45] However, the Queen criticised Beatrice's conduct during her first pregnancy. When Beatrice stopped coming to the Queen's dinners a week before giving birth, preferring to eat alone in her room, the Queen wrote angrily to her physician, Dr James Reid, that, "I [urged the Princess to continue] coming to dinner, and not simply moping in her own room, which is very bad for her. In my case I regularly came to dinner, except when I was really unwell (even when suffering a great deal) up to the very last day."[46] Beatrice, aided by chloroform, gave birth the following week to her first son, Alexander.[46] Despite suffering a miscarriage in the early months of her marriage,[47] Beatrice gave birth to four children: Alexander, called "Drino", was born in 1886; Ena in 1887; Leopold in 1889 and Maurice in 1891. Following this, she took a polite and encouraging interest in social issues, such as conditions in the coal mines. However, this interest did not extend to changing the conditions of poverty, as it had done with her brother, the Prince of Wales.[42]
Although court entertainments were few after the Prince Consort's death, Beatrice and the Queen enjoyed tableau vivant photography, which was often performed at the royal residences.[42] Henry, increasingly bored by the lack of activity at court, longed for employment, and in response, the Queen made him Governor of the Isle of Wight in 1889.[35] However, he yearned for military adventure and pleaded with his mother-in-law to let him join the Ashanti expedition fighting in the Anglo-Asante war. Despite misgivings, the Queen consented, and Henry and Beatrice parted on 6 December 1895; they would not meet again. Henry contracted malaria and was sent home. On 22 January 1896, Beatrice, who was waiting for her husband at Madeira, received a telegram informing her of Henry's death two days earlier.[43]
Devastated, she left court for a month of mourning before returning to her post at her mother's side.[43] The Queen's journal reports that Queen Victoria "[w]ent over to Beatrice's room and sat a while with her. She is so piteous in her misery."[48] Despite her grief, Beatrice remained her mother's faithful companion,[43] and as Queen Victoria aged, she relied more heavily on Beatrice for dealing with correspondence. However, realising that Beatrice needed a place of her own, she gave her the Kensington Palace apartments once occupied by the Queen and her mother.[49] The Queen appointed Beatrice to the governorship of the Isle of Wight, vacated by Prince Henry's death.[35] In response to Beatrice's interest in photography, the Queen had a darkroom installed at Osborne House.[18] The changes in the family, including Beatrice's preoccupation with her mother, may have affected her children, who rebelled at school. Beatrice wrote that Ena was "troublesome and rebellious", and that Alexander was telling "unwarrantable untruths".[50]
Later life [ edit ]
Princess Beatrice with her mother, Queen Victoria
Beatrice's life was overturned by the death of Queen Victoria on 22 January 1901. She wrote to the Principal of the University of Glasgow in March, "... you may imagine what the grief is. I, who had hardly ever been separated from my dear mother, can hardly realise what life will be like without her, who was the centre of everything."[51] Beatrice's public appearances continued, but her position at court was diminished. She, unlike her sister Louise, was not close to her brother, now King Edward VII, and was not included in the King's inner circle. Although their relationship did not break down completely, it was occasionally strained, for example when she accidentally (but noisily) dropped her service book from the royal gallery onto a table of gold plate during his coronation.[52]
After inheriting Osborne, the King had his mother's personal photographs and belongings removed and some of them destroyed, especially material relating to John Brown, whom he detested.[53] Queen Victoria had intended the house to be a private, secluded residence for her descendants, away from the pomp and ceremony of mainland life.[54] However, the new King had no need for the house and consulted his lawyers about disposing of it, transforming the main wing into a convalescent home, opening the state apartments to the public, and constructing a Naval College on the grounds. His plans met with strong disapproval from Beatrice and Louise. Queen Victoria had bequeathed them houses on the estate, and the privacy promised to them by their mother was threatened. When Edward discussed the fate of the house with them, Beatrice argued against allowing the house to leave the family, citing its importance to their parents.[54]
However, the King did not want the house himself, and he offered it to his heir-apparent, Beatrice's nephew George, who declined, objecting to the high cost of maintenance. Edward subsequently extended the grounds of Beatrice's home, Osborne Cottage, to compensate her for the impending loss of her privacy. Shortly afterwards, the King declared to Arthur Balfour, the Prime Minister, that the main house would go to the nation as a gift. An exception was made for the private apartments, which were closed to all but the royal family members, who made it a shrine to their mother's memory.[55]
Princess Beatrice, who was Governor of the Isle of Wight from 1896 until her death in 1944, was also President of the Frank James Memorial Hospital at East Cowes, from 1903 until her death.
Queen Victoria's journals [ edit ]
Upon Queen Victoria's death, Beatrice began the momentous task of transcribing and editing her mother's journals, which had been kept since 1831. The hundreds of volumes contained the Queen's personal views of the day-to-day business of her life and included personal and family matters as well as matters of state.[56]
Queen Victoria had given Beatrice the task of editing the journals for publication, which meant removing private material as well as passages that, if published, might be hurtful to living people. Beatrice deleted so much material that the edited journals are only a third as long as the originals.[56] The destruction of such large passages of Queen Victoria's diaries distressed Beatrice's nephew, King George V, and his wife Queen Mary, who were powerless to intervene.[57] Beatrice copied a draft from the original and then copied her draft into a set of blue notebooks. Both the originals and her first drafts were destroyed as she progressed.[57] The task took thirty years and was finished in 1931. The surviving 111 notebooks are kept in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle.[58]
Retirement from public life [ edit ]
Beatrice continued to appear in public after her mother's death. The public engagements she carried out were often related to her mother, Queen Victoria, as the public had always associated Beatrice with the deceased monarch.[59]
The beauty of Beatrice's daughter, Ena, was known throughout Europe, and, despite her low rank, she was a desirable bride.[60] Her chosen suitor was King Alfonso XIII of Spain. However, the marriage caused controversy in Britain, since it required Ena to convert to Catholicism.[61] This step was opposed by Beatrice's brother, King Edward VII, and Spanish ultra-conservatives were against the King's marriage to a Protestant of low birth, as her father, Prince Henry, was the son of a morganatic marriage. Thus, they considered Ena to be only partly royal and thus unfit to be Queen of Spain.[60] Nonetheless, the couple wed on 31 May 1906. The marriage began inauspiciously when an anarchist attempted to bomb them on their wedding day.[60] Apparently close at first, the couple grew apart. Ena became unpopular in Spain and grew more so when it was discovered that her son, the heir to the throne, suffered from haemophilia, a disease for which[62] Alfonso held Beatrice responsible for having brought the disease to the Spanish royal house and turned bitterly against Ena.[62]
During her time as Queen of Spain, Ena returned many times to visit her mother in Britain, but always without Alfonso and usually without her children. Meanwhile, Beatrice lived at Osborne Cottage in East Cowes until she sold it in 1913, when Carisbrooke Castle, home of the Governor of the Isle of Wight, became vacant.[63] She moved into the Castle while keeping an apartment at Kensington Palace in London. She had been much involved in collecting material for the Carisbrooke Castle museum, which she opened in 1898.[64]
Her presence at court further decreased as she aged. Devastated by the death of her favourite son, Maurice, during the First World War in 1914, she began to retire from public life.[65] In response to war with Germany, George V changed the name of the royal house from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor and at the same time adopted it as the family surname, to downplay their German origins. Subsequently, Beatrice and her family renounced their German titles; Beatrice stopped using the style Princess Henry of Battenberg, reverting to only using her birth style, HRH The Princess Beatrice. Her sons gave up their style, Prince of Battenberg. Alexander, the eldest, became Sir Alexander Mountbatten and was later given the title Marquess of Carisbrooke in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.[66] Her younger son, Leopold, became Lord Leopold Mountbatten and was given the rank of a younger son of a marquess.[35] He was a haemophiliac
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? And, what is wrong with the following clearance? "...two miles from the outer marker, turn left heading 050, maintain 4000 until established, cleared ILS runway 36 left." Hopefully, when chapter 9 is finished, you will have a clear idea of some of the problems created by any of the above.
Finally, in chapter 10 we study the sad case of a relatively new instrument pilot struggling against a barrage of ATC handling mistakes as he tries to get established on an RNAV (GPS) approach. This accident touches on many of the major themes of the book—getting established, radar vectors, TAWS, MSAW, and more. Instrument Flying Update is another fantastic book in the series that you have written...I re-read sections of the book at least every two weeks. Many thanks for this magnificantly written, detailed and informative book. George Mead Hemmeter, A.T.P. Just wanted to drop you a note of thanks for Instrument Flying Update, which now occupies a coveted spot next to IFR: A Structured Approach on my bedside table for frequent re-reading. I find the information to be indispensible and your comprehensive yet approachable style unmatched in aviation writing. Mike Frantz, Cirrus SR22 Thanks for another excellent book on IFR. Having read IFR: A Structured Approach several times, I ordered Update the instant I heard about it. I just finished my first pass through it. It won't be the last...thanks again for another great book. Rick Tavan, Cessna T210 I am writing you to let you know how pleased I am about your new book Instrument Flying Update. I am in the middle of it now and am amazed at the detail and completeness you provide...Thank you very much for providing this book! I truly appreciate what you have done here. Hal M. Staniloff, Beech G58 Baron All this, and a great deal more.
Hardback, 250 pages
$36.95 View Table of Contents Read Introduction Read the first page of each chapter This book is now available only as an ePub or mobi(Kindle) file. Click here for a purchase link. Flying the Beech Bonanza: is packed with interesting and important information which is available from no other source: How much help are flaps in getting over a 50-foot obstacle?
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How do the performance, handling, and loading characteristics of the four Bonanzas vary?
How can two tail members do the work of three? "...required reading for any Bonanza Pilot."AOPA Pilot, April 1998 Absolutely outstanding job. It is extremely well researched and reads in a manner that all pilots can understand...I think it is about time that someone had done this type of book for the Bonanza. I think it can be a major contribution to aviation safety." John Frank, founder of the Cessna Pilots Association "...an important contribution to the aviation literature...melding of precise technical information with practical observation makes (the) book enjoyable reading for any pilot...I found it fascinating and suspect other will, too." Peter Dogan, late President of PIC (Professional Instrument Course) "As a retired Navy test pilot, I was particularly impressed with both the technical presentations and the straightforward pilot talk. I believe that I have a keen insight into how the bird really performs." Capt. Jay Arnold "...absolutely must reading for Bonanza pilots. It is dedicated specifically to Bonanza flight safety and performance." Paul Morton, retired Braniff Captain "I don't fly Bonanzas; in fact, I haven't ridden in one for about three years. Despite this, I've just finished re-reading your "Flying the Beech Bonanza" for the fifth time. It's got to be the most engaging and useful technical book about flying I've ever seen. It literally forces one to think about the airplane and the flight environment in a structured and deliberate manner. The fact that it's type-specific hardly matters. Reasonable good data exists for every airplane, but what's missing is a way to think about that data. Your book fills that gap nicely. Thanks for a fine work." Paul De Zan 202 pages, hardback $38.50 retail view table of contents read introduction read first page of each chapter To purchase with credit card or with PayPal, click belowVice President Joe Biden’s expired Delaware license plate from his U.S. Senate days is up for sale on eBay. (Photo: SELLER’S PHOTO) Story Highlights Early Friday evening, the bid on Biden's tag stood at $177.50.
Under Delaware law, the veep's old tag cannot be re-registered for current use %u2013 display purposes only.
A souvenir of Vice President Joe Biden's Delaware senatorship is on the auction block, just in time for holiday gift-giving.
His official state license plate from junior-senator days is up for bid on eBay.
True, the tag listed at ebay.to/13hI7mt is no low-number black-and-white puppy.
But as marketing man and social media maven Ken Grant told The News Journal, "Delawareans have an interesting relationship with our license plates – from the valuable low digit plates that sometimes cost more than the vehicles they are on to our legislative plates that cause some of us to try to guess who is driving based on their initials."
Grant said Friday evening he expects the auction of Biden's tag will stir excitement among select collectors.
The one-of-a-kind, expired state license plate marked a landmark in the life and political career of the highest elected official from Delaware in history. (Yeah, yeah, born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but grew up here and was elected as a Delawarean.)
First issued when he was 29, the Senate tag was created for the Kennedy Democrat after a young-man-for-change-and-equality campaign and tireless public shoe-leather combined to lift the budding lawyer from New Castle County Council to a state-history-making political upset.
As a nearly no-chance underdog, Biden had filled his party's ballot against longtime Republican incumbent J. Caleb Boggs, who was said to have delayed retirement at the personal request of then-President Nixon to avoid a primary between two potential GOP successors, Rep. Pete du Pont and Wilmington Mayor Harry G. "Hal" Haskell Jr.
Biden's victory, interpreted as a new-generation harbinger, was made even more poignant and historic because he was sworn in as one of the youngest U.S. senators in history, sworn in at the hospital bedside of sons Beau and Hunter after a tragic crash killed his first wife, Neilia, and 1-year old daughter, Naomi.
And then he got the license plate, which expired at another life-landmark, the year he married Jill Tracy Jacobs, with whom he was smitten on a blind date. Yada, yada, vice president.
Under Delaware law, the veep's old tag cannot be re-registered for current use – display purposes only.
With hammer-time of 9:18 p.m. Tuesday, it is offered with free expedited shipping for pre-Christmas delivery as the only item now posted for sale by "fuddrumper" of Kemblesville, Pennsylvania, listed as an eBay member since 1997, with 100 percent positive feedback in 34 ratings over the last 12 months.
But Biden's tag, with no "BUY IT NOW" price, is unlikely to set a sales record.
The most paid for a Delaware license plate – black-and-white No. 6 – was $675,000 by developer Anthony Fusco of Wilmington, with live-auction bidding in Rehoboth Beach by his grandson 25-year-old Frank Vassallo IV of Wilmington.
Early Friday evening, the bid on Biden's tag stood at $177.50.
Read or Share this story: http://delonline.us/1Dpd9ZENEW YORK — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is Hillary Clinton's most out-of-sync supporter.
First, he refused to quickly endorse his onetime boss — infuriating the Clintons — and then, after finally offering his support, chased the presidential primary to Iowa in January, even after her campaign told him to stay back home in Gotham.
Story Continued Below
In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, de Blasio — jockeying for prominence as one of the country's leading progressives — declared he would work hard to help Clinton deliver a decisive win in New York's primary here on April 19. But the never-quite-on-script mayor couldn't help expressing a little affection and admiration for Bernie Sanders, whose left-of-Clinton philosophy mirrors his own.
"I have my own ideas for how to be helpful,” de Blasio told POLITICO Thursday. “We’ll listen first. I do have a day job, but I expect to have a substantial schedule in helping in any way I can.”
Clinton and de Blasio are planning to hold a joint event together in the coming weeks, a campaign official told POLITICO, and the campaign and City Hall staff are currently in discussions to work out the details.
Clinton’s operatives recognize that New York City represents a significant piece of the primary vote and that de Blasio is now seen positively by more than half of Democratic primary voters here. The African-American and Hispanic voters she’ll need to defeat Bernie Sanders still support the mayor by large margins.
But the Democratic primary has put de Blasio in a real bind. Sanders is the candidate espousing the cause of fighting economic inequality that de Blasio stands for locally and nationally. But he owes a political debt to Clinton, his most prominent personal connection and one who validated the one-time operative as an electable politician in his own right.
His support may not be as devout as the Clinton campaign is hoping for. He doesn’t hide his admiration for Sanders, whose personal beliefs seem to mirror de Blasio's more than the candidate he ultimately endorsed. Speaking about the state of the Democratic race, de Blasio appeared to be threading the needle by embracing Clinton without alienating progressives standing with Sanders and his fight for economic inequality.
Some of his closest aides, sources said, thought the progressive mayor should have endorsed the Vermont senator in the primary, despite the sense of obligation to Clinton. “I’m not going to say I haven’t met Bernie supporters who have said you should be with us,” said de Blasio, who won the mayoralty in 2013 on a message of “a tale of two cities” and raising taxes on the wealthy. But he insisted that between Clinton and Sanders, there are “a lot of shared values in their vision.”
“I’m trying to live out my values,” he explained of his Clinton endorsement. “I have a long history with Hillary and a real belief that she’s put forward a real vision. I very consistently note Bernie has made tremendous contributions. What he’s doing is very helpful for this country and for the party.”
Clinton operatives and allies do not necessarily agree. In recent days, they have accused Sanders of running a nasty and negative campaign, pointing in particular to his recent refusal to say whether he would support Clinton if he loses. On Thursday, Clinton lost her cool about Sanders’ campaign tactics, blowing up at a Greenpeace activist who accused her of taking donations from the fossil fuel industry. "I am so sick, I am so sick," Clinton said at an event in Westchester County, "of the Sanders campaign lying about me. I'm sick of it."
De Blasio, however, disagreed that there is any problem with the tone of the Sanders campaign. “Partisans in the heat of battle feel anything,” he said. “But by any objective standard, they’ve kept decorum and left a lot of room to work together in the future. The comparison of what’s happening on the Democratic and Republican side is night and day.”
He also credited the Vermont senator with bringing a substantive fight to Clinton, and making her a better candidate in the process. “It’s been about the right issues,” he said of the Democratic race. “Economic inequality and what to do with it. That debate strengthened her. She is someone who responds to a challenge. You’ve seen her debate performances become sharper and sharper.”
De Blasio also insisted Sanders has every right to stay in the race until the convention, a contention that will surely rankle some Clinton allies. “No candidate should ever tell any other candidate what to do,” he said when asked whether Sanders should stay in as the math makes it difficult for him to catch up to Clinton’s close to 300-delegate lead. “I think the debate in the Democratic Party has been a meaningful one; it’s brought a lot of people out to vote. I have no doubt that Hillary has gotten stronger and stronger throughout this process.”
The mayor also hinted that his famous children, Dante and Chiara, who played major roles in his 2013 mayoral race and starred in campaign commercials for him, may be feeling the Bern. “We scrupulously don’t speak for Dante and Chiara,” he said. “If they have anything to say, they’ll say it.”
But then he admitted: “There’s a really powerful generational reality, and they are very much of their generation.” The de Blasio kids, both college students, are part of the millennial generation that has flocked to Sanders -- and that Clinton has struggled to appeal to. “This much I can say: They are very distressed by inequality, both are very concerned about college debt and what it means,” de Blasio said, ticking off the main platforms of Sanders' campaign. “They have a very sharp real world view of the economic challenges ahead. And they’re of course fundamentally concerned about structural racism. They want to see more change. I’m not filling in the blank on what they feel on candidates. They have not articulated a whole lot to us on the candidate side. They're both adults. If they want to say, they’ll say.”
De Blasio said he was not surprised – or distressed -- to see the primary extending into April. “The Democratic Party is changing profoundly,” he said. “When I gathered people a year ago on income inequality issues, I thought something was underway. I felt it here. I don’t think I understood the fullness of it across the country until I got to talk to my fellow mayors.….What’s been so powerful has leaped forward. Bernie’s campaign has been a part of that, the fight for $15 [minimum wage] has been a part of that...this is now organic.”
De Blasio, who held out on endorsing Clinton until last October because he said he wanted to hear more about her positions, now points to the Democratic front-runner as someone who has been mischaracterized as a mainstream, moderate establishment politician -- labels that were implicit in his hesitancy to get on board. There has been a “disservice done to Hillary,” he said. “Everyone knew she was a progressive going back to the '70s. She has a thoroughly progressive history; it manifested in the healthcare fight where she was pushing the spectrum in an extraordinary way. I’m firmly in the camp that her vision for Wall Street is more rigorous and progressive than Bernie’s. I would argue what she stands for is exactly at the core of what this moment is about.”
De Blasio reminisced about the first time he met Clinton -- the day after Memorial Day in 1999, when he was summoned to the White House to brief her on New York as she considered a run for Senate.
“I had not had a historic relationship with either Clinton," said de Blasio, who at the time worked as the HUD regional director under Bill Clinton. "This was when they had already gotten pretty well into activating the campaign for United States Senate, but not been formally declared.”
De Blasio was ushered into a room at the White House to wait for the first lady. What followed, he said, left a lasting impression. “In she came, with a notepad and she just proceeded for an hour to ask shockingly well-informed and intelligent questions about New York and the issues of New York and the currents running through New York,” he recalled. “I was really blown away by her intelligence, her knowledge, her systematic way of thinking, the amount of homework she had done. There was a glancing discussion of whether I would get involved. I said I wanted to help in any way I could.”
“I think from the remove of history, a lot of people have forgotten how dramatic that [1993] healthcare reform fight was,” he said. “How much she personally was leading it. How unprecedented it was for a first lady to take on what was one of the most profound policy initiatives and lead it personally. It was a model we had never seen before. I had immense admiration for the way she stuck to her guns and took on very powerful interests and did not buckle.”
De Blasio said he expects the party to eventually coalesce around Clinton. “In Iowa,” he said, “I talked to plenty of people leaning one way or the other, who thought the other choice was good, too. I think the vast majority of Democrats will ultimately energetically close ranks.”
But as the race heads into de Blasio’s backyard, the latest Quinnipiac poll shows Sanders closing to within 12 points of Clinton, and Sanders making inroads with Democratic primary voters who could embarrass Clinton on her home turf.
The mayor offered Clinton some advice on how to win here. “I’d say keep pounding away with a sharp message of how she’s going to change the economy,” he said. “The notion should be, you win with a very sharp message and a focus on turnout. The unions and local Democratic committees supporting her have proven their turnout capacity. I think she will do very well -- my advice would be get pounding away with the progressive message.”
But de Blasio has not delivered his advice directly to the candidate. “I talked to her a few weeks back at one of the events, but not since then,” he said of his last contact with Clinton.
Some of that coldness stemmed from de Blasio’s belated endorsement. But he said he has no regrets. “It was very straightforward -- I said clearly I wanted to hear a bigger vision,” he said. “I’m very satisfied with it. And I feel comfortable that that was the way to approach it.”
Speaking of his city’s Republican candidate, de Blasio said that New Yorkers know GOP front-runner Donald Trump -- but that he has been shocked at the new version of the developer that has emerged.“People do have a better sense of him here,” he said. “Part of what’s distressing is that is substantially different from what we knew before. I had plenty of reasons to disagree with him on his ego and brashness and obsession with money. But I didn’t think of him as a racist and divisive,” de Blasio said. “What we’ve seen in the last month has been a bit of a shock and it does not represent the values of New York and New Yorkers are broadly appalled by it.”
Still, he said he was thrilled for the city that the circus has come to town, on both sides of the aisle. “The last competitive presidential primary in New York for Democrats was 1992,” he said. “That’s not good in terms of voter participation. I don’t think it’s good for issues pertinent to the state getting on the national stage. It’s very good; and it’s going to allow more discussion of the kinds of things that matter here that we need, like investing in infrastructure, mass transit, education and why the core plans to address income inequality are particularly necessary for our cities.”Wayne Drehs reports on an incident in which Ryan Lochte and three other American swimmers were robbed at gunpoint early Sunday in Rio. (1:17)
RIO DE JANEIRO -- Ryan Lochte and three other American swimmers were robbed at gunpoint early Sunday by thieves posing as police officers who stopped their taxi and took their money and belongings, the U.S. Olympic Committee said.
In the latest security incident to hit the Rio de Janeiro Games, Lochte told NBC that one of the robbers put a gun to his forehead before taking his wallet. No one was injured.
Lochte, 32, in a statement posted on social media describing the incident, also said he will aim to qualify for the Tokyo Games in 2020.
Lochte and his teammates were returning to the athletes village by taxi after a night out at the French Olympic team's hospitality house in the Rodrigo de Freitas area in the upscale south zone of the city. The outing was several hours after Olympic swimming ended Saturday night at the Rio Games.
"Their taxi was stopped by individuals posing as armed police officers who demanded the athletes' money and other personal belongings," USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said in a statement. "All four athletes are safe and cooperating with authorities."
Ryan Lochte swam in two events at the Rio Games, winning gold in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay. AP Photo/Michael Sohn
Sandusky told The Associated Press the robbers took cash and credit cards only, and that no Olympic medals were lost.
Traveling with Lochte were Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen. Lochte swam in two events at the Rio Games, winning gold in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay. He is a 12-time Olympic medalist.
Editor's Picks Australia to athletes: No Rio beaches after dark The Australia Olympic Committee have laid down new stringent security protocols for its athletes which involve declaring Ipanema and Copacabana beaches out of bounds after nightfall.
Bentz and Conger were also part of that relay, their only event in Rio. Feigen was on the 4x100-meter freestyle relay, another gold-medal winner for the U.S. in Rio.
"We got pulled over, in the taxi, and these guys came out with a badge, a police badge, no lights, no nothing -- just a police badge -- and they pulled us over," Lochte told NBC's "Today" show Sunday. "They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground -- they got down on the ground. I refused, I was like we didn't do anything wrong, so -- I'm not getting down on the ground.
"And then the guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, put it to my forehead and he said, 'Get down,' and I put my hands up, I was like 'whatever.' He took our money, he took my wallet -- he left my cellphone, he left my credentials."
USA Today and Fox Sports Australia first reported the news, citing Lochte's mother, Ileana Lochte.
We are all safe. Thank you for your love and support. — Gunnar Bentz (@TheGunnyBunny) August 14, 2016
Word of the robbery touched off a chain of confusion between Olympic and U.S. officials. An International Olympic Committee spokesman said reports of the robbery were "absolutely not true," then reversed himself, apologized and said he was relying on initial information from the USOC that was wrong.
"I couldn't believe it,'' said Michael Phelps, a good friend of Lochte's and one of his roommates in the athletes village. Phelps spent the evening with his family and wasn't out with his teammates.
Brazil's sports minister, Leonardo Picciani, said that the swimmers were "outside their places of competition and outside the appropriate time.'' He said no athlete had run into problems at the venues or in the athletes village.
"We obviously regret that the violence has [gotten] so close to athletes," Rio Games spokesman Mario Andrada said Monday. "We have requested security authorities that they need to make sure everybody's safe everywhere in the city. We apologize to those involved. Once again, we regret that violence is still an issue at these games.''
Street crime was a major concern of Olympic organizers going into the Games. Brazil deployed 85,000 soldiers and police to secure the Games, twice as many as Britain used during the 2012 London Olympics.
Last week, a Brazilian security officer was fatally shot after taking a wrong turn into a dangerous favela, or slum. Two Australian rowing coaches were attacked and robbed by two assailants in Ipanema, and Portugal's education minister was held up at knifepoint on a busy street.
In addition, stray bullets have twice landed in the equestrian venue, and two windows were shattered on a bus carrying journalists in an attack that Rio organizers blamed on rocks and others claimed was gunfire.
American swimmer Nathan Adrian said he's not concerned about his safety.
"Rio is an amazing city," he said. "There's going to be problems anywhere you go. We have been briefed on how to mitigate those risks as well as possible."
Now that swimming is over, Adrian added, the athletes want to see the sights and sounds of Rio.
"We just came off an amazing performance," he said. "All of us are ready to enjoy that a little bit after a long time working really hard."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.Close
Samsung could reveal the new Galaxy Tab S3 in less than two months. The giant electronics company is reportedly planning to hold an event for the much-awaited gadget along with other flagship devices this September.
Taking Samsung's release date history into account, MNR Daily suggested that it is likely fans will see the Galaxy Tab S3 officially revealed in September 2016. The publication notes that the company had previously launched the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 in September 2015, which apparently astounded many individuals considering that the company usually released its new tablets between May and July.
Along with some comments and predictions from a few industry analysts and specialized tech media, there have been leaked images of the supposed Samsung Galaxy Tab S3. On June 6, tech tipping master Evan Blass shared the said leaked photo on his Twitter account.
While the leaked photo catches the attention of many, some individuals pointed out that the said image may be a fake since the gadget's back button is apparently too close to the home button. Some further debunked Blass claims, stating that Samsung recently released an improved version of Galaxy Tab series and that it would be far-fetched for the electronic company to release another enhanced model so soon.
Nonetheless, it is expected that majority of the changes will be visible in its specs, particularly on its display. Several theories suggested that the gadget's original resolution of 1,536 x 2,048 pixels could be upgraded to a much higher resolution.
What's more, the much-awaited device is also anticipated that will have an enhanced camera and will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor. As for the price, Vine Report estimated that Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 will most likely start at $399.
It is important to note that such reports should be taken with a grain of salt for now, unless an official confirmation or announcement from Samsung happens.
© Copyright 2018 Mobile & Apps, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.With the way things leak for big geek movies these days, spoilers have just become a part of geek culture. Some people don't mind the spoilers, and some people seem like they want to kill the person reporting the spoilers. The thing is, it's not going to stop. It's just the world of information that we live in, and more and more spoilers are going to spill out online. Sometimes you can avoid them, other times you can't.
I'm one of those guys that reads just about everything. It kind of goes with the territory writing for a movie blog, but there are a few spoilers that I know are out there that I have avoided. Some things I just don't want to know. For the most part, though, fans crave information on the big exciting films coming out. Especially when it concerns Marvel, DC, or Lucasfilm. It's all just a part of the blockbuster movie industry.
Some recent information that leaked came from actor Idris Elba, and it involved two characters that will appear in Avengers: Age of Ultron. The Internet ran with it, and I didn't see a lot of backlash from readers regarding it. In a interview with Vulture, writer and director Joss Whedon was asked about this specific bit of news that the actor leaked, and he went on to discuss his feelings on spoilers, saying they are both expected and still disappointing.
"Yeah, when you have a cast of 19,000 people, inevitably, once every month, you pick up [a story] and you're like, 'Awww.'"
The kind of spoilers I try my best to avoid are the ones that deal with the ending of a film, or anything that deals with a big plot twist. Knowing something like that sucks the suspense out of the story, but certain plot points and character information don't bug me. I think those kinds of spoilers only help build buzz for the film, and they get fans engaged by talking and speculating. I like that kind of stuff because it's fun for me. That's actually a benefit of spoilers that Whedon understands, and he even kind of encourages it. When asked if he ever reads fan reactions and speculation, he replied,
"Sometimes. Sometimes it's depressing, sometimes it's enlightening. Every now and then, you definitely learn something from some random person on the Internet who sees your work in a way you didn't, who sees truth in it, that's worth it."
I think it's kind of cool that we can help influence the filmmakers on the movies they make. What kind of movie geek are you? Do you search out spoilers online to try to soak in as much information as you can? Or are you the kind of person that avoids spoilers like the plague? Or is there a middle ground for you?ADVERTISEMENT
If your only source of information about the United States in 2017 were the tweets of its president, you'd probably conclude the country was a dictatorship governed by a deranged tyrant.
President Trump threatens journalists and judges who defy him. He retweets the inflammatory videos of a far-right anti-Muslim hate group. He attacks private citizens for engaging in protest against the government. He singles out minorities for special abuse. He makes sweeping pronouncements as if he possesses the power to make major policy changes by fiat. He antagonizes foreign leaders, whether they're geopolitical friends or foes. And through it all, he shamelessly praises himself without restraint or even a minimal grounding in political reality.
Now obviously, the president's tweets are not our only source of information about the United States. Still, even when we place them in the broader context of American political culture, their role and purpose are hard to pin down.
Nearly a year into Trump's presidency, what are we to make of his increasingly unhinged tweets?
Before Trump, leading politicians had Twitter accounts, but the content nearly always seemed to be managed by political staffers pushing a centrally planned communications strategy. It was possible to imagine a president breaking free from these constraints and tweeting personal statements, perhaps to demonstrate a "common touch" with average Americans. But it's hard to envision any president other than Donald Trump using tweets to troll the country and the world.
That places those of us who work in the news media in a strange and difficult position. Judged by historic norms, a president's words carry enormous weight. Just about anything he says is considered newsworthy. That's even more so when he says something unusual, let alone shocking. But pretty much everything President Trump tweets is both unusual and shocking when compared with the statements of any previous president. Does that make his tweets more newsworthy than the statements of past presidents? Or less so?
A number of critics have made the latter claim since Trump ascended to the White House. The most recent is anti-Trump activist Amy Siskind, who over the past few days has several times tweeted variations of the following message in the minutes following a Trump tweet:
Trump sent 19 tweets yesterday, 4 already today. Do not quote or retweet and give him the pings of affirmation he seeks. Ignore him, and instead tweet about news, ideas and why he should be removed from office. This will drive him the last mile to crazy. — Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) November 30, 2017
A year ago, I found such pleas unpersuasive. As a journalist, I thought to myself, "If you want to ignore the president's tweets, go right ahead. But we're in the news business. When the president says something, it's news, even if it's absurd, insulting, or a form of incitement." But after a year of Trumpian madness, I'm no longer so sure. Practically, I have a hard time imagining individual Americans ignoring the president's outrageous tweets, let alone news organizations actively deciding not to report on them. But that doesn't mean the country and the world wouldn't be vastly better off if we did.
Trump's tweets don't advance a consistent policy agenda. They don't make a cogent case for the administration's position on this or that topic. They don't articulate a direction for the nation's foreign policy or communicate a coherent message for the wider world. They exist solely to antagonize, provoke, and polarize. Only his most extreme, uncritical admirers like these outrageous assertions. Everyone else ends up appalled — and that negative response ends up being a good part of why those extreme, uncritical admirers liked them in the first place. It's all about reaction, all the way down.
In this respect, the president's trollish tweets are a form of propaganda, albeit in a postmodern guise. Whereas propaganda traditionally seeks to advance and defend a unified, coherent "line" on a policy or even the government's entire agenda, Trump's postmodern variant takes the opposite approach to the same goal of enhancing the power of those in charge. Instead of advancing and enforcing a single point-of-view that grows out of the administration's agenda, Trump's tweets constantly stir the pot of public discord, roiling the body politic, asserting positions that provoke critics to adopt equally outrageous stances in opposition. The result is a rising tide of chaos in civil society that diffuses dissent, fracturing it, drowning it out in the clamorous roar of the crowd.
Instead of seeking strength through unity, the president acts to divide and conquer.
A political culture that focused solely on news of what the Trump administration and its enablers in Congress are doing would almost certainly be more measured than what we have now, when journalists, public figures, and foreign governments are constantly distracted by the need to report on and react to the president's incessant tweeting.
Too bad it's so difficult to imagine depriving the president of both his adulatory and angry audiences.Americans have a love affair with numbers. Here Alfie Kohn, the author of 12 books about education and human behavior, explains why this has become a problem when it comes to school reform. His books include “The Schools Our Children Deserve,” “The Homework Myth,” and “Feel-Bad Education... And Other Contrarian Essays on Children & Schooling.” He lives (actually) in the Boston area and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn.org. This is a slightly expanded version of an essay that was first published in the September 19 issue of Education Week”
By Alfie Kohn
“As we tend to value the results of education for their measurableness, so we tend to undervalue and at last ignore those results which are too intrinsically valuable to be measured.”
-- Edmond G. A. Holmes, chief inspector of elementary schools for Great Britain, 1911
The common denominator? Our culture’s worshipful regard for numbers. Roger Jones, a physicist, called it “the heart of our modern idolatry... the belief that the quantitative description of things is paramount and even complete in itself.”
Quantification can be entertaining, of course: Readers love top-ten lists, and our favorite parts of the news are those with numerical components — sports, business, and weather. There’s something comforting about the simplicity of specificity. As the educator Selma Wassermann observed, “Numbers help to relieve the frustrations of the unknown.” If those numbers are getting larger over time, we figure we must be making progress. Anything that resists being reduced to numerical terms, by contrast, seems vaguely suspicious, or at least suspiciously vague.
In calling this sensibility into question, I’m not denying that there’s a place for quantification. Rather, I’m pointing out that it doesn’t always seem to know its place. If the question is “How tall is he?”, “six-foot-two” is a more useful answer than “pretty damn tall.” But what if the question were “Is that a good city to live in?” or “How does she feel about her sister?” or “Would you rather have your child in this teacher’s classroom or that one’s?”
The habit of looking for numerical answers to just about any question can probably be traced back to overlapping academic traditions like behaviorism and scientism (the belief that all true knowledge is scientific), as well as the arrogance of economists or statisticians who think their methods can be applied to everything in life. The resulting overreliance on numbers is, ironically, based more on faith than on reason. And the results can be disturbing.
In education, the question “How do we assess (kids, teachers, schools)?” has morphed over the years into “How do we measure…?” We’ve forgotten that assessment doesn’t require measurement — and, moreover, that the most valuable forms of assessment are often qualitative (say, a narrative account of a child’s progress by an observant teacher who knows the child well) rather than quantitative (a standardized test score). Yet the former may well be brushed aside in favor of the latter — by people who don’t even bother to ask what was on the test. It’s a number, so we sit up and pay attention. Over time, the more data we accumulate, the less we really know.
You’ve heard it said that tests and other measures are, like technology, merely neutral tools, and all that matters is what we do with the information? Baloney. The measure affects that which is measured. Indeed, the fact that we chose to measure in the first place carries causal weight. His speechwriters had President George W. Bush proclaim, “Measurement is the cornerstone of learning.” What they should have written was, “Measurement is the cornerstone of the kind of learning that lends itself to being measured.”
One example: It’s easier to score a student writer’s proficiency with sentence structure than her proficiency at evoking excitement in a reader. Thus, the introduction of a scoring device like a rubric will likely lead to more emphasis on teaching mechanics. Either that, or the notion of “evocative” writing will be flattened into something that can be expressed as a numerical rating. Objectivity has a way of objectifying. Pretty soon the question of what our whole education system ought to be doing gives way to the question of which educational goals are easiest to measure.
I’ll say it again: Quantification does have a role to play. We need to be able to count how many kids are in each class if we want to know the effects of class size. But the effects of class size on what? Will we look only at test scores, ignoring outcomes such as students’ enthusiasm about learning or their experience of the classroom as a caring community?
Too much is lost to us — or warped — as a result of our
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Well, it happened. Despite breathless complaining about how the forecasters got it all wrong, they didn't. As the storm was predicted, there should have been close to about two feet of snow in the New York City metropolitan area, but as it turns out, there was between 8 and 12 inches. That means that New York City experienced a typical winter month's worth of snow in one day. Also, most snow that falls on The City falls a few inches at a time and melts more or less instantly, as few cities can match New York in its heat island effect. So, 8-12 inches of snow all at once is a meaningful, crippling snow storm. Two feet would have been much worse, but it is not like The City did not experience a memorable weather event.
More importantly, the forecast was for a huge blizzard with up to three feet of snow across a blob shaped region of the Northeast approximately 475 miles along its longest dimension (see graphic above). The blob ended up being off, on the southwest end, by about 40 or 50 miles. So the spatial extent of the storm was misestimated, days in advance, by about 10%. An object the size of a country was off by the distance a healthy adult can walk in a long day. That was, ladies and gentleman, an excellent, accurate prediction.
But, since the storm's outcome was different than predicted in the world's most inward looking city (you've seen the self-effacing maps produced now and then by the New Yorker magazine), it is assumed by many that the forecast was bad, that forecasting was bad, that weather models are bad, and so on.
As meteorologist Paul Douglass told me yesterday when I asked him if he was going to be kneeling on any carpets today over the difference between prediction and reality, "No kneeling, Greg. Just because we tap supercomputers and Doppler radar doesn’t mean we can predict snowfall down to the inch. Models are good and getting better, but they’re not perfect and never will be. People expect perfection in an imperfect world. Boston picked up 20-30” snow, Long Island saw 15-23”, so did much of Connecticut. There was an 8 foot storm surge on Cape Cod where winds gusted to 78 mph."
Paul also told me something he shared later that day on the Ed Show. "Over 30 years I’ve worked with a series of anchormen in the Twin Cities and Chicago. When they invariably gave me a hard time for busting a forecast I reminded them that a monkey in a sport coat could report on what happened yesterday. Look at the trends and predict tomorrow’s news headlines!" He indicated that when sportscasters started to routinely predict tomorrow's scores rather than report today's scores, they would be on a level playing field with the meteorologists.
Here is that Ed Show piece:
The Blizzard of 2015 was in some ways comparable to the Blizzard of 1978, which was one of the first storms of the modern era of increased storminess. The snowfall totals may have been greater for 2015, but coastal winds were greater for 1978. But, in 1978 over 100 people died, and most of them died of exposure because they were caught in the snow. So, in terms of cost of human lives, the two storms are very comparable despite the differences in winds.
Why did over 100 people die in New England's 1978 storm, but either zero or one person died (depending on attribution of a single sledding accident related death to the storm) in 2015?
Weather forecasting. It got better because the science and technology behind it got better. And, frankly, that is partly a result of storms like the '78 storm and various hurricanes, which prompted an interest in advancing this technology, which includes on one hand satellites producing piles of data and on the other hand advanced computer and software producing powerful models.
You should buy your local meteorologist a beer.
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The image comparing 1978 and 2015 is a chimera of images that come from NOAA and the Boston Globe.BY: M. TOMOSKI
The alarm began to chime and rattle against the end table on the morning after Super Bowl 50 with the thin light of dawn peeking through my hotel room window. “Where the hell am I?” I thought. That wasn’t my room. It couldn’t be. The goddamn parking meter ate my credit card the night before. There was no time to dwell on details, it was 6:45AM and I had to find the car and navigate my way out of Vermont using a road map because the mountains were causing the GPS to second guess itself.
Hold on a minute, what on earth was I doing in Vermont on the eve of the New Hampshire primary?
Everything was looking up for Bernie Sanders. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) was recounting the votes in Iowa while the Clintons were still fending off reporters and trying to makes sense of what had happened. In the wake of the Iowa tie everyone was so certain that Sanders would win in New Hampshire that CNN was reporting as much as a 96 percent chance of victory. So I figured I’d make the short trip to Sanders’ home town of Burlington, Vermont. Besides, there had been word that someone was offering free Sanders tattoos.
It was a place called Aartistic Inc. The walls were a deep red, the door jammed shut and a couple was sitting on a couch next to a worn out pillow with Sanders’ face on it.
“Is this one of those places that’s giving away Bernie tattoos?” I asked.
“We are the place.” The man behind the counter said his name was Chad. It had been a little over a week since they began to mark supporters with Sanders’ iconic hair and glasses in response to a shop in Seabrook, New Hampshire which was offering to brand its customers with the face of Donald Trump.
As it turns out, a lot of free ink had been flowing that week. “I just stopped counting after around fifteen and the boss has done forty or so” Chad said. “He did five this morning.”
Any tips they received went directly to the Sanders campaign and anyone who walked into the shop left carrying the Senator’s message on their bodies. But with five months until the DNC would announce its candidate in Philadelphia, I couldn’t help but think that getting a tattoo had the potential to lead to the scummy feeling of the morning after a night out in Tijuana.
“Wouldn’t it be a little awkward if he lost?” I had to ask. “No,” he said, “Bernie’s Bernie. If you support him now, you’ll still support him later.”
It sounded as though this was far more than a mark of loyalty to an old man shouting about the One Percent. The logo held a certain charm that couldn’t be found in a simple image of a wrinkled politician or the furrow-browed billionaire that was on offer at Seabrook. “It’s a reminder not to lose yourself in all the other shit just because it’s easier.” The tattoo artist said. As mayor, Bernie made the whole town better, it was a kinder and cleaner place to live, he assured me.
The couple on the couch had been listening in and smiling. “Are you going to get the tattoo?” I asked.
“I already have it.” One said revealing the image on her side and pointing to the man beside her, “And he’s getting it tonight.” She was just the kind of person that Bernie’s campaign had been speaking to: a young student, wracked with debt and spurred into activism – feeling the Bern. “Yes, it’s about him,” she said, “but for youth in America this is the biggest social-political movement of our time.”
“And what about Hillary?” I asked.
“I support a female president,” she said, “but she shouldn’t be president just because she’s a female. That’s just as bad as sexism.”
“Besides,” Chad added, “no one’s talking about the first Jewish president.”
The argument of experience didn’t seem to hold much water here. Clinton without a doubt has the most impressive résumé. That is exactly what she had been selling across the state as she brought Mayors, Senators, Governors, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and her whole family with her to rallies. She’s going to be a president, “who doesn’t need on the job training.” But Sanders’ response seemed to be hitting closer to the heart, “it’s not just about experience, it’s about judgement.”
“She didn’t start talking about certain things until Bernie started talking about them.” Chad said, admitting that he would vote for Hillary if she were the only choice, but that as long as Sanders was a candidate he was the better option. “She changed her mind on gay marriage, the death penalty, banking…”
And young people, he insists, are not that easy to fool. “She doesn’t necessarily get that it’s not 1992. If [a politician] says something wrong, we can find that in thirty seconds on our phone. We are the generation that can look shit up.”
The tattoo artist then referred me to a 2004 interview with Elizabeth Warren in which the Senator from Massachusetts spoke about the help she received from First Lady Hillary Clinton in defeating a bankruptcy bill backed by major credit card companies. “We have got to stop that awful bill.” Warren remembers Clinton telling her after a photo op, then goes on to explain that years later, when Clinton became a Senator for New York, she went on to pass that same bill.
“As Senator Clinton the pressures are different.” Warren tried to make sense of the betrayal, “It’s a well-financed industry.”
But Sanders’ supporters are less understanding and point to this as an example of how money has influenced Hillary Clinton in the past and could influence her as president.
“I understand, it’s about learning and bettering yourself,” Chad said, “and it’s awesome that she’s changed her mind on this stuff, but…she changed her mind years after the damage was done. It’s like apologizing for kicking someone in the nuts, you know?” He said, “You feel bad about it, but you still did it.”
The next day, I drove two and a half hours to Manchester, New Hampshire to see Hillary Clinton speak at a community college. There’s a pattern emerging in her itinerary. Someone in the Clinton Mystery Machine must have marked every college in the country as a place to search for the ghosts of the youth vote. In New Hampshire, her strategy to a comeback sounded a lot like a parental lecture that ends in “why, you’ll thank me later.”
“Young people may not support me now,” she told the crowd, “but I support them.”by: -RoG-
When it comes to novelty architecture worth paying a visit to on american road trips, there's perhaps no greater sight than Claude Bell's Dinosaurs on Interstate 10 in Cabazon, CA. Also known as the Cabazon Dinosaurs, this attraction features two huge dinosaur sculptures that you can walk inside of - a Brontosaurus (Apatosaurus) named "Dinny" and a Tyrannosaurus rex named "Mr. Rex".
Anybody who's a big fan of kitsch and roadside attractions is no doubt already well aware of these prehistoric monstrosities, but most people probably remember them from Pee-wee's Big Adventure. After riding with the ghost of Large Marge, Pee-wee is dropped off right in front of the Cabazon Dinosaurs at the Wheel Inn restaurant. He then befriends a waitress there and they hang out in one of the dinosaurs. Pee-wee also has a nightmare about Mr. Rex eating his beloved bicycle.
As soon as I saw that movie, I wanted to visit the Cabazon Dinosaurs, but they were on the other side of the country. Now, many years later, I'm finally living on the West coast and it's high time I pay a visit to these amazing dinosaurs. Let's take a look at these awesome architectural anomalies:
Not a bad view on the opposite side of the highway...
...but we came for the Cabazon Dinosaurs and there they are, about to attack a Shell gasoline station.
Here we see Dinny, the mighty Brontosaurus... naturally standing next to some palm trees.
And yes, you can also call it an Apatosaurus, but it'll always be Brontosaurus to me just as Pluto will always be a planet.
No, those aren't gills on his neck, it's an air vent.
And here's the mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex!
(also known as "Mr. Rex")
Re helps show the scale of Mr. Rex. I'm pretty sure he could floss with her.
If a T-Rex lost its arms, do you really think it'd matter that much?
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have to alter its lifestyle.
Even Mr. Rex's huge body couldn't block the high winds that day.
Guess that's why they set up that big wind farm in Cabazon too.
Did you know that some dinosaurs had built-in ladders and platforms on them?
You won't learn about that in any ol' dinosaur book... you only learn these things by seeing 'em in person.
Another nice view of the big bronto. Ok, time to go inside!
Hey, if you were inside a dinosaur's stomach, I'm sure you'd find that it was leaking on you too.
So it turns out the dinosaurs were purchased by creationists who insist on pushing
their beliefs on children who are simply there to marvel at the giant dinosaur attractions.
This stuff also contradicts some of the other artwork on display by Claude Bell, such as his Cro-Magnon Man.
Here's an idea: KEEP IT TO YOURSELF.
Look, I honestly don't care what your religious beliefs are (to each his own),
but they simply don't need to be a part of a classic roadside dinosaur exhibit.
That's more like it. Dinosaur toys. Now that's what a kid wants to find in the belly of a brontosaurus!
Next it was time to check out the robotic dinosaur exhibit. Actually, I think they were checking me out instead.
Also, come on... they should've named this the Dinobots exhibit.
Velocibot.
Pterobot.
Roll them bones!
Wooden guns! Don't worry, I'm sure they're prehistoric guns, so they totally belong here.
While in the shop, you can kick back in a chair shaped like a cracked dinosaur egg.
Dino-turtle devours small yard lights with fury!
I'm pretty sure this isn't the best place for a lamb to be hanging out... even if it is a prehistoric lamb.
There's still more of the Cabazon Dinosaurs to see!
Click here to continue onward to page 2!Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp have pulled out of the match (Picture: Getty)
Arsenal fans have demanded refunds from the club after Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp pulled out of Saturday’s legends match with AC Milan and were replaced by the likes of Pascal Cygan and Gilles Grimandi.
Gooners bought tickets in their masses when they heard that icons such as Henry and Bergkamp would be returning to the Emirates for the chairty event but the pair have pulled out due to other commitments.
The match is to raise funds for the Arsenal foundation and tickets were priced at £20 for adults. However, the Gunners confirmed the final squad today and there was no sign of Henry or Bergkamp but room for Cygan and Grimandi.
The likes of Robert Pires, Freddie Ljungberg and Sylvain Wiltord are all set to pull on the red shirt again but that didn’t stop angry Arsenal fans taking to social media to demand refunds for what they feel is false advertising.
Henry had fronted Arsenal’s marketing campaign (Picture: Arsenal)
They weren’t happy…
Henry and Bergkamp pull out of legends match? @Arsenal how do i go about a refund? — Dan (@DanLikesMerch) August 30, 2016
@Arsenal I hope you're willing to refund people who bought tickets for Saturday to watch Henry & Bergkamp play on the pitch — John Moss (@TheJohnMoss) August 30, 2016
So @ThierryHenry and bergkamp pulled out of the legends game. Week ruined, any chance of a refund @Arsenal? — Gavin McBride (@gavinmcb95) August 30, 2016
@MarkG_Arsenal Many have bought tickets to see Bergkamp and Henry. Arsenal should be offering full refunds. — It'sMYArsenalOpinion (@ARSENALDvbrisG) August 30, 2016
So Bergkamp and Henry have pulled out of the Legends match on Saturday! FFS! That was the only reason I was going! #AFC @Arsenal — Craig (@cd_78) August 30, 2016
@Arsenal so two of the main players I wanted to see Bergkamp and Henry are now out. And you say once tickets are all sold. Typical Arsenal. — Nick B (@nickbruff) August 30, 2016
If it's true about Bergkamp and Henry not playing in the legends match then there's literally no point going #Arsenal — Jay (@jayjgreetham) August 30, 2016
Well disappointed to see that Bergkamp and Henry aren't now playing in the legends match on Saturday. They are the main reason so many going — Kevin Barnes (@kevthegooner) August 30, 2016
@Arsenal Tickets advertised with Bergkamp and Henry playing, then they don't play. Very bad PR. — Phil Lloyd (@PhilLloyd1) August 30, 2016
Bergkamp and Henry pulling out of the legends match has ruined my day — Jake Edwards (@Jake_E) August 30, 2016
MORE: Arsenal wonderkid Gedion Zelalem targeted by Bolton WanderersOriginal story: A 6-year-old Brooklyn boy was watching videos on a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Saturday evening when it burst into flames as he was holding it. The young boy's grandmother, Linda Lewis, told the New York Post that the resulting fire was enough to set off alarms in her house, and her grandson was taken to Downstate Medical Center to treat burns on his body but was later released.
Lewis told the Post "he doesn't want to see or go near any phones. He's been crying to his mother." Lewis says the family has been in contact with Samsung but declined further comment.
Late last week the phone maker advised all Note 7 owners to return their handsets under the official recall program, working with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.The woman was found in Guarujá
Thugs stoned a trans woman to death in Brazil in a dawn attack on Wednesdau (8 February).
The unidentified woman was killed at around 4:30am near the Cove in Guarujá, a 310,000 city in São Paulo state.
Based on injuries to her face and chest, detectives believe her murderers used stones to attack the woman.
Beside the victim’s body, police also found a blood-stained brick, which was handed over to forensics to see whether it was part of the crime.
The woman was found on a corner of the Avenida Dom Pedro I, where authorities say she was offering sexual services.
Military personnel were alarmed to the scene. They called an emergency ambulance, but doctors found the woman already dead when they arrived.
So far, there is no suspect, but the police’s homicide department is looking for the woman’s killer.
Brazilian’s labor market is largely closed to transgender people.
Only a minority of trans people have a university education or work in high-earning jobs.
Often, the only professions open to them are nursing, domestic services, hairdressing, gay entertainment and prostitution.
In some cases, people who work a main job also double as sex workers.By The Associated Press
A 21-year-old woman has been arrested after authorities say she was caught speeding three times within an hour in Pulaski County.
DUBLIN, Va. (AP) — A 21-year-old woman has been arrested after authorities say she was caught speeding three times within an hour in Pulaski County.
News outlets report Virginia State Police say Kai Kitchen, of Los Angeles was taken into custody Sunday and issued an arrest warrant for misdemeanor reckless driving.
Police say Trooper N.S. Rife first spotted Kitchen traveling 93 mph — 23 mph above the speed limit — around 7 a.m. on Interstate 81. She was cited for reckless driving and released.
Kitchen was cited a second time for reckless driving about 40 minutes later when Rife saw her speeding again. This time, police say she was going 97 mph.
Then, at 8 a.m., Trooper M.R. Overholt caught Kitchen going 94 mph on I-81.
It isn’t clear whether she has an attorney.
Copyright © 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.A new ad for Dewar’s Scotch whiskey uses Charles Bukowski’s famous poem, “So You Want to Be a Writer,” to hawk their booze. The reading is quite beautiful, the kind of pathos-rendering performance one wishes they had first heard outside of an advertisement. Now, I’m way past caring about hearing my favorite song in a commercial. First of all, no one is dumb enough to think the artist or band is actually endorsing a project. Secondly, making money off of music is really difficult, so I’m pretty sympathetic to whatever artists or their surviving family have to do to make ends meet. This Dewar’s ad however, rubs me the wrong way, and I can’t quite figure out why it’s so different.
Maybe it’s because music is capable of being such a passive experience, while this kind of poetry requires a more focused engagement. Yes, we’ve all gotten wasted, put on the headphones, and listened to ABBA with a fevered intensity (or maybe that’s just me?), but most of the time, we have music playing while we commute, clean the house, type away at work, take care of the kids, or do whatever mundane task the day requires of us. Most music is art that we can fit into the nooks and crannies of our lives—a soundtrack—but this kind of poetry requires a bit of space, and a bit of time.
Or maybe It’s because this poem has always rubbed me the wrong way, as an anthem of creative onus. I’ve always felt it odd that someone would list off the many “wrong” ways to make art, as if it’s some sort of orthodox religion. And the idea that art should only be produced in a flash of inspiration or passion has been argued against by so many artists. Sometimes things take time, first drafts, second drafts, 134th drafts. Sometimes the failures and near-misses of creation are what’s necessary to really transform a project into something great. Sometimes creation is a schlep. Sometimes ideas and work needs to age (like a good whiskey!).
Or maybe I just don’t like the ad because I think Dewar’s is terrible Scotch?
Via Open CultureSabatini: 'Roma want Dzeko'
By Football Italia staff
Roma director Walter Sabatini confirms they “are trying to get Edin Dzeko,” while Marcelo Bielsa was twice ready to take over.
The transfer guru spoke to reporters at a ‘Football Fest’ event in Perugia on Friday evening and was asked about the Manchester City striker.
“Dzeko is not very close, but Roma are trying to get him,” confirmed Sabatini. "He's the right man for us, but tough to get, as he's expensive.
“Does Gervinho want to leave? No, he changed his mind and wants to stay with us now.”
The Giallorossi have gone through a series of Coaches, including Barcelona Treble-winner Luis Enrique, but were twice very close to Bielsa in 2011 and 2013.
“I met Bielsa on a bench in Madrid. He had already decided how to paint the walls of the Trigoria training ground. He is a character full of football poetry.
“A few years back we tried to hold on to Luis Enrique in every way, but he is a man of incredible loyalty.”What would it look like if Apple let you work in multiple apps side by side on the iPad? Apple’s competitors like to poke fun at the iPad’s lack of desktop-class multitasking. But plenty of people are using the iPad to get work done, which begs the age-old question: is less really more?
Imagine OS X’s Mission Control ported to the iPad, and you’ve got the jailbreak tweak OS Experience. It’s an ambitious idea that is executed with surprising finesse.
After installing OS Experience from Cydia, your jailbroken iPad will take you on a visual tour of the tweak with some helpful tips. You can have up to five desktops that can be managed much like they are in OS X. Apps can be “snapped” to a side of the screen to allow a scenario like the Twitter and Safari apps running next to each other.
Everything about OS Experience is gesture-driven, including reordering and dragging apps in and out of desktops. Most of the gestures are pretty intuitive to pick up.
The biggest one I had trouble understanding was that you swipe down with four fingers
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by 2025.”
The Navy consumes over 600 million gallons of petroleum-based aviation fuel each year (40 percent of its total petroleum consumption), while the Air Force consumes about 2.5 billion gallons of jet fuel each year (80 percent of it total energy consumption), the GAO says.
Both branches came under fire in July 2012 for their spending on alternative fuels. Then the Air Force purchased 11,000 gallons of alcohol-to-jet fuel from a Colorado biofuels company at $59 a gallon, spending a total of $649,000 to prove the efficiency of alternative fuels in military aircraft. Meanwhile the Navy spent $12 million in one day to demonstrate its so-called Great Green Fleet during the summer’s Rim of the Pacific multinational naval exercise. That money equated to $26 a gallon on 450,000 gallons of renewable fuel for its naval vessels, making it the largest single purchase of biofuels in history, naval-technology.com reports.
And just a day before the GAO study was released, the Department of Defense testified before Congress on Tuesday about cutting military pay raises and increasing health care fees for troops and their families, the Daily Caller reports.
“In our deliberations, we collectively assessed how a wide range of compensation proposals would affect our troops at every rank, and over the course of their service,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said in his written testimony for the hearing. “We concluded that we can no longer put off rebalancing our military compensation.”
The 2015 defense budget would save the military $31 billion by reducing pay raises to 1 percent, raising health care fees and shrinking housing allowances an average of 5 percent, Military.com reports.Marc Kasowitz may want to step away from his game of PR-palooza for just long enough to log on to LexisNexis and do a little legal research. For all the blustering about what a lying sack of bad leadership James Comey allegedly is, the Trump spin machine may be fixing to violate some federal law itself. Here’s what I’m talking about: 18 U.S. Code § 1513: Retaliating against a witness, victim, or an informant.
I know, that sounds like some Tony Soprano thug-life kind of thing that would go down on a construction site; we couldn’t possibly expect our distinguished President to engage in such shadiness – even despite his constant reminders about how he’s a builder at heart. Snicker. Section (e) of the statute prohibits people from, “knowingly, with the intent to retaliate, tak[ing] any action harmful to any person, including interference with the lawful employment or livelihood of any person, for providing to a law enforcement officer any truthful information relating to the commission or possible commission of any Federal offense.” And it’s a criminal statute, carrying a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
Is Comey’s testimony “information relating to the commission of a federal offense”? I’d say that’s a solid “maybe.” Let’s hold off on that technical point for now. The juicier part of the analysis is whether Team Trump will, in fact, file a complaint against Comey with the Justice Department Inspector General and the Senate Judiciary Committee. According to several news outlets, sources close to the President have indicated plans to do so early next week.
The story being floated is that Comey’s late-night decision to distribute the contents of the infamous Comey Memo to the press via a law professor friend was somehow illegal. In the official response to Comey’s testimony yesterday, released shortly thereafter, Kasowitz stated the following:
“it is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications. Mr. Comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers. He also testified that immediately after he was terminated he authorized his friends to leak the contents of these memos to the press in order to “prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”
The short analysis on Kasowitz’ contention that Comey is a criminal is: 1) the memo didn’t contain any classified information; 2) the First Amendment applies to everyone, even 6’8” fired FBI directors; 3) nothing about this seems remotely illegal; 4) for extra good measure, Comey was a private citizen at the time, so the Inspector General probably doesn’t even have jurisdiction over him. Know what’s much clearer though? That a President setting the dogs on what amounts to a whistle-blower is illegal. Clearly, if Trump attempts to spark any investigation or related legal action whatsoever against James Comey, he would be doing so, “knowingly, with the intent to retaliate,” against Comey for his testimony. Even more clearly, such actions on Trump’s behalf would obviously amount to having taken “any action harmful to” Comey. Comey-haters will surely argue that one man’s “retaliation” is another man’s “quest for justice,” – but given the context of Trump’s own statements, it would be hard to imagine any fact-finder not reaching the conclusion that Trump is making retaliation against Comey something of a signature move.
A maneuver Trump has perfected for many more years, though, is the one in which he makes threats and never follows through. Kasowitz’s threats aside, there’s at least a fair chance that the purported Inspector General’s investigation of Comey will have the same fate as Trump v. Everyone Else Who Has Called Him On His Bad Behavior.
[Image via screengrab]
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.Sikh activists clash with members of the Shiromani Gurudwara Parbhandak Committee (SGPC) during commemorations for the 30th anniversary of Operation Blue Star at the Golden Temple in Amritsar
Worship has resumed at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, where at least 12 people were injured this morning when two groups clashed inside the premises.People were seen brandishing swords, spears and sticks and they chased each other outside the Akal Takht building of the complex. Many others were seen running for cover.Seven people have been arrested by the police.The clashes reportedly followed an altercation between members of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) and those of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee or SGPC task force during a ceremony organised to mark the 30th anniversary of Operation Bluestar.Sources said Simranjit Singh Mann of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) wanted to address the gathering, but his demand was turned down by the Akal Takth Jathedar or high priest, resulting in angry clashes that lasted for close to half an hour.Some media personnel were also allegedly manhandled.Top SGPC functionaries, including its president Avtar Singh Makkar, and Akal Takht Jathedar Gurbachan Singh were present inside the complex during the clashes.The situation is calm now.SAD spokesperson Prem Singh Chandu Majra said the incident was "unfortunate" and the SGPC would take action against those responsible. In June 1984, more than 1,000 people were killed in Operation Bluestar, the raid on Sikhism's holiest shrine to flush out militants holed up there. Five months later, in retaliation, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.Copyright 2019 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
LAS VEGAS -- Piles of beheaded birds are being mysteriously dumped on some streets in the Las Vegas valley's east side.
One business on Charleston Boulevard is forced to deal with the stench of rotting carcasses twice a month.
The beheaded chickens and pigeons could be part of a religious ritual.
"Oh, where did this come from?" Helen Arciaga, a thrift shop owner asks as she finds several dead birds in an alley behind her store.
The alley has become a bird graveyard or a dumping ground for the carcasses.
"Oh my good Lord it stinks,"
Arciaga is concerned because she wants to keep the area clean for her customers.
"It concerns the health of the community," she said.
And the dead birds don't just end up in the alley.
"The first time I saw it, it was a large rooster," said Ryan Roskins, a street cleaner.
He has seen beheaded birds on many roads throughout the east side.
"Everything else is there, feet, feathers. It's just decapitated," Roskins said.
He believes he knows who is behind the dumping of the birds.
"I actually think it must be voodoo," he said.
However, a West African priest says that may not be the case. He says people practicing the religion of Santeria or Ifa use animal sacrifices like chickens, pigeons or goats as a means of protection or as a way to cleanse the body.
"They might be wiping themselves with the bird, letting the blood and then having to discard the body," Ifa priest Duane Reece said.
He says where the bird's body is dumped depends on what the spirit or deity is calling out for.
"Just like a first communion, just like a baptism, all of these ways are ways humans use to communicate," he said.
But for Arciaga, the ritual can't stop soon enough.
"I'm sorry for what we saw today," she said.
Arciaga and other nearby business owners are waiting for animal control to get the dead birds out of the alley. They know it's likely more dead birds will be dumped there again.
Roskins says he's filed several reports with animal control who he says is in charge of cleaning up the birds.
Animal Control cleaned up the bird bodies and notified Metro Police. If you find a beheaded bird, or any beheaded animal, call Animal Control.
A maintenance man on the site said he is often the one who cleans up the mess to ensure the retail complex is following health code.Was it all too good to be true? Concerns have been raised over a paper that claims to have turned adult cells into stem cells with just a 30-minute dip in acid.
An investigation has been launched by RIKEN in Japan into the research results of one of their members of staff – Haruko Obokata. At the end of last month, Obokata and her colleagues published two papers in the journal Nature showing that an acidic environment turned adult mouse cells into “totipotent” stem cells. These can become any cell in the body or placenta. Some team members later told New Scientist that they had repeated the experiment using human cells.
The technique holds great promise for regenerative medicine because it could be used to create any cell in the body without needing to reprogram genes, or use cells from embryos.
Over the weekend, some blogs reported issues with images in one of the papers. Specifically, two images of different placentas appear very similar, and an image of a genome analysis appears to have another genome analysis spliced into it. Spliced images are sometimes used but should be explained.
Advertisement
Honest mistake
Issues have also been raised over duplicated images in a related paper by Obokato, published in 2011 (Tissue Engineering Part A, DOI: 10.1089/ten.tea.2010.0385).
Charles Vacanti at Harvard Medical School, a co-author on all the papers, says he is aware of the mix-up on some images in the 2011 paper. He contacted the journal to request an erratum. He says the mistake did not affect any of the data, conclusions or any other component of the paper, and that it looks like an “honest mistake”.
A spokesperson for the journal says it is investigating the latest allegations, and a RIKEN representative says their institution believes that the research results are valid but has launched an investigation and will make their findings public as soon as they are available.
Meanwhile, several researchers have struggled to repeat the stem cell experiments. “We’ve tried a few times but always unsuccessfully. I have to say, unfortunately, that I am now very sceptical of the published results,” says José Silva, a stem cell researcher at the University of Cambridge.
Too little information
It may merely be a case of not enough information: Sally Cowley, head of the James Martin Stem Cell Facility at the University of Oxford, says her lab has not yet attempted to replicate the production of these “STAP” cells because the full protocol is not available. “I emailed Obokata for a detailed protocol, but have had no reply,” she says.
“It is a failure of the biomedical sciences publishing system in general, in my opinion, that there is rarely enough detail to be able to reproduce procedures accurately,” she adds. Cowley hopes this high-profile example will encourage papers to supply detailed protocols as a matter of course.
Vacanti has said that he is happy to make the detailed protocol public.
Teruhiko Wakayama, a co-author on these papers told Nature that even he has had difficulties in reproducing the experiment – although he had repeated it independently before the papers were published.
Obokata has not responded to New Scientist‘s request for comment.In a rare display of unity, three opposition party leaders rose in the House of Commons this week to ask the prime minister why he hasn’t funded an initiative that aims to improve autism services across Canada.
“Many Canadian families are forced to mortgage their homes to pay for early intervention programs and more than 80 per cent of adults with autism struggle to find meaningful work,” Conservative leader Andrew Scheer said during question period Wednesday, the last day of the spring sitting. “When will the prime minister finally listen to these Canadians and reverse his cold-hearted decision to reject the Canadian autism partnership?”
Scheer was followed by NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, who asked similar questions.
Last fall, a working group asked the government for $19 million over five years to fund a Canadian autism partnership, an arm’s length body that would advise provinces and territories on programs and services for people with the disorder.
There are no answers. There is no rationale yet given as to why it was rejected
But the partnership didn’t make it into the 2017 budget. And in May the Liberals voted down a private member’s motion, tabled by Conservative MP Mike Lake, that called on the government to fund the partnership.
In an interview with the National Post Thursday, Lake said the opposition has now asked about the partnership 17 times, and has yet to hear an explanation from the government.
“There are no answers. There’s no rationale yet given as to why it was rejected,” he said. “And it leaves me to wonder if it was simply political.”
A spokesperson for Health Minister Jane Philpott told the Post the partnership wasn’t funded in part because there wasn’t unanimous support for the project from the autism community.
That does appear to be the case. Dermot Cleary, chair of the board of directors of Autism Canada, said his organization has concerns about what it sees as another “level of bureaucracy.”
“We just felt that this project was not ultimately going to be successful,” he said. “We just did not have confidence in its efficacy.”
But Lake claims Philpott told him she asked for the partnership to be funded in the budget. He also said the proposal had the support of half the Liberal caucus.
“It seemed like it was a no-brainer. It really did,” he said.
Philpott’s spokesperson said her office doesn’t normally comment on budget discussions.
In the House Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government has invested $39 million in autism research over the last five years.
But Dr. Stephen Scherer, who studies genetic variation in human disease at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, said the partnership would have helped the results of autism research to be used across the country.
“It’s very hard for us to translate those (findings) back to the families and the systems across Canada,” said Scherer, a member of the working group that asked for the funding.
As it stands, he said, Canada doesn’t even have reliable statistics about the prevalence of autism, because health services are delivered provincially and can vary from province to province.
Nathalie Garcin, a clinical psychologist based in Quebec, said some provinces have put in place innovative autism services, while other jurisdictions lag far behind. In British Columbia, she said, there’s a centralized database of people with autism, while in Quebec, no such registry exists.
She believes the Canadian autism partnership would help provinces communicate and would promote best practices across the country.
“I am at a loss for why the government would not go for this. For me, it’s not a partisan issue,” she said. “I really feel that this is the way to go for Canadians.”
Tom Frazier, chief science officer at Autism Speaks, said U.S. statistics show the prevalence of autism has increased significantly in the last 25 years, partly as people have children later and as the rate of survival of premature infants increases.
Lake, whose 21-year-old son, Jaden, is autistic, said he worries about the options for the growing number of adults with autism, and he plans to keep fighting for the partnership.
“What happens when we’re gone?” he said. “Will we have a society that cares for our kids like we care for our kids?”
• Email: [email protected] | Twitter: MauraForrest2 of 10
Peter Emerick: "Is beating up on Spalding's 'Arena to Driveway' competition winner, Carlos Mayorga, part of your training regimen?"
Mario Chalmers: "[Laughs] It's going to be. I'm going to put some of my moves out there on the court. So you know I'll probably give him a little taste of my game."
Peter Emerick: "You are one of only three NBA players sponsored by Spalding; talk about what that's like to work with them."
Mario Chalmers: "It's a great experience, to work with a company from the ground up. You know, I'm fulfilling a dream. Everybody wants to have their own shoe, but to be included in the process is special. Having them ask for my basketball input makes me feel like an important person."
Peter Emerick: "What do you like in a shoe?"
Mario Chalmers: "The first thing is how light the shoe is. For a point guard you have to be fast on the court. This is the perfect shoe, it's just really light, and it has a lot of cushion in it."
Peter Emerick: "I don't know much about Spalding, but you won a championship so it can't get much better than that."
Mario Chalmers: "[Laughs] Yea, I'm happy with how everything has fallen into place and helped me compete for a championship."
Peter Emerick: "So are you going to take it easy on Carlos Mayorga today?"
Mario Chalmers: "We're trying to talk about that now in the car. We're getting a game plan and how we are going to approach the game."This time it’s unavoidable.
Gov. Dan Malloy says 52,000 customers in Bridgeport will lose power, likely b 6:30 p.m. when two substations are shut down because of rising water.
The water has already reached a level higher than during Irene. High tide is expected around midnight, when the storm surge could reach as high as 11 feet.
United Illuminating will be taking down two substations to prevent permanent damage that would cause catastrophic damage. That level of damage would take weeks to repair. Malloy said the substations could be put back on line in the morning, when the high tide recedes.
The two substations are Congress 1 and 2, and Pequonnock.
There will also be about 3,000 outages in surrounding towns, including Stratford, Trumbull and Fairfield as a result of the power down.
By around 8 p.m. the power station will be fully out for its protection, a UI spokesman said.
Around noon, officials feared that they would have to close down the substations as the first high tide of the day moved in. But water levels cooperated and the substation was able to stay on line. This time, UI says, it will not be the case, as potentially historic flooding occurs.
UI is also monitoring a substation in New Haven that powers downtown.TEMECULA, Calif. – Callaway Competition USA will enter the Pirelli World Challenge road racing series next year with a pair of GT3-spec homologated Corvette C7 GT3-R race cars.
“Joining the Pirelli World Challenge has been a long term objective for Callaway Competition,” said Reeves Callaway of Callaway Competition USA. “Now the field is a roll-call of the most capable sports cars from every country. To do well here, you must beat the best in the world. What better way to showcase our iconic American car?”
“For several years fans have asked when they would see the Callaway Corvette GT3 run in the Pirelli World Challenge,” said Greg Gill, president and CEO of Pirelli World Challenge. “The wait is over and we are very pleased to announce the arrival of the Callaway Corvette GT3 for the 2018 season.”
Callaway Competition USA plans to run a two car squad as a factory effort next year. For 2019 and beyond, the manufacturer will withdraw its factory entries and instead offer full support to its customer racing efforts across North American sports car racing.
“For 2018, we will run a Callaway factory team to give us the best chance of continuing the championship record the Corvette has achieved in international competition,” said Callaway. “For 2019, we will not race against our customers, but provide high-quality support to them in the tradition of other manufacturer customer racing support programs.”
The Callaway Competition USA Corvette C7 GT3-R will be unveiled and both full season drivers announced at the Performance Racing Industry show in Indianapolis on Dec. 7 at the Pirelli World Challenge booth. Following the unveiling event, the car will be on display for the remainder of the trade show. Details of the presentation will be announced in the coming weeks.
Callaway founded Callaway Cars in 1977, utilizing his passion for enhancing the power of OE engines. In 1982, Callaway built his first factory, and in 1985, General Motors enlisted the operation to create the twin turbo versions of the Corvette. In the decades to follow, Callaway and his efforts have been instrumental to the advancement of sports car racing, developing specialist models for manufacturers such as Aston Martin, Range Rover and Mazda.
In an agreement with GM, Callaway was authorized to design build and homologate the GT3 version of the C7 Corvette. Callaway Competition GmbH has established a strong racing record, most recently securing the 2017 ADAC GT Masters championship, and not for the first time.
Following Cadillac Racing’s withdrawal of its own factory program from the series at the conclusion of the 2017 season, the Corvette GT3 effort was aimed at North American competition. The Pirelli World Challenge was selected for the debut due to its SprintX format closely matching the GT Masters format of two drivers splitting the duties for a one hour race.
“We’re incredibly proud to bring the Corvette C7 GT3-R to competition on American soil,” concluded Callaway. “It is going to be a very competitive season, and we are looking forward to getting started.”Zee Media Bureau/Deepak Nagpal
New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal is unwell and has cancelled all his planned rallies in Maharashtra`s Vidarbha on Thursday.
But, as per reports, he will go ahead with the fund-raiser event at Nagpur this evening.
Each person seeking to attend the dinner with Kejriwal at a luxury hotel in the city will have to shell out Rs 10,000.
The party believes 150-200 people could attend the fund-raising dinner.
Party sources said the AAP chief could hold his rally scheduled in Nagpur tomorrow.
Kejriwal started his three-day Maharashtra tour yesterday with a ride on a local train that was marked by chaos and vandalism amid complaints of discomfort to commuters.
AAP workers were accused of vandalising station property after metal detectors were damaged during the chaos at the Churchgate station where Kejriwal rode by train from Andheri.
There was chaos at Churchgate station on Kejriwal`s arrival. The AAP leader earlier took an auto-rickshaw ride.Orthodox economists have cited worsening output and rising inflation in the aftermath of the capital strike to demand fiscal austerity and restrictive monetary policy.
This paper explores how inflation-targeting conceals the class antagonism of capital strikes and highlights the class interests that underpin monetarism. In doing so, it argues for the importance of socialising production as a viable alternative to neoliberal austerity.
* * *
In recent years, the relationship between neoliberalism and crisis has been the focus of extensive discussion. The seemingly paradoxical expansion of finance capitalism through the great convulsions of 2008/09 and the current Euro crisis has led a number of scholars to question the definition of economic crisis as a degenerative moment for orthodox practice. Brenner, Peck and Theodore (2010), and Huw Macartney (2011) have written weighty studies of “variegated neoliberalism” in North America and Western Europe as a way of documenting the restructuring of the neoliberal project through economic turbulence. In the popular press, Naomi Klein (2007) has taken this argument a step further, coining the term ‘shock doctrine’ to explain the pivotal role of catastrophe in providing a blank slate for capital accumulation to expand its scope and intensity.
For Marxist political economists, the contradictory expansion of finance capital through the collapse of financial markets from 2008 has been explained as a function of monopoly class power. John Bellamy Foster (2011) has inaugurated the “age of monopoly-finance capital”, applying Baran and Sweezy’s (1966) seminal critique of monopoly capital to explain the peculiar role of finance houses in neoliberal capitalism. Kotz (2009), Hudson (2010) and, more recently, Panitch and Gindin (2013) have similarly articulated the decisive importance of interest-bearing capital’s monopoly position to the construction and endurance of hegemonic neoliberalism. At the heart of this research agenda, as Alfredo Saad-Filho (2010) has noted, is the importance of distinguishing between the present crisis in neoliberalism (i.e. one in which finance capital remain ascendant) and a potential crisis of neoliberalism.
This paper contributes to this project, highlighting the role of disruption and abstraction in advancing the neoliberal project while simultaneously sketching the shape of successful left resistance. What distinguishes this essay from those focused on the relationship between economic crisis and neoliberalism after the 2009 world recession is the distinct political reality of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The setbacks suffered by international capital over the last decade are not, as in Western Europe and North America, the need to overcome and conceal crystallising contradictions in capital accumulation but rather the political advance of a coherent left project. In other words, Venezuela offers a rare case study in existential crises of neoliberalism and ruling class responses.
Venezuela’s political economic development under the leadership of Presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolas Maduro has been marked by the progressive radicalisation of the government and its support base. The socialisation[1] of private industry, comprehensive bans on capital flight, expanded price controls and a move toward endogenous production and self-sufficiency in national food production (i.e. ‘food sovereignty’) have gathered pace over the last decade (Ellner 2011: 250-251). Instead of accepting the neoliberal assumption that governments must respond to threats of disinvestmrnt by guaranteeing opportunities for profitable enterprise to international finance, the Bolivarian Republic has reoriented its economy towards autarky and implemented stringent controls on private producers.[2] While capital has countered controls on production and pricing with a campaign of rolling stoppages and disinvestment, the Venezuelan state has not hesitated to expropriate production either by legally endorsing employees’ occupations of their shuttered workplaces, or by restarting production under national ownership.
Theory
The strategies capital has employed to counter challenges to its power reveal a great deal about the tactical role of crisis and reification in advancing neoliberal interests. This paper argues that neoliberal strategy in Venezuela has been aimed at reconstructing reification and commodity fetishism in the consciousness of the working class. In other words, neoliberal strategy has been targeted at presenting social relations as relations between things (i.e. money and commodities). In doing so, neoliberals have attempted to sustain the assumption that capital is a necessary component of production. In Venezuela, neoliberal analysts have focused on the relative fluctuation in the price-level and positied a peculiar economic determinism that comes with oil abundance. By treating money and commodities as having a relationships of their own, rather than simply the product of social labour, neoliberals attempt to deflect attention from ruling class mobilisations and obscure the possibility of socialising the means of production.
The remarkable nature of this case study is that it showcases neoliberals’ rearguard efforts to reassert the purchase of reification in the aftermath of sweeping left-wing reform. For long-time observers of the Bolivarian movement in Venezuela, the dynamic has become a familiar one: shortages have been created by business shutdowns and the consequent spike in CPI has been used as a pretext to dismantle the leftist reforms of the Chávez/Maduro governments. To this end, the inflationary surge produced by a general capital strike in 2002/03 was used as the justification for discrediting the nationalisation of oil rents and controls on prices and capital flight. Similarly, disinvestment and hoarding in Venezuela’s private food industry today have produced widespread shortages in basic staples. Once again, the rise in inflation indices has been used to justify neoliberal interventions, including a removal of price controls on food and the relaxation of restrictions on capital flight.
Problems with the positivist treatment of inflation are therefore particularly poignant to this discussion. A ‘crisis’ of high inflation in Venezuela is neoliberals’ primary argument for intervention in Venezuela today. What De Long (2000: 91-2) has described as “political monetarism” is the particular focus of this discussion.[3] This theory maintains that inflation is a function of increases in the money supply by holding all other variables constant, including the velocity of money. In doing so, political monetarism ignores the possibility of negative supply shocks. The practical difficulties with this theory have been realised in practice. De Long (ibid: 92) claims political monetarism “crashed and burned in the 1980s”. However, as Saad-Filho and Morais (2004) have noted, this rigidly quantitative understanding of the relationship between inflation and money supply was dominant in the 1990s throughout Latin America. It is the crux of the contemporary neoliberal assault on Venezuela’s political economy.[4]
The ruling class interests that motivate political monetarism are well-established in Marxist literature. Michael Perelman (2012) has indicted Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, for waging a class war against labour in the United States. His evocative description of “sado-monetarism” is a reminder of the hidden hand of the bourgeoisie in otherwise prosaic arguments for low inflation. In the Bolivarian Republic, political monetarism has been deployed both to conceal the negative supply shocks produced by investment strikes and to articulate a crisis to which neoliberal prescriptions can be applied.
This paper builds on the Marxian critique of monetarism, arguing that political monetarism is important to neoliberalism because it is constructed using reification and commodity fetishism. Political monetarism re-inserts capital, especially finance capital, into the production process, placing it on equal footing with labour as a component of output. By focusing solely on the stabilisation of the token that represents congealed labour-time, theorists are able to distract from the exclusive role that labour plays in producing surplus value and obscure the possibility of socialising the means of production in the face of capitalist intransigence (Mann 2013; Chari 2010). This tactic has been repeatedly used in Venezuela over the past decade. Neoliberal advocates like the IMF have casually relied on reification to discredit oil rent nationalisation and press investor claims against price and capital controls.
The unique historical conditions that have given rise to neoliberal tactics in Venezuela are anticipated in Lukácsian Marxist scholarship. A number of Marxist intellectuals have raised the obstacle to class consciousness posed by commodity fetishism. Perhaps most comprehensively, Lukács has contemplated the role commodity fetishism as “a relation between persons acquiring a reified character..., which through its strict – and to all appearance completely closed and rational – autonomy, conceals every trace of its fundamental essence, i.e. as a relation between human beings” (1988: 170 in Dimoulis and Milios 2004: 6). Thus, Lukács uses the concept of reification to detail how the foundational capitalist cleavage between economics and political/ social life has been constructed in the human consciousness as a passive belief in the autonomy of commodities (Chari 2010: 289). However, whereas Lukács lamented the barriers posed by capitalist influences on human consciousness, the process in Venezuela is occurring in reverse. Re-asserting the purchase of reification is the primary strategy of neoliberals to the progressive socialisation of industry in Venezuela.
This inquiry leads to another question: what shape should left resistance to neoliberalism take? The recent political economic history of Venezuela has highlighted the practical importance of the labour theory of value to developing alternatives to capitalist production. A consequence of realising that surplus value is produced by workers alone is that capital (and world money flows) are not essential to national output. Acknowledging that surplus value is embodied solely in the application of labour-power has opened the possibility that Venezuelan workers might produce a surplus for themselves and their community so long as the means of production are a subsidiary of those two groups. Consequently, Venezuela has adopted a model of endogenous production and socialisation, making redundant investors who seek to appropriate surplus value by controlling the means of production. The possibility of economic sovereignty necessarily results from a class analysis of how surplus value is generated. Venezuela’s ‘socialism in the twenty-first century’ is counterposed with neoliberal arguments against the Bolivarian movement. Although the discussion is preliminary, it points toward the practical importance of contesting private ownership over production. It is only by appreciating applied labour-power as the sole source of surplus value that the irrelevance of international capital (and by association neoliberalism) truly comes into focus.
Political monetarism: a veil for ruling-class interests?
Political monetarist interventions in Venezuela’s political economic debates are designed to roll back to the gains made by labour since the late President Hugo Chávez came to power in 1998. Rising inflation in Venezuela has been frequently cited by neoliberal economists as a sign that the country’s socialist project is in disarray. Orthodox economists hypothesise that inflation is a sign of two major problems: the first is inappropriate price controls and government subsidies for basic staples.[5] It is reasoned that the government’s attempt to control the prices of household goods and essential services has created a disincentive for private industry to continue investing in production, thus creating widespread shortages and a black market for price-controlled goods. The second major problem cited by neoliberals is that use of oil rents to fund social programs as a sign that Venezuela has succumbed to the ‘Dutch disease’ (a variant of the ‘resource curse’). This means that the state’s structural dependency on oil rents has created capacity constraints in the economy that are now showing up in wage-fuelled inflation.
In reality, these claims are motivated by ruling class interests. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) calls for reductions in public spending, including de-coupling oil revenues from social programs, because nationalising oil rents has broken the strength of ruling class opposition to the central government and increased the living standards of low and middle-income Venezuelans. Monetarists call for an elimination of price controls and food subsidies, set up as emergency measures during the 2002/03 oil capital strike, because they want to eliminate competition from the state-run food distribution system. Orthodox economists call for the restoration of independent central banking with a strong mandate for low inflation because this would make the negative supply shocks produced by capital strikes more potent. The policy remedies proposed for high inflation would drive up the price of consumer staples, increase unemployment and undermine the gains made by labour, particularly since oil was nationalised in 2002. Ultimately, it is difficult to conceive of political monetarist interventions in Venezuela as anything more than an intellectual artifice beneath which the interests of the Bolivarian Republic’s privileged elite are advanced.
Oil nationalisation and the resource curse
In the period following Venezuela’s nationalisation of oil rents, the government has been assailed by the business community and their sympathisers in the neoliberal academy. Linking oil nationalisation with high inflation is political monetarists’ chief argument for dismantling the PVDSA’s social spending program. The neoliberal model achieves this connection by assuming that poor countries endowed with mineral resources are more likely to mismanage the rents from the sale of those assets. In short, it reifies the oil deposits to produce a tragic narrative of pre-determined failure.
The ‘resource curse’ hypothesis claims that countries with abundant reserves of natural resources are paradoxically prone to suffer from afflictions associated with poverty. Economic turbulence, corruption, autocracy and a skeletal infrastructure are the likely destiny of a country lucky enough to sit above great deposits of natural wealth. Dutch disease focuses specifically on the interplay between exchange rates and natural resource rents. The sale of mineral wealth, it is reasoned, drives up the price of local currency, tipping the scales in favour of cheap imports over expensive exports. In the long run, this weakens domestic production and undermines industrial diversity. Consequently, when commodity prices decline or reserves deplete, a country that has had an oil or mining boom, is left moribund, with unanticipated deficits and high barriers to securing export income (Hammond 2011: 350-351).
The neoliberal academy has attempted to portray Venezuela’s economy as afflicted by the resource curse and Dutch disease since the Chávez government nationalised oil rents in 2002. Christopher Whalen (2007: 58-59) has put this argument succinctly:
Economically speaking, other than oil, nothing else is happening … Though Venezuela has sharply increased public sector spending in the past several years, the private economy is in dire straits as the Chávez Government repeats old mistakes. The country’s overdependence on oil, the decline in energy prices and the operational problems at PVDSA … have put Venezuela in a vice between rising internal inflation and falling external revenues.
Neoliberals have linked Venezuela’s double-digit inflation rate to the presence of the resource curse. The logic of the monetarist approach to oil rents is fully articulated in a dedicated paper on the interaction between Venezuela’s fiscal and monetary policy by IMF staff writers Mercedes Da Costa and Victor Olivo (2008). The authors argue that the fiscal dominance
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, often at the cost of cricketing common sense. I always regret that the really shrewd cricketing brains in the game, like Imran Khan and Mark Taylor, have not chosen to coach. The game is definitely poorer because of that.
I can't understand the state of affairs in West Indies cricket, where Ottis Gibson, who has played only two Tests, and David Williams (11 Tests), are the coaches who help the captain plan and prepare tactics needed to win Tests. Robert Haynes (eight ODIs), Clyde Butts (seven Tests) and Courtney Browne (20 Tests) are the selectors, men in charge of the destiny of West Indies cricket. And guess who are travelling with the team but not playing roles as influential? Richie Richardson (86 Tests) and Desmond Haynes (116 Tests). I know great cricketers do not necessarily make great coaches and selectors, but the experience of having played the game at the highest level for so long should count for something, shouldn't it?
Cricketers who have had long and successful careers have one thing in common: they always simplified the game for themselves. Isn't that a basic characteristic you desperately need in mentors - the ability to simplify the game for the young and the naïve?
A natural bowling action or a natural batting style is a motion that has the blessing of the individual's body. Over the years the individual develops a certain style because it's what the body's frame is most comfortable with
On a visit to a state academy in India, I saw a junior coach getting all his young fast bowlers to run in to bowl with golf balls in their armpits. This was to get them to run in one prescribed, copybook way. The coach, perhaps, was too absorbed in his coaching manual to realise that the top 10 great fast bowlers all had different styles of running in.
Another cricket academy method of today I am not a big fan of is video analysis, and I am glad a few current stalwarts of the game have felt just as strongly about it when I have brought it up with them. It has become common these days to show a young kid video evidence of where he is going wrong. Seems like a sound concept, but the problem is that any video evidence tends to exaggerate the flaw. There is a great danger of a sensitive, eager young mind getting affected by it and being consumed by the need to rid himself of the flaw, in turn, affecting the areas of his game that are fine.
I shudder to imagine what would have happened to 14-year-old Brian Lara had he been shown a video of how high his back-lift was. A 12-year-old Tendulkar shown a close-up of how his grip was wrong; a freeze-frame of Sehwag's still feet at the time of receiving a delivery. Or a young Kapil shown his extremely side-on bowling action and told how it would surely destroy his lower back in the future unless he changed his bowling action.
Thank god these incredible talents were mostly left alone by their junior coaches. For that the cricketing world shall be ever grateful to them. Let me also add that these players were very smart and would quickly have found the exit door of any academy that tried to make them to change their basic game. But not all young talents are as sharp.
When I watched Aaron the first time I saw so many things to like about him, like the obvious pace and the wrist position every time he delivered the ball, but his bowling action and run-up looked a little manufactured - as if somebody had got hold of him early and put golf balls in his armpits.
A natural bowling action or a natural batting style is a motion that has the blessing of the individual's body. Over the years the individual develops a certain style because it is what the body's frame is most comfortable with. If an unnatural movement is introduced, the body will eventually get somewhat used to it, but reluctantly, so it should come as no surprise when one day it starts to protest.
Coaches have to be mindful of this, and think a thousand times, if not a million, before they decide to change a player's natural style.
Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar is a cricket commentator and presenter on TV. His Twitter feed is here
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.When John Picone, in his mid-sixties, treats his three daughters to their annual pre-Christmas jewellery shopping trip, plain white diamonds no longer dazzle them.
Most valuable The highest price paid for a pink diamond at auction was for a 24.78 carat Fancy Intense Pink. Known as The Graff Pink, it fetched $46.2m when sold by Sotheby’s in Geneva in 2010.
Over the years, the retired construction business owner from Long Island, New York, has been polishing an interest in rare coloured diamonds, particularly pinks, which can, on average, hold up to 20 times the value of a white diamond.
“We look at white diamonds as being very ordinary now and there’s so many of them around,” Picone said.
In the Manhattan showroom of JFINE, a boutique diamond firm in New York specialising in rare fancy coloured diamonds, Picone looks on fondly as his 30-something daughters consult with designers. One daughter selects a shark’s mouth pendant design in yellow gold, then picks out diamonds of different colours to insert as the teeth.
As well as spending around $1m on rings, bracelets and necklaces for his wife and daughters over a period of years, Picone has paid out a similar amount for loose stones. In buying and selling pinks, reds (the most valuable type of pink diamond), blues and greens, he reckons he’s seen an average return of 40% to 50%, usually over one to three years.
The hunt for pink
Only one in 10,000 diamonds mined has a trace of colour. Of these, a very small percentage are pinks. Unlike other coloured diamonds, such as blues and yellows, which take their hue from chemical impurities that absorb light, scientists are not yet certain about what makes pink diamonds pink. The current theory is that their colour comes from the effect of severe underground pressure altering the molecular structure of the stones.
And, not all coloured diamonds are rare. For instance brown diamonds, now marketed as “chocolate diamonds” in shades of champagne, latte and cognac, are the most common type of coloured diamond and have been widely employed for industrial use.
Historically, pink diamonds have come from India, South Africa, Brazil and Indonesia. But today 90% of the world’s supply comes from Rio Tinto’s Argyle Pink Diamonds mine in Perth, western Australia — a mine that started production in 1983 and is set to close in 2020.
While the biggest volume goes to Japan, where the tiniest accent of pink is symbolic of perfect love, the largest market in terms of value is the US, said Josephine Johnson, manager of Argyle Pink Diamonds. Buyers in India are also taking an interest in them, while in China, deep-hued pinks, classed as reds, are popular because the colour is associated with good fortune, she said. Over the past decade, Argyle pink diamonds have delivered 15% to 17% appreciation per year, she said. While you can acquire a 0.02 carat stone for around $250, the costliest change hands for millions of dollars.
What to look for
White diamonds are judged mainly on what are known as the four Cs: colour, clarity, cut and carat weight. The first three characteristics are each classified in a grading system with a flawless colourless ‘D’ stone with excellent cut being the finest. With pink diamonds, however, colour outweighs every other factor. Ranging in hue from light champagne and cherry blossom shades to purplish and deep reds, it is the strongest and darkest shades that are most sought after. “The greater the saturation of colour, the greater the value,” Johnson said.
From light champagne and cherry blossom shades to purplish and deep reds, it is the strongest and darkest shades that are most sought after.
“Pinks come in what I call a whole variety of different flavours,” said Jordan Fine of JFINE who is also president of the Natural Color Diamond Association. “It’s important to pick a colour that inspires and motivates you. Don’t just look at one stone. Look at what flavour speaks to you.”
When it comes to budget, the decision is often between depth of colour and size, he said. “Do you want a larger stone with less colour or a smaller stone with more colour?”
As well as the strength of the colour, other aspects such as hue, intensity and brightness all play a part in determining value, he added.
Provenance is also important, with a clear chain of custody commanding a premium, especially given concerns about the so-called “blood” diamond trade, whereby their sale is used to fund civil war and also human rights abuses in countries such as Angola and the Central African Republic. If in doubt about where a stone has been sourced, ask the seller for a human rights due diligence report.
With Argyle Pink diamonds, “we track all the way from the mine through to the end,” said Johnson. “The rough comes to us, we polish it in-house and laser-inscribe it on the girdle with a unique identification number which you need a loupe to see.” The mine issues a certificate for each diamond so that buyers can always check that a stone matches the description in the document, she added.
What it’s worth
At JFINE in New York, you can pick up a 0.03 carat Argyle pink diamond ringed with white diamonds on a snowflake necklace for $3,000, or shell out more than $2m for the ultimate vivid pink diamond.
The nature of how pink diamonds are mined means that large carat stones are the rarest of the rare and are beginning to fetch the same stratospheric prices as fine art masterpieces.
In almost 250 years, for instance, only four pure vivid pink diamonds of more than 10 carats have appeared at auction.
In almost 250 years, for instance, only four pure vivid pink diamonds of more than 10 carats have appeared at auction. The latest is a 16.08 carat cushion-shaped stone that fetched just more than $28.5m at Christie’s Magnificent Jewels sale in Geneva on November 10
“This is the Mona Lisa of diamonds, a super-rarity,” said Rahul Kadakia, Christie’s international head of jewellery. What makes it so exceptional is that whilst most pink diamonds have a colour modifier such as purple, orange or brown, this particular stone has no trace of a secondary colour, he explained. Offered for sale as the PINK, it was immediately renamed The Sweet Josephine by Joseph Lau, the Hong Kong property billionaire who acquired it.
Two days later, Lau also put in the winning $48.4m bid for a cushion-shaped 12.03 carat fancy vivid internally flawless blue diamond which he renamed Blue Moon of Josephine. The stone was sold by Sotheby’s in Geneva, which declared the sale a new world auction record for any diamond of any colour.
Where to buy it
Pink diamonds are on offer at well-known jewellery houses such as Graff and Tiffany & Co, and online at luxury retailers such as 1stdibs.com. Argyle Pink Diamonds also works directly with around 30 jewellery ateliers worldwide, a list of which can be consulted at Argyle Pink Diamonds.
Each year, around 200 collectors and traders are also invited to buy the finest stones directly from the mine by sealed bid. This year’s sale of 65 diamonds totalling 44 carats featured the Argyle Prima, a 1.20 carat pear-shaped fancy red.
How to look after your sparklers
It’s not so much care that diamonds need, as security. “Diamonds are one of the hardest materials we have. All that will cut a diamond is a laser or another diamond,” said Fine. “They’re very resilient. The key thing is safety, which means security and insurance.”
If you have a vault or a safe, use it. And make sure you have photographs and documentation. “The fact that Argyle stones have a lot number and accompanying certificate is very useful for insurance companies,” Fine said.
You take a large chance but the rewards can be tremendous.
As far as the safety of pink diamonds as an investment is concerned, Kadakia is brimming with confidence. “With the way the coloured diamond trend has been going the price will only go up between now and the next ten years. It’s a very secure, very portable investment,” he said.
A word to the wise
Be that as it may, this is a sophisticated market to be approached with caution. Picone, who buys and sells individual stones, said, “When you’re dealing with something this expensive my advice is to start slow. Buying the raw stone and being able to forecast its value is very complicated. There are very few experts who really know what they’re doing. You’ve got to find one and put your trust in them.
“When you resell, to find the right person who wants to buy such an expensive stone can take three years.”
Picone speaks from experience. His interest in diamond collecting began about 15 years ago when he was first bedazzled by coloured diamonds. He started by buying jewellery for his wife and investing in loose stones for himself. Then eight years ago, after his daughters had graduated from university and embarked on their careers, he started the family tradition of yuletide jewellery shopping.
Meanwhile, he continued investing in loose stones. On two occasions he bought pinkish-red stones and took the risk of having them recut with the aim of having them reclassified as reds. In each case, the cuts were successful. “We lost weight, but by making that change to red the stone can double to quadruple in value,” he said. “You take a large chance but the rewards can be tremendous.”
To comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Capital, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.Vatican City – (TFC) In his annual address marking the beginning of the Catholic holy season of Lent, His Holiness Pope Francis, leader of the Roman Catholic Church, came out strongly against greed and incited the powerful to care for the poor.
Pope Francis has made strong statements in the past regarding the responsibility of the political and economic elite to address the problem of global poverty, saying in an address to the United States congress last year, “If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance.”
In the new Lenten address to members of the Catholic faith released 26 January, the pontiff expands on these themes. Chastising the powerful, Pope Francis writes
The real poor are revealed as those who refuse to see themselves as such. They consider themselves rich, but they are actually the poorest of the poor. This is because they are slaves to sin, which leads them to use wealth and power not for the service of God and others, but to stifle within their hearts the profound sense that they too are only poor beggars. The greater their power and wealth, the more this blindness and deception can grow… This illusion can also be seen in the sinful structures linked to a model of false development based on the idolatry of money, which leads to lack of concern for the fate of the poor on the part of wealthier individuals and societies; they close their doors, refusing even to see the poor.
He uses even stronger language elsewhere, warning that those among the powerful who refuse to help the poor “will end up condemning themselves and plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude which is hell.”
Such strong statements are rarely known in previous Papal Lenten addresses. However, the focus on power spiritual and temporal works and concern for the poor is in line with Catholic dogma, namely that “salvation” cannot be attained through faith alone, but also through good works.
The Roman Catholic Church, an organization serving roughly 1.2 billion Catholics throughout the world, has been widely criticized over its handling of a scandal involving pedophilia and child sexual assault among its priests. The Church has also long been accused of corruption, from it’s massive political influence in European politics for centuries and the selling of indulgences that led to the Protestant Revolution, to the allegations that it helped aid fascism and the Third Reich during the Second World War. The current pontiff, formerly known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, seems to be attempting to steer the Church back in the direction of public service, moral authority, and aid for the poor. This comes at a time when wealth inequality is reaching critical levels throughout the world, and the current Bishop of Rome seems to be making this his banner issue.
The full Lenten address can be read here.KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Major League Soccer announced 10 players on the inactive roster for the 2013 AT&T MLS All-Star Game on Wednesday, including three players from the upstart Portland Timbers and one of the driving forces behind Real Salt Lake.
The Portland trio of goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts and midfielders Diego Valeri (above) and Rodney Wallace highlight the group, which also includes midfielder Javier Morales, who’s been a key to RSL's run to the top of the table at the midway point of the season.
The list also includes Houston Dynamo goalkeeper Tally Hall, New York Red Bulls defender Jámison Olave, FC Dallas defender George John, Seattle Sounders midfielder Osvaldo Alonso, LA Galaxy midfielder Juninho and Montreal Impact midfielder Justin Mapp.
Per the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement, MLS names 32 All-Stars annually. The inactive roster is determined by a player vote.
LA Galaxy forward Robbie Keane and New York Red Bulls midfielder Tim Cahill were both named to the All-Star roster ahead of Wednesday night’s game against AS Roma (9 pm ET; ESPN2; UniMas; TSN/RDS; Live Chat on MLSsoccer.com), but both are on the inactive roster with injuries.Selena Gomez’s singles usually sound a bit out-of-time, mining plaintive pop melodies in the Britney/teen-pop idol tradition over lithe but unassuming instrumentals, instead of turning to herky-jerky, trap-ified flows or other forms of musical mask-play. Restraint has always been operative in her music, and that luxury is afforded to her by the team of industry people she surrounds herself with, who help her craft semi-muted pop records, with a limited margin for outright error. Gomez has had 7 top 40 singles since 2013, three of them from last year; she’s still learning how to make her cautiousness her deadliest weapon.
If “Bad Liar,” her first new solo single in a year, is tied to any pre-existing sound in recent pop music, it is the spare, fragile, witty-playful architecture of “Royals.” It is almost as if, just as Lorde is adopting Antonoff-ian walls of sound and abandoning her old dynamic range to appeal to the dance floor, Gomez has stepped in to mine the New Zealand pop star’s old appeal. But, really, “Bad Liar” has its own lustre; it’s too intimate and jam-packed a musical event to give anyone space or time to consider the arithmetic that led to it. It boils over with joy and irreverence to match its lyrics; tongue-twisting lines like “If you want you can rent that place/Call me an amenity/Even if it’s in my dreams” become musical butterflies in her stomach.
Gomez’s voice sounds controlled and pristine in the mix; the producers have limited and contained it, rather than beefing it up with an excess of reverb and alien pitch contouring. It’s exactly in the right space on the record to make feel you’re listening to her across the table at a coffee shop. The technique here is almost the inverse of the approach on Gomez’s big radio hit of the moment, the Kygo collaboration “It Ain’t Me.” That song, just like the Bob Dylan song it shares its anchoring phrase with, is based around an acoustic guitar and aims to create the illusion of intimacy at first, before becoming dizzyingly busy, building Selena’s voice into a choir and then rending it into weird slivers. On “Bad Liar,” on the other hand, everything is cleared out of the way in the production so that she can go into conversational, syllable-crammed detail without the record going top-heavy. –Winston Cook-WilsonOklahoma Army National Guardsmen from 1st Squadron, 180th Cavalry Regiment, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team conduct pre-mobilization training at Camp Gruber Training Center, Okla., Oct. 16, 2017, in preparation for a deployment to Afghanistan.
The U.S. has deployed about 3,000 more troops to Afghanistan to help train and advise local forces, the military said Thursday.
In August, shortly after President Donald Trump authorized the buildup as part of a new strategy for America’s longest war, the military said about 11,000 troops were in Afghanistan — thousands more than had been officially disclosed before that.
The “new number” is about 14,000, said Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, director of the Joint Staff, speaking to Pentagon reporters.
“We’ve just completed a force flow into Afghanistan,” he said. “Might be a little above that, might be a little below that as we flex according to the mission.”
Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, had lobbied for the additional forces, saying they were necessary to help train and advise local forces struggling to quash the resurgent Taliban and terrorist groups, including an Islamic State offshoot that has gained a foothold since most international combat forces left in 2014.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said the alliance will also help meet Nicholson’s requirement to bring the overall number of NATO troops from 13,000 to around 16,000.
At the height of the war during Barack Obama’s presidency, U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan numbered about 140,000 troops.
Obama had set timelines for the drawdown of those forces, intending to complete a full withdrawal by the time he left office. By Trump’s inauguration, Obama had reduced the official force limit to about 8,400.
Besides boosting troop numbers, Trump’s plan did away with withdrawal deadlines, leaving the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan open-ended. The president also vowed a more aggressive fight, promising the military would not forecast its plans for troop levels or future operations.
“Conditions on the ground — not arbitrary timetables — will guide our strategy from now on,” Trump said in August. “America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out. I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will.”
McKenzie said the U.S. also has nearly 5,300 troops in Iraq and about 500 in Syria helping battle ISIS.
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Twitter: @chadgarlandGetting GPS location and transmit over 3G/EDGE/GSM with Arduino
SIMCOM makes a good value SIM5218 chipset for under $100 that allows you to get GPS coordinates using GPRS, connect to a 3G/EDGE/GSM network, record audio and capture video.
It uses AT commands to communicate with the internal systems. AT commands or the Hayes command set is a command language first used for low baud modems in 1981, today it's the standard for modems and network control chipsets and alot of the more modern communications programming command sets are based on this original set of commands.
I used an Arduino to communicate with the SIM5218, here is the serial command function I used to communicate, it's based on a Cooking Hacks serial communication set. The complete sourcecode is at the botton of this article.
On a Raspberry Pi you can easily pipe trough your serial commands straight from the command line using minicom (install using command: sudo apt-get install minicom ), note that the chipset is using 115200 BPS and that you need to ls /dev/ to see what the exact USB serial name is for the chip.
minicom -b 115200 -o -D /dev/tty0
First off lets start by checking if the chip is responding
Let's wait untill we get an OK back
Next insert our 3G simcard PIN code
Delay for about 3 seconds to make sure our PIN is unlocked
Connect to our carrier network using AT+CREG
Connect to our carrier 3G/EDGE/GSM APN (access point) using a provided URL and username/password, we used Mobile Vikings that provide web.be as APN address and web/web as user/pass
Next we setup our AGPS server, Google generously provides us one at supl.google.com:7276
Finally we put the chipset in A-GPS mode and turn it on. The first digit = on/off and the second digit is the GPS mode, 1 = S-GPS (standalon GPS), 2 = A-GPS (assisted GPS). Standalone GPS works without a carrier or network but it much slower and less accurate indoors. Assisted GPS uses a combination of network towers and GPS calculation servers to give faster results.
We then try to get our GPS location, you need to repeat the process untill you get a valid response
Finally we can send our data using the 3G/EDGE network to a remote server using this command:
This opens a connection with your target server and we can then pipe trough a GET request (with extra parameters) using serial. More info on the HTTP 1.1 header request can be found on the W3 site, section 5
The full Source Code for this project can be found on Github: https://github.com/recyclerobot/nerdlab_gps_deviceIn 2011 something strange happened on Facebook. People were made aware of the hundreds of unnerving messages that were posted by a Canadian woman named Karin Catherine Waldegrave. Her messages read like the ramblings of a deranged conspiracy theory kook, however it wasn’t what she said that unnerved many. It was the fact that she was having a conversation with her own self. Five hundred to seven hundred cryptic replies within a twelve hour period. Soon after the messages stopped and were removed. And with it went Karin’s Facebook account. Leaving behind questions and the mystery of what happened to Karin Catherine Waldegrave.
According to her Facebook profile, Karin Catherine Waldegrave was born in London and studied at the University of Toronto, Canada. Earning herself a Ph.D. during her time there. According to her profile she is well traveled and speaks several different languages including French, Estonian, Latvian, English, Russian, Gallic, Latin, and German. Proof of this was often times seen in her multi language replies to herself. However most of her posts were in English and read like chopped sentences from random texts.
This is an example of one of Karin’s seemingly normal post. Notice the 38 comments on her post.
When other strange ramblings started to appear, things really started to get weird.
There is a clear distinction between the coherent and incoherent posts made only a day apart by Karin or whoever was responsible for creating the account. It is because of this “switch” in text that many online users began to question the woman’s sanity. The word schizophrenic appeared alongside the link to her Facebook profile in many online forums. Soon, more posts were uncovered and shared amongst many.
In her profile, there were only a handful of personal images Karin uploaded. Strangely enough, they all displayed signs of film damage.
January 4 at 11:08pm Karin Catherine Waldegrave Has stalked me with her network of disgusting people for 25 years: Christina Prozes, Director of Operations Ontario Federal Council at Human Resources and Social Development Canada, North York, ON! A Nazi German in my opinion.
Karin then begins to mention the FBI and CIA on her posts, talking about being controlled and monitored by them, the men in black. She mentions the illegal and perverse doings of the “Elite” and how she knows several international criminal networks. This of course sparks theories of her possible involvement in the infamous government project, MKUltra. However the more you read into her posts, it becomes more and more apparent that none of it makes any sense.
February 14 at 11:41am
Karin Catherine WALDEGRAVE Also, the organized criminal pervert network which constructed our upscale condominium building in 1997 is advised to stop peeping tommery in it and activist social programming while harassing homeowners in a variety of ways including maste r key type entry in absentia and aggressive impertinent socialite curiosity. Selling retired entrepreneurial couples, war veterans, and young married couples with toddler age children and without (also considering other residents such as young professionals such as accountants as renters in the building) $2.5 Million worth of real estate (us for example – we are married and have been spouses for 8 years in a long marriage, a second long and faithful marriage for both of us – lifelong home owners in Canada both with the exception of 1947 – 1952), continuing peeping over the years and other home invading behaviour by frequent knocks on the door
At times there are paragraphs after paragraphs of this nonsensical text, all posted within a minute of each other. Which then brings up the question of this being done via some clever programming. A script or API that connects to Facebook and is testing automated posts. Sounds possible right? I would subscribe to that theory if it wasn’t for the fact that throughout the garbage of text, there does appear to be some form of structure to her messages and conversations. A hidden message. Which leads me to this:
Could Karin Catherine Waldegrave’s Facebook account have been a modern spy communication log? Some sort of social networking Number Station that can only be deciphered by traveling spies? Or was she an extremely intelligent person who snapped and began an online diary of her mental demise?
Whatever you may think, one thing is for sure; the internet has never heard from Karin Catherine Waldegrave since.The following interview comes from Courtney Howard:
Actor B.D. Wong has played an assistant to a flamboyant wedding planner (Father of The Bride), a mobster (Mystery Date), and, for eleven years, a psychologist (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit). He also won many awards, including a Tony, for his breakout role in the play M. Butterfly. Now, with director Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World, he’s slipping back into the lab coat of a character he originated twenty-two years ago in director Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park. Dr. Henry Wu has returned – and he’s created bigger, badder, bolder dinosaurs this time around.
At the film’s recent press tour, we spoke with Wong over the phone about everything from being the only character in the franchise to return, to the level of secrecy around the film, to how to nail tongue-twisting dialogue perfectly. Read the BD Wong Jurassic World interview after the jump.
BD Wong Jurassic World Interview
How was it putting on Dr. Wu’s lab coat again? And what was it like being the only cast member from the original to return?
It feels great. It’s an aspect of being in the movies that rarely ever happens. I think it’s really fun for me. Not only for me to be playing the same character, but also for it to be so long. I really have a great respect and admiration for Colin. Colin made me feel great about it and welcomed me back into it; that made me feel good. I guess part of it is that I felt a little left out of the first one. This was a really sweet return to putting some finishing touches on a character that felt to me rather slim.
You have that really phenomenal scene with Irrfan Khan which made me wonder if you think your character is a “villain” or if he, as a doctor, got too wrapped up in playing God. Was he maybe buying into the company’s rhetoric?
That’s interesting, right? When you are playing a guy like this and you’re using your body to embody that, you owe it to yourself to understand it as well as you can. I think he makes perfect sense to me. I think he’s a guy who is doing such amazing things. You can call it “playing God,” but I don’t call it that at all. I think he believes so strongly in what he’s doing. He’s saying, “The world is changing and we’re the ones changing it!” Who would not want to be in that position, or continue to push forward all the things he’s pushing forward regardless of the consequences? The fact is whatever that’s happening that’s terrible, he’s easily able to justify it. There is an element of denial there, because human life to a doctor is a precious thing that you should put first and foremost above all other things, but he does also see “I gotta get the credit I deserve for this unbelievable thing that I’ve done.” This is the downfall of a lot of people with great accomplishments. If we throw our fellow human under the bus for something we think is great, that’s terrible. It’s also easy for me to understand how he does it. What he’s doing is so unique that of course he’s going to feel that way. I had no problem reaching for that.
How secretive were they when they gave you the script? Did they just give you the pages of your scenes, or did you get to read the whole script?
Actually it was very similar to the first movie – in a way that I’ve never experienced on any other movie. They were very secretive of the script. In both occasions – I’m not sure if they knew this about each other – I had to drive to the production offices, sit in the office, read the script in a closed room, and give the script back. There’s nothing negative about it at all – that’s how they do it. In both movies there was this sense of security. At that point, I know everything. It’s all in my head. I’ve crossed over to the other side where I know everything about what’s going on. For the very first part of pre-production, the movie had a different title so people wouldn’t know. For the whole production I was there it was called Ebb Tide. That was on all of our badges. You feel like you’re in some kind of wonderful club when you’re doing something like that.
You must have felt intense pressure to keep quiet.
Yeah, that’s right! You know, I’m trying to not get all bent out of shape about something. I’m going, “C’mon, you guys! This is just a movie. Why are we being so dramatic about all this?” But when you and I are talking, you do understand. The success of the storytellers – we’re only as good as what we can withhold from the audience. Aspects of surprise and letting things play out for the audience; it’s so much a part of their enjoyment. It’s one of the great things about working in the movies and being a great storyteller.
You say some pretty science-based lingo in this film. I’m constantly curious as to the actor’s process in getting the pronunciation right. You’ve had some training from Law And Order: SVU when your character talks about mental disorders and such.
There are two secrets to it, and they’re really banal. I was on SVU for 11 years. I developed a muscle in my brain that could memorize things much more easily than people who don’t do it every day. I got used to the language, and some of it got to be repetitive language, so you build your vocabulary. I had a great head writer who was a doctor, who created the character I played to bring a medical perspective to that particular show. It was a very helpful tool to do what you’re saying – to say these things with a certain amount of conviction. The other thing that you do, and Colin will tell you this for sure in regards to me, is that you have to blow a lot of takes. You have to blow tons of film so you can get it to be perfect. They won’t use it if you aren’t letter perfect or on point or hesitating. In this movie, there’s no question I did that. To me it’s not as mysterious to you or others. It’s the kind of part that makes being an actor interesting – you say things you never say. If I played characters who were like me I’d be super bored. This is a good example of how un-boring my job can be.
JURASSIC WORLD opens on June 12.MPs have voted to allow the bill authorising the Prime Minister to trigger Article 50 to proceed to the next stage of the parliamentary process.
The House of Commons voted by 498 to 114 to give the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill its second reading, although the main opposition Labour Party suffered a heavily rebellion, with several MPs defying leader Jeremy Corbyn to vote against.
If the bill becomes law, it will authorise Prime Minister Theresa May to serve formal notice to the European Union that Britain intends to withdrawal, thus beginning the formal Brexit process.
The bill will now return to the House of Commons next week for the committee stage, where opposition MPs are likely to table several amendments.
When it finally clears the House of Commons, it will then go through a similar process in the House of Lords.
Theresa May hopes to invoke Article 50 when she meets EU leaders in Malta on 9 March, leaving a very tight timetable for the bill to make it through the overwhelming Remain-supporting Lords.
The government wants the upper chamber to have approved the bill by 7 March, but if the Lords decide the table amendments, the bill will have to return to the House of Commons for further debate.
On Monday, the Prime Minister strongly criticised those MPs who planned to vote against the bill, saying: “Parliament voted six to one to give the people the decision as to whether we should stay in the European Union, they have spoken in that vote.
“I hope when people look at the Article 50 bill they will recognise that it is a very simple decision – do they support the will of the British people or not.”BERLIN — A German Army lieutenant appears to have taken advantage of his country’s chaotic system of processing migrants in 2015 to pose as a Syrian asylum seeker with the intention of carrying out an attack, the authorities said on Thursday.
Prosecutors said the soldier, whose name was not released, was a 28-year-old German from the city of Offenbach, near Frankfurt, who was stationed with the army at the Illkirch base in France, near the German border.
He is suspected of planning a violent attack, weapons violations and fraud, prosecutors in Frankfurt said. They were not aware of any specific targets, said Nadja Niesen, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors.
The man first caught the attention of Austrian authorities in January, when he stashed a loaded pistol in a cleaning shaft in a restroom at Vienna International Airport. He was detained on Feb.
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also see some blue eyeshadows for her makeup choice. She still rocks her short blond hair.
And not it’s Karlie’s turn. She was spotted out an about in NY a day later. Kloss opted for a casual and simpler style.
Karlie rocked a pair of fitted blue jeans which she teamed with a sporty white T-Shirt. Probably the most classic of casual outfits out there.
Of course, she added some extra sparkle to it. Karlie rocked a pair of nude colored pumps. The shoes had pointed toes and thin stiletto heels which she handled with ease.
Karlie completed her look with a pink purse she carried with her. She opted for a no-makeup look and a pair of big leopard-print sunglasses. She also left her long blond hair loose for an extra casual and feminine look.
Karlie seemed in a good mood and smiled and waved to the paps. Her casual, but very elegant style easily earns her the win.Supervisor Bill looks around his department and fumes over how many single women have jobs when his own brother, who has a family to support, can't find work.
Supervisor John, still steaming over his divorce, is convinced that every woman is just as greedy as his ex-wife.
Supervisor Phil thinks any woman who doesn't wear much makeup isn't trying hard enough.
Supervisor Bob insists that a woman's sense of judgment fluctuates with her menstrual cycle.
Supervisor Mark believes that God created Adam first for a reason, and that no man should have to take orders from a woman.
In every instance, these male supervisors are wrong in their perceptions of women. If their beliefs in women's inferiority drive their managerial decisions in the workplace, they are breaking the law. That doesn't mean, however, that they won't get away with it.
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, against the 1.5 million women workers at Walmart who claimed -- in the largest civil rights class-action lawsuit in history -- that the company favored men over women in pay and promotions.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said the women did not have enough in common to be certified as a single class. What seemed to matter most to the all-male majority was that, even if the male supervisors did discriminate against women, each did it in his own way.
Let's hear it for creativity.
No one sums up the impact of this decision better than Slate's Dahlia Lithwick:
"Walmart, the nation's largest private employer, seems to have figured out that the key to low-cost discrimination lies in discriminating on a massive scale."
She adds: "A lot of critics are saying that this decision has created a new rule: Some companies are simply too big to sue. But that's only half the story. The other half is that in the court's eyes, sex discrimination is simply too pervasive to be a problem."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for all three women on the court and for Justice Stephen Breyer, zeroed in on the impact of corporate Walmart's hey-don't-blame-us policy of management:
"Women fill 70 percent of the hourly jobs in the retailer's stores but make up only 33 percent of management employees. The higher one looks in the organization, the lower the percentage of women.... [T]he salary gap widens over time even for men and women hired into the same jobs at the same time."
Ginsburg also made it clear that, in discrimination, innovation should not be rewarded.
"The very nature of discretion," she wrote, "is that people will exercise it in various ways."
Before you step foot in a Walmart store, consider these court pleadings from some of its women employees:
When Kim McLamb discovered that male employees made more than female employees working the same jobs, she complained to three different assistant managers. Each told her it was because the men "had families to support."
A store manager told Ramona Scott, "Men are here to make a career and women aren't. Retail is for housewives who just need to earn extra money."... This same store manager told her that if she wanted to get along with him, she would have to behave like his wife and frequently asked her to get coffee for him and other male managers.
Christine Kwapnoski's evaluations were outstanding and she received a number of merit raises over the years, but she was still denied a management job. The director of operations claimed she had "people issues" in that she was too direct and outspoken. Two weeks after she finally became an area manager, the general manager told her to "doll up" and "blow the cobwebs off her makeup."
Store manager Melissa Howard had to attend district meetings at a Hooters restaurant. On one occasion, two male members of management traveling with Howard insisted on stopping at numerous strip clubs. She didn't feel safe sitting by herself in the dark parking lot. She went into the club, where a stripper and a male district manager proposed she join them for a "threesome out back."
"Managers, like all humankind, may be prey to biases of which they are unaware," Justice Ginsburg wrote. "The risk of discrimination is heightened when those managers are predominantly of one sex, and are steeped in a corporate culture that perpetuates gender stereotypes."
Some managers are indeed unaware.
Sometimes they know exactly what they're doing, and they just don't care.About “Saint Pablo”
“Saint Pablo” addresses Kanye’s deepest thoughts and insecurities, namely the $53 million dollars of debt he mentioned before the release of The Life Of Pablo, Twitter controversies, and media speculation over his mental health.
The song premiered on February 23rd during Yo Gotti’s The Art of Hustle listening party at L.A.’s 1OAK a week after the release of The Life Of Pablo.
The song leaked online on March 31, 2016, and temporarily appeared on Apple Music further fueling the idea the song would get a full release.
It was officially added to The Life of Pablo as track 20 on June 15th, 2016, the same day Kanye announced the Saint Pablo Tour.
Producer Mike Dean confirmed that he produced the track along with Kanye on the KanyeToThe.com forum. Hip-hop fans will recognize the distinctive metallic clang sound sampled from Jay Z’s 1997 ”Where I’m From.“Two journalists have filed a law suit demanding to see what evidence the US intelligence and security services have to support the claim that Russia intervened in the 2016 American presidential elections.
© AFP 2018 / SAUL LOEB CIA Head Warns US Against Responding to Alleged Russian Hacking Using Similar Tactics
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Two journalists have filed a law suit demanding to see what evidence the US intelligence and security services have to support the claim that Russia intervened in the 2016 American presidential elections, court documents revealed.
"Defendants have failed to grant or even rule on plaintiffs’ request for expedited processing," the complaint from investigative reporter Jason Leopold and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) doctoral candidate Ryan Noah Shapiro said on Tuesday.
The two plaintiffs filed their lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security and the office of the Director of National Intelligence, the legal papers said.
On December 9, US media reported that the CIA allegedly concluded in a "secret" assessment that Russia had meddled in the November US presidential election and helped Republican candidate Donald Trump win.
Russian senior officials have repeatedly denied Washington’s claims of election-meddling, characterizing them as absurd and an attempt to distract the US public from pressing domestic issues.TRENT Cotchin has produced an outstanding captain's game to lead Richmond to a 19-point win over Collingwood at the MCG on Thursday night.
Cotchin had 26 possessions, kicked two goals and laid two crucial tackles in the last quarter as the Tigers won 14.15 (99) to 11.14 (80).
It is only the third time since 1995 that the Tigers have won their opening two games of the season.
The last time was 2013, when they returned to the finals.
Five talking points: Richmond v Collingwood
Collingwood only had itself to blame - for the second week in a row the Pies paid dearly for goalkicking inaccuracy.
It is the first time they have made a 0-2 start to the season since 2005 and in Nathan Buckley's time as coach.
This is a crucial season for both Buckley and Richmond coach Damien Hardwick.
As the Pies repeatedly blew scoring chances, Buckley hit the wall in frustration and anger.
Richmond star Dustin Martin was not as dominant as round one, but he kicked the last two goals of the match to seal the result.
Hardwick praises Cotchin's 'huge' last term
Collingwood ruckman Brodie Grundy also starred and, along with captain Scott Pendlebury, helped bring his team to within 10 points twice late in the game, but the Tigers held firm, kicking five goals to four in the last quarter.
Scores were level at quarter-time and, while Richmond looked better through the midfield, Collingwood's defence remained solid and, finally, the Magpies broke the deadlock.
Costly turnover - Hoskin-Elliott's clanger fell into the lap of Caddy and it was all Tigers from there #AFLTigersPies pic.twitter.com/cIEss61BvL — AFL (@AFL) March 30, 2017
They found key forward Darcy Moore by himself deep inside 50 and he goaled to give them back the lead.
Then Chris Mayne marked and goaled on the half-time siren and Collingwood had a handy 10-point advantage.
The Magpies extended their lead to 17 points early in the third term, but Richmond rallied as the game opened up.
Click here for full match details and stats
Well held by Tyson Goldsack through the first half, star Tigers forward Jack Riewoldt kicked two third-term goals.
Small forward Daniel Rioli also became more prominent as the Magpies kept blowing their chances.
The Tigers nearly tripled their score in the third quarter, kicking 6.3 to 3.4 and led by seven points at the last change.
Richmond ruck-forward Ben Griffiths was forced out of the game when he landed heavily in a third-term marking contest.
Hardwick later confirmed that Griffiths had suffered concussion.
The Tigers coach was pleased his team was able to grind out the scrappy win.
"We certainly won't be rushing to the video store to get that first half on tape," he said.
"The struggle between the two clubs was pretty high tonight and we were lucky to probably come out (winning) at the end of it, but we'll take a lot out of it."
Many Tigers had average nights, but Hardwick was particularly impressed that his team never relented.
"Everyone stood up at a certain stage... it's exciting for our fans to see that," he said.
"We have more players who are capable of doing that now, which is important."
Buckley was left lamenting Collingwood's inability to put more pressure on Richmond when his side had the lead.
"We had our struggles forward of the ball again - we held up OK... (but) we were never looking like we were on top of the ground or able to get much momentum," he said.
"We had a bit of a gap and then we let it go in the third quarter and got run over.
"Our ball use was not what we train... (and) we just didn't play with the dare that we'd like.
"It invited a really dour game."
Richmond's Shaun Grigg made the most of the controversial new rule banning the third man up in the ruck contest to gain a crucial free kick in the last quarter.
Grigg kicked a goal from the free and Buckley said the incident was costly.
Shaun Grigg converted the goal after being blocked in the ruck contest. #AFLTigersPies pic.twitter.com/bGOBXudN3Q — AFL (@AFL) March 30, 2017
MEDICAL ROOM
Richmond: Tall forward Ben Griffiths is the main concern for the Tigers after he suffered concussion in the third quarter, ending his night. Dustin Martin injured the right side of his face when bumping opponent James Aish in the first quarter, playing out the game with a black eye. The club checked him for facial injuries but let him play on and coach Damien Hardwick was not concerned about any serious damage.
Ben Griffiths was motionless for a while on Thursday night. Picture: AFL Photos
Collingwood: Tall forward Jesse White left the ground in the first quarter after injuring his right knee, placing ice on the kneecap in a short spell off the ground. He returned within 10 minutes, however, and played the match out. The Magpies had no other concerns.
NEXT UP
Richmond hosts West Coast at the MCG next Saturday and will be aiming to go 3-0 for the first time since 2013. Collingwood will be under pressure to find its first win in hostile territory, travelling to tackle Sydney on Friday night at the SCG, where they have played just twice since 2000.
RICHMOND 2.4 5.5 9.8 14.15 (99)
COLLINGWOOD 2.4 5.10 7.13 11.14 (80)
GOALS
Richmond: Riewoldt 2, Cotchin 2, Martin 2, Rioli, Lennon, Houli, Ellis, Edwards, Caddy, Butler, Grigg
Collingwood: Hoskin-Elliott 3, White 2, Treloar 2, Moore, Broomhead, Mayne, Grundy
BEST
Richmond: Cotchin, Rance, Grimes, Houli, Lennon, Martin, Nankervis
Collingwood: Grundy, Hoskin-Elliott, Pendlebury, Treloar, Adams
INJURIES
Richmond: Griffiths (head)
Collingwood: Nil
Reports: Nil
Umpires: DeBoy, Schmitt, Kamolins
Official crowd: 58,236 at the MCGBefore Google announced the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, it pushed a new app listing to the Play Store that offered some details about the rumored always-on music ID feature. It turns out there's another interesting tidbit in that listing: the Pixel 2 will be able to automatically toggle on Do Not Disturb mode when you're driving.
The listing in question is called Pixel Ambient Services, which is a nice, vague name. Two of the screens are related to the music feature, but one of them references DND mode. There's a "driving" settings screen as part of this services app. When you turn that on, Do Not Disturb will activate when you are driving (based on the phone's sensors).
The drawback with this feature is that it most likely can't actually tell if you are the one driving. The sensor input from the phone will look the same if you're a passenger as if you're behind the wheel. It's also supposed to use Bluetooth to determine if you're in the car, so perhaps you'll also need to be connected to the car for this feature to trigger. There will be a toggle, so at least you can turn it off should this feature not work the way you want. We'll be able to test this and see how accurate it is when the Pixel 2 is available.The nebular hypothesis is the most widely accepted model in the field of cosmogony to explain the formation and evolution of the Solar System (as well as other planetary systems). It suggests that the Solar System is formed from the nebulous material. The theory was developed by Immanuel Kant and published in his Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels ("Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens"), published in 1755. Originally applied to the Solar System, the process of planetary system formation is now thought to be at work throughout the Universe.[1] The widely accepted modern variant of the nebular hypothesis is the solar nebular disk model (SNDM) or solar nebular model.[2] It offered explanations for a variety of properties of the Solar System, including the nearly circular and coplanar orbits of the planets, and their motion in the same direction as the Sun's rotation. Some elements of the original nebular hypothesis are echoed in modern theories of planetary formation, but most elements have been superseded.
According to the nebular hypothesis, stars form in massive and dense clouds of molecular hydrogen—giant molecular clouds (GMC). These clouds are gravitationally unstable, and matter coalesces within them to smaller denser clumps, which then rotate, collapse, and form stars. Star formation is a complex process, which always produces a gaseous protoplanetary disk, proplyd, around the young star. This may give birth to planets in certain circumstances, which are not well known. Thus the formation of planetary systems is thought to be a natural result of star formation. A Sun-like star usually takes approximately 1 million years to form, with the protoplanetary disk evolving into a planetary system over the next 10–100 million years.[1]
The protoplanetary disk is an accretion disk that feeds the central star. Initially very hot, the disk later cools in what is known as the T Tauri star stage; here, formation of small dust grains made of rocks and ice is possible. The grains eventually may coagulate into kilometer-sized planetesimals. If the disk is massive enough, the runaway accretions begin, resulting in the rapid—100,000 to 300,000 years—formation of Moon- to Mars-sized planetary embryos. Near the star, the planetary embryos go through a stage of violent mergers, producing a few terrestrial planets. The last stage takes approximately 100 million to a billion years.[1]
The formation of giant planets is a more complicated process. It is thought to occur beyond the frost line, where planetary embryos mainly are made of various types of ice. As a result, they are several times more massive than in the inner part of the protoplanetary disk. What follows after the embryo formation is not completely clear. Some embryos appear to continue to grow and eventually reach 5–10 Earth masses—the threshold value, which is necessary to begin accretion of the hydrogen–helium gas from the disk.[3] The accumulation of gas by the core is initially a slow process, which continues for several million years, but after the forming protoplanet reaches about 30 Earth masses ( M ⊕ ) it accelerates and proceeds in a runaway manner. Jupiter- and Saturn-like planets are thought to accumulate the bulk of their mass during only 10,000 years. The accretion stops when the gas is exhausted. The formed planets can migrate over long distances during or after their formation. Ice giants such as Uranus and Neptune are thought to be failed cores, which formed too late when the disk had almost disappeared.[1]
History [ edit ]
There is evidence that Emanuel Swedenborg first proposed parts of the nebular hypothesis in 1734.[4][5] Immanuel Kant, familiar with Swedenborg's work, developed the theory further in 1755, publishing his own Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, wherein he argued that gaseous clouds (nebulae) slowly rotate, gradually collapse and flatten due to gravity, eventually forming stars and planets.[2]
Pierre-Simon Laplace independently developed and proposed a similar model in 1796[2] in his Exposition du systeme du monde. He envisioned that the Sun originally had an extended hot atmosphere throughout the volume of the Solar System. His theory featured a contracting and cooling protosolar cloud—the protosolar nebula. As this cooled and contracted, it flattened and spun more rapidly, throwing off (or shedding) a series of gaseous rings of material; and according to him, the planets condensed from this material. His model was similar to Kant's, except more detailed and on a smaller scale.[2] While the Laplacian nebular model dominated in the 19th century, it encountered a number of difficulties. The main problem involved angular momentum distribution between the Sun and planets. The planets have 99% of the angular momentum, and this fact could not be explained by the nebular model.[2] As a result, astronomers largely abandoned this theory of planet formation at the beginning of the 20th century.
A major critique came during the 19th century from James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), who maintained that different rotation between the inner and outer parts of a ring could not allow condensation of material.[6] Astronomer Sir David Brewster also rejected Laplace, writing in 1876 that "those who believe in the Nebular Theory consider it as certain that our Earth derived its solid matter and its atmosphere from a ring thrown from the Solar atmosphere, which afterwards contracted into a solid terraqueous sphere, from which the Moon was thrown off by the same process". He argued that under such view, "the Moon must necessarily have carried off water and air from the watery and aerial parts of the Earth and must have an atmosphere".[7] Brewster claimed that Sir Isaac Newton's religious beliefs had previously considered nebular ideas as tending to atheism, and quoted him as saying that "the growth of new systems out of old ones, without the mediation of a Divine power, seemed to him apparently absurd".[8]
The perceived deficiencies of the Laplacian model stimulated scientists to find a replacement for it. During the 20th century many theories addressed the issue, including the planetesimal theory of Thomas Chamberlin and Forest Moulton (1901), the tidal model of James Jeans (1917), the accretion model of Otto Schmidt (1944), the protoplanet theory of William McCrea (1960) and finally the capture theory of Michael Woolfson.[2] In 1978 Andrew Prentice resurrected the initial Laplacian ideas about planet formation and developed the modern Laplacian theory.[2] None of these attempts proved completely successful, and many of the proposed theories were descriptive.
The birth of the modern widely accepted theory of planetary formation—the solar nebular disk model (SNDM)—can be traced to the Soviet astronomer Victor Safronov.[9] His 1969 book Evolution of the protoplanetary cloud and formation of the Earth and the planets,[10] which was translated to English in 1972, had a long-lasting effect on the way scientists think about the formation of the planets.[11] In this book almost all major problems of the planetary formation process were formulated and some of them solved. Safronov's ideas were further developed in the works of George Wetherill, who discovered runaway accretion.[2] While originally applied only to the Solar System, the SNDM was subsequently thought by theorists to be at work throughout the Universe; as of 1 February 2019 astronomers have discovered 3,976 extrasolar planets in our galaxy.[12]
Solar nebular model: achievements and problems [ edit ]
Achievements [ edit ]
[13] Dusty discs surrounding nearby young stars in greater detail.
The star formation process naturally results in the appearance of accretion disks around young stellar objects.[14] At the age of about 1 million years, 100% of stars may have such disks.[15] This conclusion is supported by the discovery of the gaseous and dusty disks around protostars and T Tauri stars as well as by theoretical considerations.[16] Observations of these disks show that the dust grains inside them grow in size on short (thousand-year) time scales, producing 1 centimeter sized particles.[17]
The accretion process, by which 1 km planetesimals grow into 1,000 km sized bodies, is well understood now.[18] This process develops inside any disk where the number density of planetesimals is sufficiently high, and proceeds in a runaway manner. Growth later slows and continues as oligarchic accretion. The end result is formation of planetary embryos of varying sizes, which depend on the distance from the star.[18] Various simulations have demonstrated that the merger of embryos in the inner part of the protoplanetary disk leads to the formation of a few Earth-sized bodies. Thus the origin of terrestrial planets is now considered to be an almost solved problem.[19]
Current issues [ edit ]
The physics of accretion disks encounters some problems.[20] The most important one is how the material, which is accreted by the protostar, loses its angular momentum. One possible explanation suggested by Hannes Alfvén was that angular momentum was shed by the solar wind during its T Tauri star phase. The momentum is transported to the outer parts of the disk by viscous stresses.[21] Viscosity is generated by macroscopic turbulence, but the precise mechanism that produces this turbulence is not well understood. Another possible process for shedding angular momentum is magnetic braking, where the spin of the star is transferred into the surrounding disk via that star's magnetic field.[22] The main processes responsible for the disappearance of the gas in disks are viscous diffusion and photo-evaporation.[23][24]
[25] Multiple star system AS 205.
The formation of planetesimals is the biggest unsolved problem in the nebular disk model. How 1 cm sized particles coalesce into 1 km planetesimals is a mystery. This mechanism appears to be the key to the question as to why some stars have planets, while others have nothing around them, not even dust belts.[26]
The formation timescale of giant planets is also an important problem. Old theories were unable to explain how their cores could form fast enough to accumulate significant amounts of gas from the quickly disappearing protoplanetary disk.[18][27] The mean lifetime of the disks, which is less than ten million (107) years, appeared to be shorter than the time necessary for the core formation.[15] Much progress has been done to solve this problem and current models of giant planet formation are now capable of forming Jupiter (or more massive planets) in about 4 million years or less, well within the average lifetime of gaseous disks.[28][29][30]
Another potential problem of giant planet formation is their orbital migration. Some calculations show that interaction with the disk can cause rapid inward migration, which, if not stopped, results in the planet reaching the "central regions still as a sub-Jovian object."[31] More recent calculations indicate that disk evolution during migration can mitigate this problem.[32]
Formation of stars and protoplanetary disks [ edit ]
Protostars [ edit ]
The visible-light (left) and infrared (right) views of the Trifid Nebula —a giant star-forming cloud of gas and dust located 5,400 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius
Stars are thought to form inside giant clouds of cold molecular hydrogen—giant molecular clouds roughly 300,000 times the mass of the Sun ( M ☉ ) and 20 parsecs in diameter.[1][33] Over millions of years, giant molecular clouds are prone to collapse and fragmentation.[34] These fragments then form small, dense cores, which in turn collapse into stars.[33] The cores range in mass from a fraction to several times that of the Sun and are called protostellar (protosolar) nebulae.[1] They possess diameters of 0.01–0.1 pc (2,000–20,000 AU) and a particle number density of roughly 10,000 to 100,000 cm−3.[a][33][35]
The initial collapse of a solar-mass protostellar nebula takes around 100,000 years.[1][33] Every nebula begins with a certain amount of angular momentum. Gas in the central part of the nebula, with relatively low angular momentum, undergoes fast compression and forms a hot hydrostatic (not contracting) core containing a small fraction of the mass of the original nebula.[36] This core forms the seed of what will become a star.[1][36] As the collapse continues, conservation of angular momentum means that the rotation of the infalling envelope accelerates,[37][38] which largely prevents the gas from directly accreting onto the central core. The gas is instead forced to spread outwards near its equatorial plane, forming a disk, which in turn accretes onto the core.[1][37][38] The core gradually grows in mass until it becomes a young hot protostar.[36] At this stage, the protostar and its disk are heavily obscured by the infalling envelope and are not directly observable.[14] In fact the remaining envelope's opacity is so high that even millimeter-wave radiation has trouble escaping from inside it.[1][14] Such objects are observed as very bright condensations, which emit mainly millimeter-wave and submillimeter-wave radiation.[35] They are classified as spectral Class 0 protostars.[14] The collapse is often accompanied by bipolar outflows—jets—that emanate along the rotational axis of the inferred disk. The jets are frequently observed in star-forming regions (see Herbig–Haro (HH) objects).[39] The luminosity of the Class 0 protostars is high — a solar-mass protostar may radiate at up to 100 solar luminosities.[14] The source of this energy is gravitational collapse, as their cores are not yet hot enough to begin nuclear fusion.[36][40]
Infrared image of the molecular outflow from an otherwise hidden newborn star HH 46/47
As the infall of its material onto the disk continues, the envelope eventually becomes thin and transparent and the young stellar object (YSO) becomes observable, initially in far-infrared light and later in the visible.[35] Around this time the protostar begins to fuse deuterium. If the protostar is sufficiently massive (above 80 Jupiter masses ( M J )), hydrogen fusion follows. Otherwise, if its mass is too low, the object becomes a brown dwarf.[40] This birth of a new star occurs approximately 100,000 years after the collapse begins.[1] Objects at this stage are known as Class I protostars,[14] which are also called young T Tauri stars, evolved protostars, or young stellar objects.[14] By this time the forming star has already accreted much of its mass: the total mass of the disk and remaining envelope does not exceed 10–20% of the mass of the central YSO.[35]
At the next stage the envelope completely disappears, having been gathered up by the disk, and the protostar becomes a classical T Tauri star.[b] This happens after about 1 million years.[1] The mass of the disk around a classical T Tauri star is about 1–3% of the stellar mass, and it is accreted at a rate of 10−7 to 10−9 M ☉ per year.[43] A pair of bipolar jets is usually present as well.[44] The accretion explains all peculiar properties of classical T Tauri stars: strong flux in the emission lines (up to 100% of the intrinsic luminosity of the star), magnetic activity, photometric variability and jets.[45] The emission lines actually form as the accreted gas hits the "surface" of the star, which happens around its magnetic poles.[45] The jets are byproducts of accretion: they carry away excessive angular momentum. The classical T Tauri stage lasts about 10 million years.[1] The disk eventually disappears due to accretion onto the central star, planet formation, ejection by jets and photoevaporation by UV-radiation from the central star and nearby stars.[46] As a result, the young star becomes a weakly lined T Tauri star, which slowly, over hundreds of millions of years, evolves into an ordinary Sun-like star.[36]
Protoplanetary disks [ edit ]
HD 141943 and HD 191089, using improved imaging processes (24 April 2014).[47] Debris disks detected in HST archival images of young stars,and, using improved imaging processes (24 April 2014).
Under certain circumstances the disk, which can now be called protoplanetary, may give birth to a planetary system.[1] Protoplanetary disks have been observed around a very high fraction of stars in young star clusters.[15][48] They exist from the beginning of a star's formation, but at the earliest stages are unobservable due to the opacity of the surrounding envelope.[14] The disk of a Class 0 protostar is thought to be massive and hot. It is an accretion disk, which feeds the central protostar.[37][38] The temperature can easily exceed 400 K inside 5 AU and 1,000 K inside 1 AU.[49] The heating of the disk is primarily caused by the viscous dissipation of turbulence in it and by the infall of the gas from the nebula.[37][38] The high temperature in the inner disk causes most of the volatile material—water, organics, and some rocks to evaporate, leaving only the most refractory elements like iron. The ice can survive only in the outer part of the disk.[49]
The main problem in the physics of accretion disks is the generation of turbulence and the mechanism responsible for the high effective viscosity.[1] The turbulent viscosity is thought to be responsible for the transport of the mass to the central protostar and momentum to the periphery of the disk. This is vital for accretion, because the gas can be accreted by the central protostar only if it loses most of its angular momentum, which must be carried away by the small part of the gas drifting outwards.[37][50] The result of this process is the growth of both the protostar and of the disk radius, which can reach 1,000 AU if the initial angular momentum of the nebula is large enough.[38] Large disks are routinely observed in many star-forming regions such as the Orion nebula.[16]
[51] Artist's impression of the disc and gas streams around young star HD 142527
The lifespan of the accretion disks is about 10 million years.[15] By the time the star reaches the classical T-Tauri stage, the disk becomes thinner and cools.[43] Less volatile materials start to condense close to its center, forming 0.1–1 μm dust grains that contain crystalline silicates.[17] The transport of the material from the outer disk can mix these newly formed dust grains with primordial ones, which contain organic matter and other volatiles. This mixing can explain some peculiarities in the composition of Solar System bodies such as the presence of interstellar grains in the primitive meteorites and refractory inclusions in comets.[49]
Dust particles tend to stick to each other in the dense disk environment, leading to the formation of larger particles up to several centimeters in size.[52] The signatures of the dust processing and coagulation are observed in the infrared spectra of the young disks.[17] Further aggregation can lead to the formation of planetesimals measuring 1 km across or larger, which are the building blocks of planets.[1][52] Planetesimal formation is another unsolved problem of disk physics, as simple sticking becomes ineffective as dust particles grow larger.[26]
One hypothesis is formation by the gravitational instability. Particles several centimeters in size or larger slowly settle near the middle plane of the disk, forming a very thin—less than 100 km—and dense layer. This layer is gravitationally unstable and may fragment into numerous clumps, which in turn collapse into planetesimals.[1][26] However, the differing velocities of the gas disk and the solids near the mid-plane can generate turbulence which prevents the layer from becoming thin enough to fragment due to gravitational instability.[53] This may limit the formation of planetesimals via gravitational instabilities to specific locations in the disk where the concentration of solids is enhanced.[54]
Another possible mechanism for the formation of planetesimals is the streaming instability in which the drag felt by particles orbiting through gas creates a feedback effect causing the growth of local concentrations. These local concentration push back on the gas creating a region where the headwind felt by the particles is smaller. The concentration is thus able to orbit faster and undergoes less radial drift. Isolated particles join these concentrations as they are overtaken or as they drift inward causing it to grow in mass. Eventually these concentrations form massive filaments which fragment and undergo gravitational collapse forming planetesimals the size of the larger asteroids.[55]
Planetary formation can also be triggered by gravitational instability within the disk itself, which leads to its fragmentation into clumps. Some of them, if they are dense enough, will collapse,[50] which can lead to rapid formation of gas giant planets and even brown dwarfs on the timescale of 1,000 years.[56] If these clumps migrate inward as the collapse proceeds tidal forces from the star can result in a significant mass loss leaving behind a smaller body.[57] However it is only possible in massive disks—more massive than 0.3 M ☉. In comparison, typical disk masses are 0.01–0.03 M ☉. Because the massive disks are rare, this mechanism of the planet formation is thought to be infrequent.[1][20] On the other hand, this mechanism may play a major role in the formation of brown dwarfs.[58]
Asteroid collision—building planets (artist concept).
The ultimate dissipation of protoplanetary disks is triggered by a number of different mechanisms. The inner part of the disk is either accreted by the star or ejected by the bipolar jets,[43][44] whereas the outer part can evaporate under the star's powerful UV radiation during the T Tauri stage[59] or by nearby stars.[46] The gas in the central part can either be accreted or ejected by the growing planets, while the small dust particles are ejected by the radiation pressure of the central star. What is finally left is either a planetary system, a remnant disk of dust without planets, or nothing, if planetesimals failed to form.[1]
Because planetesimals are so numerous, and spread throughout the protoplanetary disk, some survive the formation of a planetary system. Asteroids are understood to be left-over planetesimals, gradually grinding each other down into smaller and smaller bits, while comets are typically planetesimals from the farther reaches of a planetary system. Meteorites are samples of planetesimals that reach a planetary surface, and provide a great deal of information about the formation of the Solar System. Primitive-type meteorites are chunks of shattered low-mass planetesimals, where no thermal differentiation took place, while processed-type meteorites are chunks from shattered massive planetesimals.[60]
Formation of planets [ edit ]
Rocky planets [ edit ]
According to the solar nebular disk
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, but one that shows just how impossible it is to measure his true ceiling.
The spark plug behind Minnesota’s run has been point guard Ricky Rubio, fresh off his latest dalliance with trade deadline rumors. The distractions are nothing new for Rubio, who is rumored to be on the move every six months or so. This year was different, though. With the selection of Kris Dunn with the fifth overall pick in last June’s draft, and the arrival of Tom Thibodeau as president of basketball operations and head coach, Rubio’s eventual departure has been assumed for the last nine months. He was reportedly almost traded for the shell of Derrick Rose, for crying out loud.
Yet here is Rubio, playing perhaps the best basketball of his career. He has averaged 14.8 points, 4.8 rebounds, 10.7 assists, and 1.9 steals per game during this recent Wolves run, finding a balance between scoring and facilitating that’s frequently been lost in his game. This excellent play has come as Rubio has gone head-to-head with some of the game’s best — his last five games have included matchups with Chris Paul, John Wall, Stephen Curry, and Isaiah Thomas.
During this recent stretch, Rubio’s shooting is up nearly across the board. He’s shooting 45.8 percent from the field, up from the 38.9 percent he had been shooting before this run. He’s made 37.5 percent of his 3-point shots, a number that may not sound imposing until you realize he was shooting just 29 percent from deep on the year up until that point. And he’s been especially impressive on catch-and-shoot 3s, hitting 47.6 percent over his last 11, up from 30.01 percent. Rubio is also burying his pull-up shots, an important facet of the game for a player who is such a wizard slinging the ball to his teammates off the pick-and-roll.
The bump in scoring, from just 8.9 points per game through February 14 to the 14.8 per game he’s averaged since, has been a much-needed boost to a team that lost Zach LaVine’s perimeter scoring punch when he went down with a torn ACL on February 3. Rubio’s scoring spike, while maintaining a 58.4 percent true shooting percentage, seems almost unfathomable for a player whose career has been plagued by his own inefficiency. It has been the one glaring blemish in an otherwise intriguing package of creativity, court vision, flare, and moxie.
The uptick in scoring has helped enhance Rubio’s true strength — a passing brilliance that, sort of like Towns’s scoring, is easy to take for granted because of how consistently excellent it is. In fact, the 19 assists Rubio notched in Minnesota’s impressive 119–104 win over the Washington Wizards, a game in which he easily outplayed Wall, was a franchise record.
Rubio isn’t the kind of playmaker who necessarily needs a trap on the perimeter or a full rotation from a shot blocker to open up passing lanes. A defender’s half step in the wrong direction, or a slight hesitation in a rotation caused by split-second indecision over whether to close out on Rubio’s pull-up jumper, can open up a bounce pass in traffic that maybe only five people in the world have the ability to both see and execute.
For as much as Rubio’s offensive improvement has helped keep the Wolves’ offense afloat, it’s been their improvement on defense that is downright shocking. Through February 14 the Wolves had the 25th-ranked defense, allowing opponents to score 108.5 points per 100 possessions. And they were showing no signs of turning the corner, either, allowing 113.4 points per 100 in the 10 games immediately preceding this 11-game run. To suddenly be among the league’s best has caught everybody by surprise. Except for maybe this guy.
For all of the Wolves’ struggles over the last few years on this side of the court, Rubio has been the one constant. His pure on/off numbers may not suggest that that’s the case (this year, at least), but that’s likely a byproduct of playing so many minutes with a young core that’s high on athleticism but low on discipline. Towns, Wiggins, and LaVine all suffer even more pronounced on/off splits when it comes to Minnesota’s defensive aptitude.
But as that young core has grown, as their defensive discipline has improved ever so slightly, and as Brandon Rush has given them some much-needed defensive stability, Rubio’s contributions on defense have become more apparent. Ever the ball thief, always aware, and capable of slowing down even gifted scorers, Rubio’s been a gem. Remember those four point guards — Wall, Steph, IT4, and CP3? They shot a combined 40.3 percent and averaged 3.8 turnovers per game in their recent meetings with the Wolves.
None of this is to say Rubio’s excellent play makes his future with the Timberwolves any more secure than it was a month ago. Dunn still looms in the shadows, and even though he’s had a dreadful offensive season, it would be almost unprecedented for a team to admit a sunk cost this early into the career of a no. 5 overall pick. And, considering the shared shooting struggles between the two, a fatal flaw in the space-obsessed NBA, it’s hard to see the team moving forward with both on the roster. In fact, the pair have shared the court for just 17 minutes so far this season.
Perhaps this recent stretch of play will force Minnesota to reevaluate its stance on how to handle the point guard spot. Perhaps this run, along with Dunn’s offensive struggles, will simply delay the decision, forcing Rubio to fight for his Minnesota livelihood for yet another year, an all-too-familiar position for a player who, despite the rumors, has still called only Minnesota home during his six-year NBA career. Or perhaps the strong play makes Thibodeau more likely to find a team willing to meet his asking price this summer.
Is Rubio’s departure inevitable? Is his recent play sustainable? Let’s shelve that talk for now, because the sight of Minnesota’s sort-of/kind-of/at-times-franchise point guard slinging cross-court passes to corner shooters, threading impossible bounce passes to diving big men, slowing down the game’s elite point guards, and finding his own scoring touch is just too much fun to not enjoy in the moment.Pope Francis presaged a revolution in the running of the Catholic church when, at the weekend, he announced the formation of an eight-strong panel of cardinals from all parts of the world who are to advise him on governance and the reform of the Vatican.
The Italian church historian Alberto Melloni, writing in the Corriere della Sera, called it the "most important step in the history of the church for the past 10 centuries". For the first time, a pope will be helped by a global panel of advisers who look certain to wrest power from the Roman Curia, the church's central bureaucracy.
Several of the group's members will come to the job with a record of vigorous reform and outspoken criticism of the status quo. None has ever served in the Italian-dominated Curia in Rome and only one is an Italian: Giuseppe Bertello, the governor of the Vatican City State.
The panel will be headed by one of the most dynamic figures in the Catholic leadership: Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, the archbishop of Tegucigalpa in Honduras and head of the global charity Caritas Internationalis. A polymath who plays the saxophone and piano, Maradiaga has trained as a pilot and speaks six languages. Like Pope Francis, he has long been a tenacious critic of economic inequality.
In an interview with the Italian television news service Tgcom24, Maradiaga said his group would "certainly" be tackling the ever-controversial Vatican bank.
The remaining members of the group were each chosen to represent one of the six continents. They include Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who imposed a "zero tolerance" policy on clerical sex abuse in his archdiocese of Boston, and George Pell, the archbishop of Sydney, who gave an unusually forthright interview before the election of Francis in which he said the leaking of the former pope Benedict's correspondence last year had identified "substantial problems" that needed to be addressed "in a real way".
Another formidably savvy member of the panel will be Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, the archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the 1990s, he was handed the responsibility of overseeing his country's transition to democracy following the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko.
A statement from the Vatican said the group would not be meeting until October. But it added that Francis was already talking to its members.
The statement said they had been entrusted with drawing up a scheme "for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, Pastor Bonus", which dates from 1988 and was drafted by Pope John Paul II. The last thoroughgoing shake-up of the Curia, however, was by Pope Paul VI more than 40 years ago.
Pope Francis appeared to be doing more than just initiating a much-needed bureaucratic reform. A global panel of mostly diocesan archbishops will give some real meaning to "collegiality": the idea that the church's pastoral leaders should have a role in its overall governance. Collegiality was enjoined by the Second Vatican Council which ended its work in 1965, but only very partially implemented under Paul and the charismatic, but autocratic, John Paul.
Maradiaga said: "Above all, we shall be giving first-hand information in contact with the bishoprics – perspectives other than those that get to the Holy See."(Newser) – Americans are embracing the no-frills attitude necessitated by the recession, USA Today reports. One-third say they are spending less and plan to keep up the practice as their “new, normal” way of living, according to a study. A whopping 47% of Americans say they have all they need, another study shows, up from 34% in 2006. “The silver lining is that people are coming to realize they can live with less and their lives are richer for it,” a professor says.
“People are feeling forced and inspired to get back to what is core to them,” an author says. Films and websites devoted to consuming less and being environmentally conscious have seen an upsurge in views, and people are turning out in droves to attend self-help courses in weathering the downturn. One course, in “voluntary simplicity,” has seen enrollment jump 50% in the last year. (Read more recession stories.)& Magazine is a quarterly magazine published in electronic format that (from the magazine’s website) concentrates on “ideas, perspectives, entertainment, thought-provoking articles and game aids for both the player and the dungeon master”, primarily for AD&D. Each issue is centered around a common theme.
How it Looks
I looked at the latest issue #7 of & Magazine (PDF download), which has a theme of ‘Inner Planes’ and weighs in at about 90 pages. The table of contents is there as expected, and is hyperlinked, a nice touch (I noticed it was not in previous issues, so that is a change for the better). The layout is standard two-column, with plenty of original, quality art and excellent editing.
The Content
This issue started with a note on the artists and artwork, a few pages from the publisher, and a list of the new magic items that can be found in the current issue. The list of magic items is something I might find useful if I were searching back issues looking for something I had seen but couldn’t quite remember where, so this is a thoughtful addition. Then a quick two pages on the various Internet resources relating to the magazine, and onto the content!
In & Magazine, there are regular columns, bonus articles, and features. The latter are focused on the issue’s theme. In this issue, there are two feature articles, one on adventuring in the elemental planes, and one that details elementals, re-envisioned as more powerful entities with full command of their given element.
The first feature, titled “You want to do WHAT??? Adventuring on the Elemental Planes” is by Bryan Fazekas and is chock-full of great ideas for how to handle adventures in the strange planar environs. This seven or so pages touches on everything a player or DM might need to play in or setup an adventure on any of the elemental planes. The author mentions TSR’s “Manual of the Planes” as also being a detailed resource, but as not being well-liked as far as the direction it took the game in. I can’t comment on that, as it’s the one AD&D book I never bought, but maybe that in itself confirms the author’s statements. In any case, this is a nice, concise resource.
The next feature. “Elemental Expansion and True Elementals” was written by Andrew Hamilton and as I noted above, provides a more realistic set of options for earth, air, fire and water elementals. As the author rightly points out, the elementals detailed in the AD&D Monster Manual don’t really describe creatures in total control of their named elements. As he says, “I wanted an earth elemental that shakes the ground as it moves, reshapes earth & stone, makes stone walls or columns erupt out of the ground and makes stone flow like water.” Sounds like a great concept to me, one that would make for an interesting encounter as a player. The article delivers on that score.
There are a few bonus articles in this issue. There is an article by Len Lakofka detailing the Archer/Archer-Ranger PC classes, an intriguing article by Nicole Massey on how to incorporate elements from the original Doom video game into your AD&D campaign, true to this issue’s theme by enviisoning it as a separate plane of existence (my next PC absolutely must have a BFG9000…). There is an article by John Fredericks on saving throw rationale and mechanics, and an interview with Vince Florio, one of the hosts on the Roll For Initiative podcast. All are well-written and interesting.
There are quite a few recurring columns in & Magazine – “Creature Features” (new monsters), “Spell Caster’s Paradise” (new spells), “The Toybox” (new weapons or magic items), “Domiciles & Emporia” (new shops and shopkeepers), and of course one-page dungeons and longer adventures, complete with maps. New magic items are sprinkled throughout. I really enjoyed reading the Creature Feature articles, these are new monsters, but several of these are presented as short stories that introduce the creature and its capabilities, a nice change from the dry description-followed-by-stat-block format you typically see. As a reader, I’d love to see more presented in this way (the description and stat blocks are still there, of course, the creatures are just more interesting to read about in story form). The art here is excellent, this is one of the new creatures, a Sindh drawn by Del Teigeler:
A “For Further Reading” section rounds out the list of regular columns, this gives a helpful list of online and printed resources on each issue’s main theme.
There is much more to like in & Magazine – even if you don’t particularly care about an issue’s central topic, there is enough variety in each issue to keep a reader interested. I’m eagerly going through the back issues now, looking for tidbits I can use in my own games. I should say that even though I’m not currently playing AD&D, it won’t be too much trouble to adapt this material to Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, or any of the old-school fantasy systems or retro-clones. There isn’t really anything I didn’t like about & Magazine, I found it to be well-produced, carefully edited, useful and visually appealing. The fact that this is all free is icing on the cake – I would gladly pay for this content, and I’m sure I’m not alone. Having these available as POD would be nice, but I understand why this is kept free and in electronic format. The publisher, Nicole Massey, actually addresses this in her column and says “So, when is & going to start charging for our issues?
We’re not planning on it….We do this for the love of the game, giving back, and functioning in a highly creative environment where ideas just drop out of the foliage on a constant basis”. Keep up the good work, &. I’ll keep reading.We earthlings are very fortunate to have launched many satelites in to space that have gone close enough to our neighbouring planets to get quite amazing photographs. I have included below the best images of each major object in our solar system. In order of distance from the sun:
1. The Sun
The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy at a distance of approximately 26,000 light-years from the galactic center, completing one revolution in about 225–250 million years. The orbital speed is 217 km/s (135 mi/s), equivalent to one light-year every 1,400 years, and one AU every 8 days. It is currently travelling through the Local Fluff of the Local Bubble zone of diffuse high-temperature gas, in the inner rim of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, between the larger Perseus and Sagittarius arms of the galaxy.
Don’t get sunburned! This fiery Sun poster is a pure scorcher. Buy a Sun Wall Poster at Amazon.com!
2. Mercury
Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system, orbiting the Sun once every 88 days. Physically, Mercury is similar in appearance to the Moon as it is heavily cratered. It has no natural satellites and no substantial atmosphere. The planet has a large iron core.
3. Venus
Venus is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. It is the brightest natural object in the night sky, except for the Moon. Venus reaches its maximum brightness shortly before sunrise or shortly after sunset, for which reason it is often called the Morning Star or the Evening Star. Classified as a terrestrial planet, it is sometimes called Earth’s “sister planet”, for the two are similar in size, gravity, and bulk composition.
4. Earth
Home to millions of species including humans, Earth is the only place in the universe known to harbor life. About 71% of the surface is covered with salt-water oceans, the remainder consisting of continents and islands; liquid water, necessary for life as we know it, is not known to exist on any other planet’s surface. Earth interacts with other objects in outer space, including the Sun and the Moon. At present, Earth orbits the Sun once for every roughly 366.26 times it rotates about its axis.
5. Mars
A terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, Mars has surface features reminiscent both of the impact craters of the Moon and the volcanoes, valleys, deserts and polar ice caps of Earth. It is the site of Olympus Mons, the highest known mountain in the solar system, and of Valles Marineris, the largest canyon. In addition to its geographical features, Mars’ rotational period and seasonal cycles are likewise similar to those of Earth.
6. Jupiter
Jupiter is the largest planet within the solar system. It is two and a half times as massive as all of the other planets in our solar system combined. The plane is primarily composed of hydrogen with a small proportion of helium; it may also have a rocky core of heavier elements. Because of its rapid rotation the planet is an oblate spheroid.
7. Saturn
Saturn is the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Along with the planets Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, it is classified as a gas giant. The planet Saturn is primarily composed of hydrogen, with small proportions of helium and trace elements. The interior consists of a small core of rock and ice, surrounded by a thick layer of metallic hydrogen and a gaseous outer layer.
It’s the sexiest planet in the solar system, and now you can pin it to your wall. Buy an epic Saturn Poster at Amazon.com!
8. Uranus
Uranus is third largest planet in the solar system. It was the first planet discovered in modern times. It is visible to the naked eye like the five classical planets, but it was never recognized as a planet by ancient observers due to its dimness. Like the other giant planets, Uranus has a ring system, a magnetosphere, and numerous moons.
9. Neptune
Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is the fourth largest planet by diameter, and the third largest by mass; Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth. Neptune’s atmosphere is primarily composed of hydrogen and helium, with traces of methane that account for the planet’s blue appearance. Neptune’s blue colour is much more vivid than that of Uranus, which has a similar amount of methane, so an unknown component is presumed to cause Neptune’s intense colour.
10. Pluto
I don’t care if it was demoted recently – I grew up with it as a planet so I am including it! This is an artists impression as we don’t have any high resolution photos of Pluto yet. Originally considered a planet, Pluto is now recognised as the largest member of a distinct region called the Kuiper belt. Like other members of the belt, it is primarily composed of rock and ice and is relatively small; approximately a fifth the mass of the Earth’s Moon and a third its volume.
Bonus: The Moon
A Stunning Hi-Res image of Lunar, the earth’s moon. The color hues you see are an exaggeration – they are caused by the minerals under the surface.
Technorati Tags: planets, solar system
Follow us on Facebook or subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter so you don't miss out on our latest lists.An ex-con seeking to prove he was worthy of joining the Islamic State group planned to carry out a New Year’s Eve attack at an upstate New York bar using a machete and knives provided by an FBI informant, federal authorities announced Thursday.
Emanuel Lutchman, 25, of Rochester, was charged with attempting to provide material support to terrorists, prosecutors said. Officials said he was snared in an FBI sting involving three paid informants.
Lutchman was arrested Wednesday. Steven Slawinski, his federal defender, declined to comment on the charges.
Lutchman is a self-professed convert to Islam who claimed to receive direction from an overseas ISIS member and planned to carry out an attack at a bar-restaurant in Rochester on Thursday, authorities wrote in court papers. The name of the business wasn’t released.
According to the FBI, Lutchman and an informant went to a Walmart to buy knives, a machete, ski masks and plastic cable ties for the attack. Lutchman had no money, so the informant paid $40 for the items, according to the complaint filed in federal court in Rochester.
“He planned to kill innocent civilians on New Year’s Eve in the name of the terrorist organization,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Carlin said in a statement. “Thankfully, law enforcement was able to intervene and thwart Lutchman’s deadly plans.”
WEB EXTRA: Read The Criminal Complaint
“This New Year’s Eve prosecution underscores the threat of ISIL even in upstate New York but demonstrates our determination to immediately stop any who would cause harm in its name,” U.S. Attorney William Hochul Jr. said. “What began as an ISIL directive to harm the community ended with the arrest of this defendant and a message for any other individuals considering similar behavior – you will be caught, you will be prosecuted, and you will be punished.”
“The FBI thwarted Emanuel Lutchman’s intent to kill civilians on New Year’s Eve,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Adam Cohen.
Lutchman was described in court papers as having a criminal history stretching back a decade, including a 2006 robbery conviction that led to a five-year prison stint and arrests for what was described as “mental hygiene” issues.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo told Time Warner Cable News that officials believe Lutchman became a Muslim while serving his sentence at Wyoming Correctional Facility in western New York.
His alleged pro-ISIS postings on social media may have put him on the FBI’s radar screen, CBS2’s Tony Aiello reported.
The FBI said Lutchman has been communicating with three of its confidential sources since November in conversations that were sometimes recorded. During those conversations, Lutchman expressed strong support of the Islamic State and a desire to join it in Syria, according to a criminal complaint.
In recent days, Lutchman told one of the informants that he had communicated with a “brother” in the Islamic State overseas, the FBI said. During online communications last week, the person overseas said Lutchman would have to prove to the group that he was one of them by praying regularly and by planning an “operation” on New Year’s Eve, Lutchman told the informant, according to the FBI.
According to court papers, the overseas individual told Lutchman he was “behind enemy lines” and that Lutchman was the closest person to their most hated enemy: the United States.
After Lutchman told the overseas individual he hates it in the U.S. and was ready to “give everything up” to join the Islamic State, the individual wrote online to Lutchman: “For now do wat u can over there,” the complaint said.
According to court papers, Lutchman discussed making a pressure cooker bomb, but decided on a machete attack saying, “We just gotta show our allegiance. I’m ready to lose my family.”
On Sunday, Lutchman sent a message to one of the FBI’s confidential sources, including an audio recording in which Lutchman swore allegiance to the Islamic State and its leader, the FBI said.
The FBI said Lutchman confirmed the bar-restaurant as the target after driving past it Monday night with one of the informants.
“I will take a life, I don’t have a problem with that,” the court papers quoted Lutchman as saying. “If we grab somebody, they can’t live. They may identify the vehicle. They can’t live.”
In a statement, Cuomo said the arrest is a reminder of the “new normal of global terrorism.”
“Today law enforcement did their job well — but the challenges we face have never been greater, and it is incumbent on every citizen to be diligent and responsible,” Cuomo said. “I want to reassure all New Yorkers and our state’s visitors that we are taking every precaution to keep people safe, and are in regular contact with our partners in both the federal government and local communities, statewide.”
Lutchman faces 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
It was the second time in the past 17 months that a man in Rochester has been arrested on terror charges related to IS.
In May 2014, Yemen-born pizza shop owner Mufid Elfgeeh was arrested after buying two handguns and silencers that investigators say he planned to use to kill returning U.S. soldiers. He pleaded guilty Dec. 17 to attempting to support a terrorist organization and is scheduled for sentencing in March.
(TM and © Copyright 2015 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2015 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)Company Launches in Northern California to Redefine Finding Commercial Space
IRVINE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–March 22, 2016–
Digsy, the one-year-old Southern California technology startup changing the commercial real estate brokerage game has launched in Silicon Valley and San Francisco to make it easier for startups and mid-sized businesses to find office, warehouse and retail space. Digsy’s service and business model is winning fanfare from brokerages like CBRE, JLL and Cushman & Wakefield, and businesses demanding a premium search service experience-free of charge. The year-old startup has already helped over 100 businesses including startups ZenDrive, Vulcun, Tidy and Connectifier find space. Digsy mentioned it is currently working with over 350 businesses looking to rent approximately $220 million in commercial real estate leases, and growing.
Digsy is an on-demand butler service like Alfred or Magic-but for finding commercial office, warehouse or retail space. Digsy partners with vetted local commercial real estate agents who serve as free “search butlers” and uses machine learning in addition to proprietary software technology to pair businesses with the right butler to quickly find them space. Digsy is funded by Gil Amelio (former CEO of Apple), Gordon Stephenson (board member with Zillow) and Sean Ellis (GrowthHackers.com and DropBox), K5 Ventures, Tech Coast Angels, early LoopNet executives and other angels.
“Searching for commercial real estate is a dreadful experience. Listings are out of date, no one calls you back, and you waste a lot of time trying to find space when you should be spending it growing your business. We’re bringing Digsy to Northern California to help companies to save precious time finding commercial space,” said Andrew Bermudez, Digsy CEO and co-founder.
“Digsy made it easy for our growing tech startup to find a beautiful office and get a great deal without wasting any time,” said Connectifier co-founder, Ben McCann.
About the Company: Digsy is a free butler service for finding commercial space for your business without having to search for it yourself. Digsy was founded by 15 year commercial real estate agent and former SVP of Lee & Associates, Andrew Bermudez (CEO); former Googler; Romy Maxwell (CTO); and former product designer of PlatinumMD (acquired by SK Telecom), Alex Bloore (chief product officer). Web: www.getdigsy.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/getdigsy
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160322006640/en/
Digsy, Inc
Andrew Bermudez, CEO & Co-Founder
949.232.2776
[email protected]
www.getdigsy.comEarlier today, Jets coach Rex Ryan said there was a defensive back they would "target," after Jim Leonhard was placed on injured reserve this weekend and James Ihedigbo sustained a high ankle sprain and MCL injury last night.
That player was Keith Fitzhugh: a Mississippi State grad who was added by the Jets as an undrafted free agent in 2009, signed off their practice squad by the Ravens before the playoffs and then brought back by the Jets in training camp this summer.
But when Jets director of pro personnel Brendan Prophett called this afternoon, Fitzhugh respectfully turned the team down.
"I told them I'm very thankful for the opportunity," Fitzhugh said. "But right now, being that it would be for just a couple weeks, I feel that I'd rather stay with a secure company and job, somewhere I know I could have long-term employment."
Fitzhugh is a conductor for the Norfolk Southern railroad, a job he has held since he was released by the Jets on Sept. 4. He said several times he is thankful for his job and enjoys it.
Steady employment, which is not the nature of the NFL, is important to him because he helps support his parents. His father, Keith Fitzhugh, Sr., is disabled and unable to work.
"Being unemployed is not a good feeling," Fitzhugh said. "It's a lonely feeling. I'd rather be somewhere safe and have a great foundation."
Fitzhugh's agent, Daniel Rose, said turning down the Jets was a tough decision for his client, especially with the team in good position to make the playoffs. But Rose said Fitzhugh puts his family first.
"The kid has more heart than anybody I know," Rose said. "This is his dream, to play. I don't think this is the last you've heard of Keith Fitzhugh."
The Jets will look elsewhere for a new safety. Other options are Emanuel Cook and Don Warren, who were with the team in training camp.
* * *
The Dolphins are taking a unique approach to this weekend's road trip: they will fly to New Jersey Friday morning and will practice at the Giants' practice facility later that afternoon.
The team contacted the Giants to see if they could use their indoor facility in East Rutherford after they had finished practicing Friday. The Giants obliged, knowing they would appreciate the same hospitality if the situation were reversed. The Dolphins will dress and meet at their nearby hotel, and will then be bused to the Giants' fieldhouse.MILAN/TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Two Italian workers and a Canadian kidnapped in Libya in September have been freed and were flown to Italy early on Saturday, Italian and Libyan officials said.
Danilo Calonego, Bruno Cacace and Frank Poccia were abducted on Sept. 19 in Ghat, southwestern Libya, near the site where they worked by an armed group that blocked the vehicle in which they were travelling, the Italian foreign ministry said.
The two Italians were technicians employed by construction group Conicos, it added.
“The three were released in the early hours of Saturday and were handed over to Italian authorities,” said Hassan Ottman, a spokesman for the municipal council in the Libyan town of Ghat.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi thanked everyone who played a role in the men’s release, especially the authorities and security forces in Libya.
“Today is a time of relief and joy that I would like to share with the families of our technicians,” he said.
Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said the men had not been subjected to any particular violence and were in good health. The men are being interviewed by authorities in Rome before they are expected to be reunited with their families.
The men told an investigator that the kidnappers were part of one single criminal group, were not jihadists and “drank alcohol and did not pray”, Italian media reported.
All three men were working on airport projects in Libya’s southwestern desert near the border with Algeria when kidnapped, Ghat’s mayor said at the time.
Numerous criminal and armed groups are active in Libya’s vast southern desert, and al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants have long had a presence across the border between Libya and Algeria.Stoned cycling, blazed biking, ripped riding: No matter what you call, science says it's safe to bike while high.
As attitudes toward marijuana across the country continue to change, and with more and more people smoking weed every day, there has been an increasing push to study the effects of marijuana on a person’s cognitive abilities.
Luckily, for all cyclists who enjoy to pedal after they puff, a new study out of Germany and Australia shows that smoking weed has almost no effect on a rider’s ability to properly operate a bicycle.
In a study published last week in the International Journal of Legal Medicine, researchers set up an obstacle course for 14 bicyclists. The cyclists were then asked to ride through the course sober, as well as after smoking one, two and three joints to test their performance.
RELATED: 1,600 pot plants removed from San Bernardino National Forest
And, to make sure they were properly stoned (science!), the researchers were quite exact about how the test subject got high.
Each joint given to the participants contained 300 micrograms of THC (the active psychoactive component in cannabis) per kilogram of body weight, and test subjects were told to inhale their joints for four seconds, hold their breath for 10 seconds and exhale for 15 seconds.
After tallying the mistakes made while biking the course high, the researchers came to a strong conclusion: There was virtually no difference between cycling stoned or sober.
RELATED: CannaCamp will be Colorado's first weed-friendly camping resort
“Hardly any coordinative disturbances could be detected under the influence of high or very high THC concentrations,” the researchers, led by Dr. Benno Hartung from the University Hospital Düsseldorf, concluded.
“Only a few driving faults were observed even under the influence of very high THC concentrations … On average, there is no increase in the number of demerits after the cannabis consumption.”
But before you get your hopes up for a future that might include some sort of pot-smoking-while-cycling hybrid competitions (a highathlon, if you will), the researchers were quick to point out that their 14 test subjects were all regular marijuana users, meaning they all had a higher tolerance for THC.
In other words, it still might not be a good idea to try to take your friend who has never smoked in their life on a high bike ride through the city during rush hour.
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Skiidi is a set of wheels for your skis(Representative image) | Photo Credit: Indiatimes, Representative Image
New Delhi: A 19-member panel has been set up by the government which will carry out scientifically validated research on cow derivatives like urine and their benefits. Three members of the panel are linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).
Headed by Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan, the committee will select projects that can help scientifically validate the benefits of panchgavya - the concoction of cow dung, cow urine, milk, curd, and ghee - in various spheres such as nutrition, health, and agriculture, says the circular accessed by PTI.
The panel is being called the National Steering Committee and will include secretaries of the departments of Science and Technology, Biotechnology, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, and scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi.
The incident comes at a time when the cow is increasingly being seen as a religious symbol and self-proclaimed gau rakshaks have taken law and order in their own hands. They justify the murders and violence by stating that the cow is akin to their mother and have a right to 'protect it'.
Read: Cow may be like your mother but nobody can take law in their hands: PM Modi
Prime Minister stated at an all-party meet on Sunday that while many believe that a cow is akin to their mother, that does not mean that people can take law and order into their own hands.
"All (state) governments should take stringent action against those who are violating the law in the name of cow protection," Modi said at the meeting a day before the Monsoon Session, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar told reporters.
Opposition parties have attacked the BJP over the cases of cow vigilantism, in which Muslims and Dalits have often been targeted. These parties have also planned to raise the issue during the Parliament session starting tomorrow, reports PTI.
"We believe cow is the foundation of our civilisation," Sunil Mansinghka of the Nagpur-based Go Vigyan Anusandhan Kendra's website says.
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Such assertions also soon rang hollow. By early in the new millennium, Europe was having to attune to the sounds of Islamic jihadism. The seismic waves from the 9/11 attacks on the United States left no European country untouched. Europe immediately became part of the proclaimed “war against terror,” leading to involvement in costly, extended and highly divisive military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Terrorist outrages in London and Madrid showed that no European capital was safe from suicide bombers. In public consciousness, the threat from Islamic terrorism replaced the old bogeyman of the “Red Scare.” Greatly intensified security at airports was only the most visible sign of an enhanced surveillance society, as safety from extremist violence was weighed in the balance against personal liberties, which were often seemingly viewed by governments as less important.
Meanwhile, the rapid widening of the global economy and the integration of new member states from Eastern Europe into the EU liberalized and extended labor markets. With that came the inexorable movement of poorer migrants seeking work in the wealthier economies of Western Europe. This soon produced social and political strains, with much animus directed at the newcomers. Though the immigrants were actually important to the continued economic growth of the wealthier nations, their settlement—largely in poorer parts of towns and cities—was often greatly unwelcome. Many people, themselves underprivileged and living close to the poverty line, objected strongly to “interlopers” who, they thought (usually incorrectly), were being given unfair advantages in employment opportunities, housing allocation and the granting of social benefits. The basis for a potential revival of fascist tendencies was thus laid.
THEN, IN 2008, came the economic crash in the wake of the banking crisis in the United States, leading to the most serious recession since the 1930s. This inevitably prompted thoughts of the conditions that promoted fascism throughout Europe and brought Hitler and his Nazi regime to power in Germany. The major European states were forced to spend scarcely imaginable sums of money to rescue overextended, faltering financial institutions in order to prevent complete economic meltdown. In so doing, they built up hugely increased sovereign debt which is now being tackled by inflicting large cuts in public expenditures on populations that are starting to see their standard of living significantly affected—for the worse. It has been estimated, for instance, that real wages (that is, taking inflation into account) have fallen more sharply in the United Kingdom over the past few years than at any time since the 1920s. Unemployment is set to grow sharply as public services are reduced. Young people are especially badly hit, with youth unemployment in the UK reaching 20 percent. In Greece, massive reductions in state spending, imposed by the European Union as a condition of a rescue package for the failed economy, have afflicted the population far more drastically still and, last spring, led to serious riots on the streets of Athens. In Ireland, too, the collapse of the economy has caused widespread social misery and political upheaval, with the ruling Fianna Fáil party likely to be decimated in forthcoming elections.
The Euro itself, the very symbol of European integration when introduced in 1999, is potentially endangered, showing (in the eyes of some economists) the inherent risk in extending the single currency to widely diverse economies, some of them with serious underlying weaknesses. Reserve funds have already been used for the Greek and Irish bailouts. Portugal may well follow, possibly Belgium also. There are even concerns about Spain. Were that country to need rescuing, the end of the Euro would probably follow. And this would be a disaster for the European Union.
Germany, its strong manufacturing sector benefiting from increased exports to the Far East and other areas with firm growth, is at least one European nation emerging strongly from the recession. However, anger in the German population is palpable. As they see it, the other “feckless” countries of Europe need aid to save their badly run economies which inevitably comes from funds accrued through German hard work. When it comes to German popular opinion, the great European project of unity and harmony is giving way to a less idealistic—though elsewhere in Europe quite normal—emphasis on national interest.
Perhaps surprisingly (and thankfully), in an economic crisis of such major proportions, largely caused by the greed and incompetence of big investment banks in an unregulated banking sector, there has been no political earthquake. Rather, at least on the surface, the existing political order has been consolidated. In contrast to the impact of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the governing institutions in Europe, despite their buffeting, have remained intact. There has been no collapse of state systems, as was the case in the interwar period. There has been no indication that fascism or other political extremes are close to power. The political establishment throughout Europe has weathered the storm—at least so far.
BENEATH THE surface, the situation is admittedly far from rosy. The gulf between the ruling establishment and the ruled is wide. Most voters, even in countries less Euroskeptic than the United Kingdom, see the EU government in Brussels, and the European Parliament in Strasbourg, as distant and detached from their everyday lives. The Brussels oligarchy is often seen as a rich man’s club, frequently interfering unnecessarily in national affairs but otherwise largely irrelevant to ordinary people’s lives. Probably few could name their member of the European Parliament. Recent constitutional changes in the EU (such as granting the union a legal personality) were initially rejected in plebiscites held in some countries and were only finally adopted when heavy pressure was applied to those states to think again.
Antipathy toward the political establishment is far from confined to views on the EU. At the national level, mainstream political parties struggle to retain their traditional bases of support. There is a good deal of alienation among the people and much indifference about politics in general. Conservatives may lead in many countries but can seldom muster majority backing on their own, often commanding support from no more than around a third of the population. But Social Democrats have also seen traditional bases of support drain away. The collapse of old industries (where the party had its core following), the decline of trade unions, social and demographic shifts that erode conventional class-party allegiance, and the loss of anything resembling a clear alternative vision for a better society—that once proved appealing to idealists anxious for fundamental political and social change—have all undermined the potential of the Left. Social Democratic parties, once seen as the heralds of a brighter future for the underprivileged, have themselves become part of the political establishment, little more than alternative managers of the status quo. Liberal parties of various kinds, though often coalition partners in government, in their own right invariably enjoy only minority support. Young people, especially and unsurprisingly, frequently turn their backs on conventional party politics. A sense that politicians of all colors have private advantage rather than public interest at heart is widespread. In Britain, a recent scandal in which politicians from all the major parties misused their allowances, sometimes falsely claiming large sums in expenses, greatly enhanced the feeling of alienation. Detestation of politicians is deep and extensive.
Thus, political volatility has increased. “Political space” has started to open up over the past few years. Populist movements have had the chance to occupy the vacuum and, in so doing, ratchet up the instability even more. Of course, democracy is sometimes strengthened by fringe movements. “Green” politics is one example where initially small lobby groups have in some instances widened their appeal to become significant parliamentary players and, in any case, have had a major influence on the policies of all political parties. The advances made through the feminist and gay-rights movements provide another example. The concern, however, remains that extremist movements of the Right (since Far Left parties generally have little more than a miniscule following) could exploit the “political space” created through weakening support for mainstream parties to profit from anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic feeling—undermining the basis of democracy itself.
YET, HOWEVER warranted the concern that Europe is once again on the brink of a new fascist moment, this does not seem likely to happen. To say this is not to ignore the existence of neofascist and racist movements in most European countries, or the ways in which anti-immigrant feeling can be stirred and, at times, whipped up by parties claiming to stand for an authentic “national” voice in politics. But only in a few cases are such movements sizable.
Hungary is a current concern. The extreme-nationalist—many would say neofascist—Jobbik party won nearly 17 percent of the vote in the election of 2010, and this in a country now under the effective single-party rule of the right-wing Fidesz party. The two parties of the Far Right in Austria (incorporating some old and new Nazi sympathizers) between them won almost 30 percent of the vote in the 2008 general election on a platform of anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiment while support for the mainstream Social Democrats and conservative People’s Party withered. Even in “Red Vienna,” the far-rightist Freedom Party won 27 percent of the seats in provincial elections in 2010. In Italy, the Northern League, a key partner in Silvio Berlusconi’s government, has mobilized support by exploiting growing fervor against, especially, North African immigrants while emphasizing the threat to “genuine” Catholic Italian culture from multiculturalism. In Belgium, the anti-immigration Flemish nationalist party, the Vlaams Blok, was backed by about a quarter of the population of Flanders before dissolving itself in 2004 and re-forming as Vlaams Belang. The level of support for the renamed party has, however, more recently fallen over eight points to around 15 percent as its policies of secession from Belgium have been adopted by the center-right New Flemish Alliance.
Elsewhere in Western Europe, support for extreme-nationalist and fascist parties is for the most part mercifully small. In France, one of the biggest and most important countries in the EU, the extreme-rightist National Front, assertively nationalist and anti-immigrant with more than a tinge of fascism about it, has recently lost its standing from a high point a few years ago when it was the third-largest party in France. Whether it will revive under the new, assertive and media-conscious leadership of Marine Le Pen, daughter of the former leader (and founder) Jean-Marie, remains to be seen. In Germany, the National Democratic Party, which harbors admirers of the “good old days” of Nazism, remains on the fringes, without representation in the Bundestag (the Federal Parliament) and with only residual support nationally of under 2 percent. Though the party did significantly better a few years ago in parts of the former Communist East Germany, where it won representation in the regional state parliaments of Saxony and Mecklenburg–West Pomerania, its support has recently fallen back there too. In Britain, despite the economic downturn and much latent anti-immigration and anti-Islam popular feeling, the neofascist British National Party (BNP), which appeared to have made a minor breakthrough in winning two seats in the 2009 elections for the European Parliament (held under a proportional-representation system), failed to win a single seat in the British general election of 2010 and lost around half of the local council seats it had held previously. Even in the one inner-London constituency it targeted in an attempt to unseat the Labour candidate by playing on the deprivation of the area, the BNP failed miserably, mustering under 15 percent of the vote in the process (which itself was a far-higher tally than anywhere else in the country).
Nowhere, therefore, does a fascist or extreme-nationalist party seem likely to have the remotest chance of gaining power in a major European country (apart from Austria where the extreme-Right parties have only been kept out of the government by a reassuring pact between the Social Democrats and the People’s Party to refuse to admit them to governmental office). Of course, immigrants and ethnic minorities endure misery in many countries as they are subjected to violence or discrimination carried out by right-wing sympathizers, however small a minority these might be as a proportion of the total population. That the fascist thugs have no chance of gaining national power is no consolation to their victims. It means, nonetheless, that fascist prejudice and discriminatory objectives remain beyond the pale, denied the backing of the state itself. Throughout Western Europe, the major political parties at least, whatever their differences, have united in condemnation of the extreme Right. More than that, as the figures above demonstrate, despite facing acute economic problems, the people of Europe have not turned in any substantial numbers against the existing state systems or offered widespread support for antidemocratic or authoritarian parties.
Curiously, in a crisis caused by finance capital, the Left has for the most part been on the defensive, losing support and lacking an obvious convincing political or economic alternative to the swingeing cuts being imposed by governments of the conservative Right. The nationalist or neofascist political groups are compelled to take part in parliamentary elections, where they run the risk of losing support. With this, they become subject to the factionalism inherent to such movements, or else they stay out of democratic electoral politics and confine themselves to forms of paramilitary or extraparliamentary activity—nasty to be sure, but ensuring that they remain on the outer fringes of the political scene.
CONTRASTING THE conditions in which fascism could take power, with such terrible consequences, in interwar Europe ought to make clear why confidence that democracy will not be rocked is warranted.
In the 1920s, Europe was a continent which had torn itself apart. The recent war had cost the lives of about 10 million citizens. Other than in the countries on its western fringes, democracy was a tender flower, newly planted in often-infertile soil with slender roots that would struggle to survive in heavy storms. The legacy of violence, national humiliation, loss of territory and economic impoverishment hardly constituted a good starting point for a new democracy. Moreover, while recently enfranchised masses were riven with deep social and ideological divisions, the political, economic and military elites—big landholders, industrialists, generals—had usually been able to hold on to the bulk of their power and influence, and invariably set their faces firmly against democratic innovation and any weakening of their own social and political clout. The Russian Revolution, which had taken place as recently as 1917, and the terrible civil war that followed it with immense bloodshed amid huge racial violence, showed the ruling elites (and also the property-owning, status-conscious middle classes) across Europe what they might expect were Bolshevism to triumph in their own countries. On the other hand, for millions organized in parties of the Left with much support among the industrial working class and the landless poor in the countryside, the prospect of revolutionary upheaval at home offered hope and release from their current misery.
So the scene was set for near-civil-war conditions in the countries worst affected by the outcome of the war. Enfeebled states faced a crisis of legitimacy as disaffected masses were open to mobilization by new and dangerous political parties, backed by large-scale paramilitary forces, that promised to sweep away the old system. Political violence was now the order of the day. The prospect of authoritarian rule to replace the divisive party politics that were unable to bring about stability and prosperity and seemed based on little more than vested interest appealed to increasing numbers. New leaders were sought who would eradicate by iron fist the internal forces that threatened national unity, and who would reestablish order, reassert national pride and restore military strength.
Even in such conditions, a move to fully fledged fascism was the exception, not the rule. In southern and eastern Europe, reactionary military dictatorships backed by the old elites usually held power—often, admittedly, with fascist trappings and sometimes incorporating relatively small fascist movements. But in the immediate postwar crisis, a fascist party gained outright power only in Italy. In Germany, the struggling Weimar democracy managed narrowly to survive the threat from the Left and, most especially, the extreme Right in the early 1920s, only to succumb a decade later in the different conditions of the Depression, which ushered in a comprehensive crisis not just of the economy but of the state itself, and a fight for ownership of the country’s cultural identity. The horrors that were to follow need no new emphasis here. What is plain, however, is that fascism could triumph only in quite specific historical conditions. Though residual fascist movements survived and have continued to be re-formed, as a major political phenomenon, fascism was time bound. It was part of an international power struggle between liberal democracy and the forces of the extreme Left and Right that played out for three decades but ended, after 1945, with fascism’s elimination as a key power player.
The recent economic crisis and the political response to it demonstrate that today’s Europe, for all its problems, is light-years removed from the conditions that once produced fascism. In contrast to the resort to disastrous nationalist, protective economic policies in the 1930s Depression, internationally coordinated economic-recovery plans succeeded—if with difficulty—in fending off catastrophe. The economic framework held together, and institutions that did not exist in the 1930s, like the European Central Bank, played a major role in preventing the collapse of state economies. Most European countries (though the UK for one lags behind) appear to be over the worst. Political systems (as opposed to governments) have remained stable, and have encountered no crisis of legitimacy. Though all the mainstream political parties are seeing some of their support drain away, it is not for the most part feeding into new, powerful fascist-style parties. There is certainly animosity toward immigrants, but even here, as governments have taken steps to control the flow of people, the problem has become less acute. There is undeniably still some anti-Semitism—though not remotely comparable in virulence to that of interwar Europe, usually linked to the conflict in the Middle East and, except on the Far Right fringes, almost universally decried. Islamophobia is a more serious concern. It is doubtless widespread and easily feeds into outright racist views. It is nonetheless striking that it has been politically contained. The major political parties do not countenance it. The fascist-style factions that try to exploit it have no success in engineering a major political breakthrough. So for all of Europe’s current woes and some unpalatable signs that multiculturalism is struggling to establish itself, a lurch to the Far Right seems out of the question—as far as the eye can see.
THERE ARE two scenarios that could change this relatively optimistic assessment and leave Europe reeling toward fascism once more. Neither may be very likely, but either is possible.
The first could arise if there is a further, even more severe banking crisis, amounting to a collapse of the capitalist economy. This could conceivably happen. The financial institutions that caused the recent crash are unreformed. They have survived, relatively unscarred, the immense turmoil that their own mismanagement caused. “Casino” banks that brought the economy to the verge of ruin are still intact, potentially capable of doing the same all over again. Regulation procedures are practically as feeble as they were before the fall. Unless change takes place in the banking sector, further disaster could well occur. If it does, will Europe’s financial foundations be strong enough to surmount a new crisis? Or will they be swept away? Will the political will be there, as it was last time, to take collective action to rescue banks and, with them, the savings and livelihood of millions? Or will Europe then break up once again into no more than squabbling nation-states, each trying to uphold its national interest under pressure from its domestic population while the tide of economic collapse engulfs it? The extreme Right thrives on crisis. Such a crisis, in which banks fail, people’s savings are wiped out, the economy implodes, millions are thrown out of work, governments lose control and mass anger at the political establishment prompts a serious breakdown of public order, could provide the perfect setting for the radical Right to offer a root-and-branch rejection of the “old politics” and a seemingly attractive new start—scapegoating ethnic minorities and immigrant populations on the way.
Another alarming possibility is that a series of major outrages in European cities perpetrated by Islamic terrorists, maybe even using a “dirty” nuclear bomb, creates a fundamental political crisis. Such a series of attacks could trigger a wave of hostility in European countries toward the entire Muslim population—the overwhelming majority of whom are, of course, peaceable, law-abiding, hardworking citizens. This bleak scenario too might well provide a platform for the extremist Right to turn latent antipathy into outright racial aggression (though whether it could gain access to the portals of power is another question).
Most likely—and let us all utter a silent prayer at this point—neither scenario will come about. Very probably, Europe will continue to muddle on much as it has done, with the usual ups and downs on the political scene but without any systemic change. Integration will continue to be only partial. Necessity demands cooperation in a global economy, and if Europe is to retain a strong voice in world affairs, it will have to overcome its divisions and strive for greater unity. But national interests and domestic politics in nations with so much historical baggage often pull against closer integration. They will probably prevent it from happening, at least for the foreseeable future. The result will be Europe’s long-term relative economic decline and loss of political influence as dominance shifts toward the emerging might of China and, perhaps, India, while the United States loses interest in the Continent and directs its energies increasingly toward its Chinese rival for world power.
Among the populations of European countries, political apathy and disaffection will continue to be widespread, but for the most part, they will not be converted into right-wing radicalism or mobilized in ways that endanger democratic freedoms. Such freedoms are probably in greater danger of being curtailed by existing state structures tightening their security and surveillance systems, building on public acquiescence as people’s real or exaggerated fears of terrorist attacks are easily exploited. The overall picture is not one that elicits great enthusiasm and enormous optimism. Nor, however, is it one of unremitting deep gloom. Europe will gradually recover from its present travails. Prejudice and discontent will be managed. And life will go on.
Image © CORBIS
Image:Pullquote: Islamophobia has “passed the dinner-table test” in Britain and is seen by many as normal and uncontroversial.Essay Types: EssayUsing folded DNA to precisely place glowing molecules within microscopic light resonators, researchers at Caltech have created one of the world’s smallest reproductions of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night. The feat is a proof-of-concept of how precision placement of DNA origami can be used to build hybrid nanophotonic devices at smaller scales than ever before.
DNA origami, developed 10 years ago by Caltech’s research professor Paul Rothemund, is a technique that allows researchers to fold (in a test tube) a long strand of self-assembling DNA into any desired shape. The folded DNA then acts as a scaffold (support) onto which researchers can attach nanometer-scale components. KurzweilAI has reported extensively on DNA origami — most recently, an automated design method for creating nanoparticles for drug delivery and cell targeting, nanoscale robots, custom-tailored optical devices, and DNA as a data storage medium, for example.
Meanwhile, over the last seven years, Rothemund and associates have refined and extended DNA orgami so that DNA shapes can be precisely positioned on almost any surface used in the manufacture of computer chips. Now, in a Nature paper on July 11, they report the first application of the technique — using DNA origami to install fluorescent molecules into microscopic light sources for use in single-molecule detection, quantum computers, and other applications.
The work was supported by the Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the National Science Foundation.
Abstract of Engineering and mapping nanocavity emission via precision placement of DNA origami
Many hybrid devices integrate functional molecular or nanoparticle components with microstructures, as exemplified by the nanophotonic devices that couple emitters to optical resonators for potential use in single-molecule detection, precision magnetometry, low threshold lasing and quantum information processing. These systems also illustrate a common difficulty for hybrid devices: although many proof-of-principle devices exist, practical applications face the challenge of how to incorporate large numbers of chemically diverse functional components into microfabricated resonators at precise locations. Here we show that the directed self-assembly of DNA origami onto lithographically patterned binding sites allows reliable and controllable coupling of molecular emitters to photonic crystal cavities (PCCs). The precision of this method is sufficient to enable us to visualize the local density of states within PCCs by simple wide-field microscopy and to resolve the antinodes of the cavity mode at a resolution of about one-tenth of a wavelength. By simply changing the number of binding sites, we program the delivery of up to seven DNA origami onto distinct antinodes within a single cavity and thereby digitally vary the intensity of the cavity emission. To demonstrate the scalability of our technique, we fabricate 65,536 independently programmed PCCs on a single chip. These features, in combination with the widely used modularity of DNA origami, suggest that our method is well suited for the rapid prototyping of a broad array of hybrid nanophotonic devices.10/13/2017 — Hot on the heels of the September 16 K-Day (October 7 for all the Hurricane Irma affected areas), is the next Kmart Collector’s Day which will be held on November 4, 2017 at 9AM (local time). No word yet on what case code we will see, but that and the online link for the cases will be posted on this page when they become available, so keep checking back! Below are the exclusive vehicles for this event. NOTE: They are the last four vehicles for the #2017 Hot Wheels mainline.
Kmart Collector’s Day, Color Exclusives for 11/04/2017:
’90 Honda Civic EF (2017 Then & Now) … Light Blue
(2017 Then & Now) … Light Blue Baja Hauler (2017 HW Hot Trucks) … Orange
(2017 HW Hot Trucks) … Orange Formula Flashback (2017 Legends of Speed) … Red
(2017 Legends of Speed) … Red Surf Crate (2017 Surf’s Up) … Green
Kmart Collector’s Day, First-to-Markets for 11/04/2017:
’15 Dodge Charger SRT (2018 Muscle Mania) … Silver
(2018 Muscle Mania) … Silver ’17 Ford F-150 Raptor (2018 HW Hot Trucks) … White
(2018 HW Hot Trucks) … White Morris Mini (2018 Night Burnerz) … Dark Blue
This K-Day will be held in conjunction with the last mail-in promotion for 2017 — the ’56 Chevy Convertible.
UPDATE 10/31/2017 — You can buy these cases now on Kmart.com >>> HERE.
AdvertisementsTinkering: 2017-12-23: Regex Parser in C With Continuation Passing and O(1) Stack
A few days ago, I posted an article about implementing a regular expression (regex) parser using continuation passing style (CPS) in C. It was an experiment to show that one-phase parsing and matching of a regex is possible this way. The drawbacks are the somewhat obscure style of programming and that stack usage is practically out of control. In that first example, caring for stack usage was not my goal -- and I still think the technique may be usable if the input regex only comes only from trusted sources, because then, a stack overflow is essentially a self-denial of service. Here's the code again:
An interesting discussion about the idea followed on Hacker News. That discussion in turn sparked my interest to drive this further to achieve O(1) stack usage with this technique.
Program Structure
The first will be an intermediate solution where the previous code is restructured to be actually optimisable into O(1) stack. This step will neglect memory management, which will be tackled in the final solution.
To allow the compiler to use tail calls, we need to make sure that no data is live across a recursive function invocation, and that no result of a recursive call is used except in the top-level call.
Easy thing first: no data passed to a recursive call by reference (via a pointer) must be locally stored on the stack. This happens in functions like the following:
void bar(int a, cont_t cont, data_t *data) { data_t data2 = { cont, data }; foo(a, bar_cont, &data2); }
This will prevent optimisation, because xdata2 is live across the call to foo and can only be discarded after the recursion returns, so bar's stack frame cannot be discarded before the recursion, and as a result, the C compiler cannot tail-call optimise the call.
In an intermediate solution, we will solve this by allocating a heap object instead of storing data2 on the stack. We will not deallocate anything here, so this will cause memory leaks that will be fixed later:
data_t *clone(const data_t *orig) { data_t *copy = malloc(sizeof(*copy)); *copy = *orig; return copy; } void bar(int a, cont_t cont, data_t *data) { data_t data2 = { cont, data }; foo(a, bar_cont, clone(&data2)); }
In this code, data2 is dead and can be discarded before foo is invoked, and the tail-call can be optimised.
The more complicated things that prevent tail-call optimisation need some thinking: in the first examples, there is code like this:
int foo(int a, cont_t cont, data_t *data) { return cont(a*a, data) && cont(a*a*a, data); }
In this example, in order to invoke cont(a*a*a, data) after invoking cont(a*a, data), the value of a needs to be kept on the stack across the recursive call, and the result of that recursive call is checked to decide how to continue. So the first call cannot be transformed into a tail call. To make this possible, all code needs to immediately return from a recursion, i.e., the code must have an immediate return as follows for all invocations of continuations, without exception:
... return recurse(...);...
However, to restructure this is not trivial. foo surely needs to be split and the cont(a*a*a, data) part (and the '&&') needs to be executed in a separate continuate (a separate function) after the recursion into cont(a*a, data) finishes.
To solve this, a second continuation will be passed down the recursion to be used at the very end of the recursion instead of just returning.
But first, to make this a little easier to handle, the continuation function pointer can be stored inside the data_t. data_t will be renamed to cont_t to make it clear that it is not only the continuation data. Here's a simple example rewritten in this style. It will print 5*5 (i.e., 25) and 5*5*5 (i.e., 125). main_cont will return the program's exit code, 0 or 1, and foo will return 1 immediately if the first call returns non-0.
#include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> typedef struct cont cont_t; typedef int (*code_t)(int, cont_t *); struct cont { code_t code; cont_t *cont; }; cont_t *new_cont(code_t code, cont_t *cont) { cont_t *copy = malloc(sizeof(*copy)); copy->code = code; copy->cont = cont; return copy; } int foo(int a, cont_t *cont) { return cont->code(a*a, cont) || cont->code(a*a*a, cont); } int main_cont(int a, cont_t *cont) { printf("%d
", a); return 0; } int main(void) { return foo(5, new_cont(main_cont, NULL)); }
main now needs to allocate a continuation in order to pass the function pointer.
With this structure, the continuation to be run at the very end (in main_cont ) can be introduced, in order to rewrite foo to return immediately after the invocation of the continuation. The new continuation will be called final. So now, two continuations will be passed down: one for the immediately next step, and one for returning after the result was processed (printed, in this case). This also requires some space for an integer in the context data to store foo's local variables, and to pass on the global result code.
#include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> typedef struct cont cont_t; typedef int (*code_t)(int, cont_t *, cont_t *); struct cont { code_t code; int a; cont_t *cont; cont_t *final; }; cont_t *new_cont(code_t code, int a, cont_t *cont, cont_t *final) { cont_t *copy = malloc(sizeof(*copy)); copy->code = code; copy->a = a; copy->cont = cont; copy->final = final; return copy; } int foo_final(int a, cont_t *cont, cont_t *final) { if (a) { /* this implements '||' used previously */ return a; } return final->cont->code( final->a * final->a * final->a, final->cont, final->final); } int foo(int a, cont_t *cont, cont_t *final) { return cont->code(a*a, cont, new_cont(foo_final, a, cont, final)); } int main_cont(int a, cont_t *cont, cont_t *final) { printf("%d
", a); return final->code(0, cont, final); } int main_final(int a, cont_t *cont, cont_t *final) { return a; } int main(void) { return foo(5, new_cont(main_cont, 0, NULL, NULL), new_cont(main_final, 0, NULL, NULL)); }
Now finally, every function immediately returns after invoking the continuation call, and no local data is left live across any continuation call. So now, the compiler should be able to apply tail-call optimisation in each function.
Indeed, for the above program, Gcc does that. The only call instructions left are those to printf, to malloc, and the initial call from main to foo. All other calls are converted to jmp instructions.
However, this is not the case for the more complex regexp example presented in the previous post. Although it was rewritten to use exactly the structure described above, Gcc's tail-call optimisation still does not kick in 100% of the time.
Optimisation Problems
Examining the reasons why the regexp example does not optimise as expected, I found the following problems:
Functions that are too complex are sometimes not optimised. It seems that Gcc loses overview, or optimises in other ways that stand in the way of the tail-call optimisation.
Gcc cannot optimise well if functions with different prototypes call each other, i.e., different numbers or sizes of parameters of the caller and the callee may cause the optimisation to fail.
The above toy code has no functions that are too complex to be optimised, so it works. But for the regex code, I had to split a few functions to make simpler ones. And some functions with different prototypes, I had to make into macros to enforce inlining. In the resulting code, all functions to be tail-call optimised use exactly the same prototype now.
Then I found that since I made all functions static, two other Gcc optimisations kick in and ruin my efforts:
Gcc auto-inlines static functions for heuristic reasons, and this causes functions to become to complex again for tail-call optimisation. (Also some of my manually split functions were merged again my this auto-inlining.)
Gcc changes the calling conventions to use more register parameters, i.e., it uses regparm(3) instead of regparm(0) as prescribed by the extern ABI. This means despite having the same prototype in C, functions are regarded different, and this makes the tail-call optimisation fail.
The answer to these problems was to use __attribute__((regparm(0))) for all static functions explicitly to avoid the calling convention to be changed, and to use -fno-inline to switch off auto-inline optimisation.
This achieved my goal: no call instructions to recursive functions anymore, but only jmp instructions. This code finally uses O(1) stack. But only on Gcc, with special hacks. And maybe only on the tested x86-32 architecture. And maybe only with exactly this version of Gcc.
And with memory leaks...
I also tried Clang: not a single tail-call was optimised, so this is a highly compiler specific method. In production code, surely one cannot rely of the O(1) stack with this method.
The following is the code of the regex parser/matcher of this intermediate stage.
Compiler and Architecture Independent O(1) Stack
The answer to removing the dependency on compiler optimisations is relatively easy: since all functions now immediately return after their tail call, we can rewrite them to return the new function and parameters to invoke instead of invoking it and returning its result. There will be a central loop that executes those function invocations. (This was already mentioned as a way to become compiler independent in the HN discussion of the first article.)
Luckily, the cont_t type already has all the ingredients to store the function pointer and the function's parameters. So cont_t can be returned instead of int. By convention, computation will terminate when code == NULL.
#include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> typedef struct cont cont_t; typedef cont_t (*code_t)(int, cont_t *, cont_t *); struct cont { code_t code; int a; cont_t *cont; cont_t *final; }; cont_t *new_cont(code_t code, int a, cont_t *cont, cont_t *final) { cont_t *copy = malloc(sizeof(*copy)); copy->code = code; copy->a = a; copy->cont = cont; copy->final = final; return copy; } cont_t foo_final(int a, cont_t *cont, cont_t *final) { if (a) { return (cont_t){.a = a }; } return (cont_t){ final->cont->code, final->a * final->a * final->a, final->cont, final->final }; } cont_t foo(int a, cont_t *cont, cont_t *final) { return (cont_t){ cont->code, a*a, cont, new_cont(foo_final, a, cont, final) }; } cont_t main_cont(int a, cont_t *cont, cont_t *final) { printf("%d
", a); return (cont_t){ final->code, 0, cont, final }; } cont_t main_final(int a, cont_t *cont, cont_t *final) { return (cont_t){.a = a }; } int main(void) { cont_t c = { foo
|
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PS: Also, SS wrote "Clock and Bowls" on the customs form.... which kinda looked like "Cock and Balls" So that made me laugh pretty hard.The equality watchdog’s new chair, who is set to lead an investigation into whether Tory welfare reforms breached disabled people’s human rights, worked for the government on key contracts at the heart of those reforms, Disability News Service can reveal.
David Isaac (pictured) was appointed by the government to chair the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) earlier this year, despite concerns raised by two parliamentary committees over “serious potential conflict of interest” caused by his work as a partner of law firm Pinsent Masons.
He specialises at Pinsent Masons in providing advice on “major public and private sector UK and global commercial and outsourcing projects”, and his own profile on the firm’s website previously stated that he “leads teams of lawyers on major projects” for, among others, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), although the reference to DWP has since been removed.
But his appointment as EHRC’s new chair came as the watchdog announced that it was to investigate the human rights implications of DWP’s welfare reforms on disabled people.
Isaac, Pinsent Masons and DWP have previously refused to say which welfare reform projects he worked on for the government.
But DWP has now been forced to respond to a freedom of information (FoI) request that was submitted by Disability News Service (DNS) nearly five months ago, following pressure from the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The freedom of information response shows that DWP projects Isaac led on included, from July 2013, providing “legal services” for terminating the contract of the much-criticised outsourcing firm Atos to provide work capability assessments (WCAs).
The controversial “fitness for work” test has been implicated in hundreds – and possibly thousands – of deaths of disabled people, and in causing significant harm and distress to tens of thousands of others.
Isaac’s team at Pinsent Masons was also involved in legal work surrounding the appointment of the outsourcing company that replaced Atos as the supplier of WCAs, the equally controversial US company Maximus.
And Pinsent Masons was involved in providing legal services in relation to “contracts with third party suppliers for the delivery of services” connected with personal independence payment (PIP), from November 2013.
PIP is gradually replacing working-age disability living allowance, and is again at the heart of the government’s plans to cut spending on disability benefits.
It is not clear what services these “third party suppliers” were delivering, but DWP has told DNS that they were not the main contracts to deliver PIP assessments, which had been awarded the previous year to Atos and fellow outsourcing giant Capita.
PIP has already seen tens of thousands of disabled people have their support cut or removed completely, while disabled activists have described the benefit as “rotten to the core”, and have pointed to growing evidence of the “shoddy nature” of PIP assessments.
DWP’s freedom of information response means that Isaac, through his work at Pinsent Masons, has been closely involved in two areas of the government’s welfare reforms that will be examined by the EHRC inquiry.
There are also existing concerns over the voting record of Lord [Chris] Holmes, the watchdog’s disability commissioner and a Conservative peer, who voted in the House of Lords in favour of the government’s welfare reforms and cuts and will also play a leading role in the EHRC’s investigation.
An EHRC spokesman said in a statement: “This FoI request contains information relating to matters prior to David Isaac’s appointment as chair of the commission.
“The commission, the government, Pinsent Masons and David Isaac are entirely content that there is no conflict of interest and have robust procedures in place to avoid any possible or perceived conflicts of interest.
“David will not receive profit from work conducted by Pinsent Masons on behalf of government and he will not be involved in any aspect of advising government clients.
“David has already shown that he is a strong champion for disability rights.
“Tackling disability discrimination is one of his top priorities and he has robustly challenged government to raise its game and take more comprehensive action to improve the lives of disabled people so they can participate fully in society.
“This is why we believe that David will add important value to our forthcoming inquiry to examine issues related to disabled people and welfare reform, as he [does]to all our work.”
Harriet Harman, the Labour MP who chairs the joint committee on human rights, one of the two committees that raised concerns over Isaac’s appointment, said in a statement: “Thank you for drawing my attention to the FoI answer.
“The committee has nothing to add at this point but we will keep this issue under review.
“I would be grateful to be kept informed so that the committee has all the information necessary to continue to scrutinise the work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.”The NCAA has formally notified Mississippi's athletic department of allegations of "roughly 30 violations" across the Rebels' football, women's basketball and track and field programs, Yahoo's Pat Forde reported Friday.
One Ole Miss source tells Steven Godfrey they believe only five of the 32 are alleged football violations, and that coaches are "confident" allegations related to the current staff are secondary violations. In addition, an NCAA source tells Bud Elliott that the "vast majority" of the football allegations are more than two years old.
The program has been under institutional fire for some time. Star offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil took a seven-game suspension last season for receiving "impermissible extra benefits," and it's been three years since people started to loudly accuse Freeze of recruiting impropriety.
An Ole Miss official told Godfrey that almost all of the allegations are women's basketball, track, Tunsil, and football from six years ago, during previous coach Houston Nutt's tenure.
SOURCES: Most of the NOI w/ #OleMiss case regarding Freeze regime involves the Laremy Tunsil case for which he was sidelined 7 games in 2015 — Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) January 29, 2016
In 2012, Ole Miss fired its women's basketball head coach, and in 2015, its track coach unexpectedly resigned.
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"As has been the case for the past three years, we are bound by confidentiality and cannot comment publicly on the matter," Ole Miss athletic director Ross Bjork said in a statement. "However, I can say that I'm confident in how our coaches and staff operate our program, and we take compliance, NCAA and SEC rules very seriously. We are working hard to seek a resolution to this matter."
On the field and the recruiting trail, Ole Miss has been on an impressive run. The Rebels crushed Oklahoma State in the Sugar Bowl earlier this month, and they have a real shot at finishing this recruiting cycle with the No. 1 class in America.
Update, February 10: Multiple sources inside the Ole Miss athletic department continue to insist the NCAA's case will not have a severe impact on football.
Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that 13 allegations involved Ole Miss football, nine of which were connected to Hugh Freeze's staff, with a mix of Level I, II and III violations. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported five allegations are specific to violations involving Tunsil, who sat out seven games in the 2015 season.
"Regardless of how it is framed, many of the football violations involve Tunsil or the previous football staff. Almost all the violations under Hugh Freeze's tenure involve Tunsil or are low level violations. Freeze is not personally named in any violation," a source in the athletic department told SB Nation on Tuesday night.
A second source at Ole Miss said the university is still assembling its response to the NCAA. From initial receipt of the letter, the university has a 90-day window to respond. Multiple sources at Ole Miss said the university has no current timetable in place for a public announcement.
That source also indicated that outside of Freeze's staff, allegations include former assistant coach David Saunders, who received a seven-year show cause penalty in January from the NCAA for his part in sanctions received at Louisiana-Lafayette.SEATTLE - Barry Ackerley owned the Sonics in what may have been the heyday of the franchise. His sons now say they want those good times to return.
Chris and Ted Ackerley, in an email to KING 5, formally declared their interest in bringing the Sonics back to Seattle. Although how that's accomplished is unclear.
Ackerley bought the franchise back in 1983 and owned the team for 18 years. The Sonics made the playoffs 13 times during his run. He eventually sold the franchise to the group led by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.
At one point, Ackerley attempted to build a new arena on the current site of Safeco Field, but instead settled on a remodeled Seattle Center Coliseum. It opened in 1995 as KeyArena, and was reconfigured in a way to all but rule out the structure as a suitable long-term hockey facility.
Ackerley passed away in 2011.
His sons have maintained their homes in the Seattle area and the email suggests they miss the NBA.
Seattle is a world class city with a rich basketball history and we believe it deserves an NBA team, alongside its other thriving professional sports franchises. Seattle is also our home, and we are committed to helping in any way we can to bring the NBA back to the city.We have a long-term approach in all our civic, philanthropic, and business engagements. Securing a franchise is a complicated, long-term process. Along the way, it will require support and collaboration from the Seattle community and it won’t happen overnight. We will continue to do what we can to help achieve this goal and we look forward to the day when Seattle can celebrate the return of an important civic institution like the Seattle Supersonics.
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Christopher Ackerley and Ted Ackerley
It's unclear just how the goal is accomplished. Multiple sources, in and out of City Hall, describes the Ackerleys' interest as "very preliminary."
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said on multiple occasions that the league is not considering expansion, but told reporters in Las Vegas this week, "the reality is we’re not looking to expand at the present time. Maybe at some point down the road we’ll take a look at expansion. Over time, all organizations grow, at least those that continue to thrive. So at some point, we’ll look at it."
Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who once led two unsuccessful efforts involving the NBA and Seattle, now owns the L.A. Clippers. He said Wednesday he believed an NBA return to Seattle was not likely within the two years.
Investor Chris Hansen has purchased several acres in SoDo for a new sports arena. He needed the Seattle City Council to approve a vacation of a one-block stretch of Occidental Avenue in order to get a Master Use Permit for the facility. The council voted it down 5-4 on May 2, although Hansen's group can still reapply.
There is a Memorandum of Understanding on the project between Hansen and the city which calls for up to $200 million in public financing. That money would be triggered if Hansen acquired an NBA franchise first and repaid by arena revenue. But that deal expires in 2017.
Copyright 2016 KING“I will always err on the side of life.”
Rick Perry, signed off on 234 executions
Dearest Web Log,
This virtual space has, so far, been dedicated to my slapstick encounter with the American police state. But with the execution of Troy Davis, a few false charges and a potential year in jail seems like such a white thing to complain about. Like my socks and sandals don't match my cargo shorts or something.
Davis's murder (may read differently depending on your politics) brings to light a profoundly darker comedy called American Morality. It's funny in the way that absurd non sequiturs can be, like monkey pajamas, or Fox News.
As a nation, we don't have a real good handle on the whole morality thing.
For instance, and this is not a joke, some people profess to know with absolute certainty that our moral code was dictated by an all-powerful space ghost, who sculpted us out of magic clay, and transcribed on stone by a mountain-climbing desert-hobo who looked a great deal like Charlton Heston.
The people who believe these things are called idiots. Maybe you've seen them infesting our politics and poisoning our culture...at last week's Fox News #googledebate.
Bachmann and Perry are both – to varying degrees – Dominionists, which means they're trying to conquer the “seven mountains” of cultural power by conducting “strategic level spiritual warfare” against the “higher level demons” who currently control eastern religions, witchcraft, Freemasonry, and the heathen souls of all non Christians around the globe, like PZ Myers.
Romney and Hunstman are Mormons, which means they ostensibly believe that God lives on the planet Kolob and, if they're extra good Mormons, they'll become Gods themselves in the afterlife. And don't get me started on the Golden Tablets or the Jewish Native Americans.
Even Newt Gingrich has to pretend to be a good, God-fearing non-sack of walking excrement.
Ron Paul says he believes that life starts at conception, and that evolution is just a theory, but he only genuinely worships at the deregulated altar of Ayn Rand.
Herman Caine is a Baptist minister. And his 999 deal means that he's is definitely not the pizza-slinging Antichrist.
And Rick Santorum is so religious he's an obvious homosexual.
Troy Davis didn't come up at the debate, which, in this blogger's opinion, was a huge missed opportunity for the candidates to connect with the base by singing another patriotic rendition of “Let him die!” The crowd did boo a gay soldier, so there was that rare moment of Republican honesty – and when Mitt Romney said, “There are a lot of reasons not to vote for me.”
And that's what morality ultimately boils down to: honesty. Intellectual honesty about what makes what moral and why. (Or about global warming, vaccines, etc.) It's no longer good enough to say it's in the Bible. In Psalms, God bestows his blessing on those who smash babies against rocks. We all know it's wrong to do that, so the religious minded are forced to cherry-pick the Bible, for passages that justify their inherent ethical character – whether it's giving to the poor or dreaming of stoning homosexuals to death while they masturbate.
It's a real grab bag, across America's political-religious spectrum, but the Republican field is on record as being firmly against giving to the poor.
Our economic morality, or intense lack thereof, is a nice example of religious thinking based on intellectual dishonesty. This is Ron Paul's altar of Rand – not the Aqua Buddha guy.
All we ever hear about, and are impoverished by, is supply-side bunk. I mean, when's the last time you heard something about demand-side economics? You shouldn't have to because that phrase is redundant. The sad thing is that people don't know that...word.
(Just a side note: I bought a $5 pizza the other day using Groupon. It was so cheap because enough people signed on to the deal, and lowered the price by buying in bulk. Apply this capitalist principle to government-negotiated prescription costs or single-payer health care, however, and God will punish the U.S. for being evil, atheist socialists. Probably with a hurricane. OK?)
The foundation of ethics erodes quickly on a ground of lies. From our religion to our news sources, we are not an intellectually honest people. The instances of untruth on Fox News are myriad, but here's their spin on the last words of Troy Davis:
Convicted Cop Killer Troy Davis Told Family of Victim That He Was ‘Sorry for Their Loss’ Before Execution
And here's what he actually said, according to an AP reporter present:
I'd like to address the MacPhail family. Let you know, despite the situation you are in, I'm not the one who personally killed your son, your father, your brother. I am innocent. The incident that happened that night is not my fault. I did not have a gun. All I can ask... is that you look deeper into this case so that you really can finally see the truth. I ask my family and friends to continue to fight this fight...
How they got from that to saying he was'sorry' is...confusing, like palm trees in Madison, Wisconsin, or how the tides work.
American morality is not only conflated with our primitive religion, it's held captive by our political leanings, and actually confused for empirical fact via motivated reasoning. The modern news consumer knows what they want to hear before they hear it, so we cherry-pick news sources the same way we do the bible. It's called confirmation bias, and the entire Murdoch empire is built upon this model. (And, yes, while this does happen for anti-vaccination nuts and 9/11 Truthers on the left, it's not at all an equivalent phenomenon.)
Funny, these days the sentiments of an atheist are usually far more "Christian" than the thoughts of the religious. The aforementioned prominent atheist PZ Myers said this about Troy Davis:
As I said before, I don’t care whether he was guilty or innocent, the death penalty is barbarous and irrevocable. There was no justice this evening, only vengeance.
Bryan Fischer spokesman for the American Family Association, one of the sponsors of Rick Perry's day of fasting and prayer, wrote an op-ed a couple weeks before Troy Davis's murder entitled:
Is the death penalty Christian? Of course it is.
This was likely the longest possible way of saying that religion does not equate to morality. Religious people can be moral, and atheists need not be (GRRR STALIN!!!), but we just don't seem to get this – unless we're talking about Islam. As one small example of many, the town of Bay Minette, Alabama is now giving nonviolent offenders an option between jail time and church time. Seriously.
I left off Troy Davis's final-final words because they're the most depressing of all:
For those about to take my life, God have mercy on your souls. And may God bless your souls.
And that's the sad ironing of it all. The oppressed and the oppressors both live under God's racist, murderous thumb.
(And, of course, I know that a) many of our leaders who profess religiosity are lying and b) corporate power structures may conveniently overlap with religious goals but they're not intrinsically religious.)
Maybe it's in poor taste to criticize the religious conviction of the victim, and religion has historically been a force of good in the civil rights movement, but I can't help feel that religion in this country has reached its righteous limits. It's a very old sentiment that religion keeps the masses obedient and docile, but as our understanding of the world has evolved, it seems clearer all the time.
As Sam Harris argues that the belief of religious moderates provides cover to religious extremists, it's my contention that the righteously religious (yes, they exist) lend a similar credence to barbaric fools who want to “fix” gay people and find no moral dilemma in state-sanctioned murder – despite the glaring edict “Thou shalt not kill.”
Maybe I'm off entirely blaming religion for out contorted sense of morality. As labor writer Mike Elk recently pointed out in the context of Troy Davis, Don Blankenship, the Massey Energy CEO ultimately responsible for the death of 29 at their Upper Big Branch mine in'10, hasn't served one day in jail. And NYC police dusted off a 150 year-old law against wearing masks to arrest protestors on Wall Street while the hedge fund, banking crooks who ruined the world economy have proven themselves immune to prosecution. This is, in essence, a continuing battle between the haves and the have-nots. (And as of Saturday, the police in lower Manhattan have gone into full-on gatekeeper mode, attacking and unlawfully arresting scores of peaceful protesters.)
But looking at those wackos up on the Republican debate stage in Orlando, it seems obvious that religion is not helping. Remember the “Seven Mountains” of cultural power sought by the Dominionists: home, church, business/technology, arts/entertainment, education, and media. They seek not a convenient overlap between corporate control and religious dogma, but literal dominion over the entire kaboodle.
The prevailing trend in countering our nation's perverse, religion-infested, Republican-steeped sense of morality is to fight delusional fire with delusional fire. Democratic consultant, and founder of the American Values Network, Burns Strider is at the fore, fighting anti-social Republican dogma with the true values of Christianity (by hilariously pitting Jesus against Ayn Rand).
But it's past time to decide whether we want to be Old Testament thugs or New Testament hippies. It's time to decide whether we want justice based in reality or justice based in fairy tales -- whether religious, moral, or economic.
__________
Ian Murphy is the evil editor of The BEAST. You should probably follow him on the Twitter.“I like those candid vibes. I like that side profile, too,” a focused Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye told photographer Derek Wood while looking through his shots at Los Angeles’ famed Milk Studios. “But that should be the cover right there.”
Wood and Tesfaye had never met, but their creative chemistry was palpable from the beginning and resulted in captivating shots from a rapid-fire session.
As an on-set observer, I could easily see that The Weeknd is careful with how his image is portrayed, and ensures its execution is largely in his control.
Though Wood snapped hundreds of images during an exclusive two-hour shoot with Footwear News, the look Tesfaye was particularly fond of made the final cut to lead this issue.
During the session, The Weeknd — who had recently wrapped Phase One of his “Starboy: Legend of the Fall” tour — forfeited the overwhelming footwear and apparel selection that’s synonymous with celebrity features.
Instead, Tesfaye opted for a slimmer range: two sparsely filled rolling racks featuring Puma x XO apparel, and two pairs of sneakers, the all-white and olive iterations of his signature model, the Parallel.
His line with Puma boasts streetwear staples — T-shirts, denim jackets and pants — to pair with the Parallel, a stripped-down sneaker with casual appeal that borders on the height of a boot. “His sense of style is intriguing because he’s developed a refined uniform that consistently feels current. He brings a different aesthetic, a little more refined and simple,” said Chris Pepe, senior buyer of men’s footwear at Barneys. “The consistency makes him a standout in the realm of entertainers.”
This image, which mirrors today’s hottest men’s fashion, distinguishes him as one of Puma’s most important ambassadors.
“He’s stylish, but he’s also approachable. He’s relatable and has a look that can be worn by a lot of young men,” explained Adam Petrick, global director of brand and marketing at Puma. “It’s not over-the-top or unattainable.”
Puma added The Weeknd to its celeb ambassador team, which includes superstar songstress and the brand’s creative director Rihanna, in September 2016 — introducing the partnership to the world with images of the singer in the brand’s popular Ignite Evoknit style.
After campaigns featuring Tesfaye in the Ignite Limitless Netfit and Tsugi Netfit styles, the brand will finally release his own anticipated Parallel model on Aug. 24 at top-tier retailers, including Kith, The Webster and Barneys.
“The Weeknd has shown us that he’s knowledgeable about and interested in fashion,” said Laure Heriard Dubreuil, founder and president of The Webster. “This collaboration feels like a true partnership between the artist and the brand.”
The first colorway of the sneaker is a pristine, all-white iteration priced at $220 — and retailers are applauding the brand’s approach to product diversity.
“Puma has been putting out some unique styles lately, so adding cleaner elements to the collection helps Puma appeal to another customer,” said Pepe. “Our customers are always looking for the newest sneaker styles, so this collaboration with The Weeknd is definitely something that will be on their radar.”
Tesfaye is one of Puma’s freshest faces to endorse product and has bypassed those with a longer tenure with the brand to get a signature sneaker. “He had a strong idea about what footwear should look like if it was put through The Weeknd’s filter,” Petrick said. “That’s not to say all of our partners wouldn’t have that vision, but in the case of The Weeknd, it made sense to bring something new to the marketplace that reflected his personal style.”
The Parallel is the first shoe from his partnership with Puma to come to fruition, and Petrick confirmed more Tesfaye-inspired drops are coming. “We’ll be releasing collections this fall, and we have exciting product coming this spring,” Petrick said. “And we’re optimistic that this is going to be a long-term partnership and that we’ll have the opportunity to evolve with The Weeknd as he creatively evolves.”
With the Parallel release approaching, the stylish music icon opened up about the creation of the sneaker, his style evolution and whom he wants to see in his kicks.
The launch date for the Parallel is fast approaching. How do you feel?
“It’s finally happening. We’ve been working with Puma for almost a year, and everyone is more than ready to get the sneakers out. I was nervous at first, but when I finally got to hold the product, I immediately fell in love. I think people will like it.”
What aspects of the design were you most focused on, and what did you learn?
“I was involved in almost every aspect, but I was most focused on the silhouette. With XO and Puma, we really collaborated and worked on making the best product possible.”
As you build your business, is accessibility or exclusivity more important to you? Is there another celeb business you want to emulate?
“Exclusivity is always important to me, and I will definitely do limited pieces and shoes with Puma. But for this first one, I’d love it to go to the masses. I haven’t really been using anyone else as a reference for this side of the business, but I am definitely investing as much of my time into this as possible.”
Whom would you most like to see wear the shoe and why?
“To be honest, I just want to see everyone wearing it. I want it to be part of pop culture. I want to walk down the street and see kids wearing it and women wearing it. I want to see the pope wearing it. I want to see [Barack] Obama wearing it. I want to see Elon Musk wearing it.”
The Weeknd wearing his debut signature shoe, the Puma Parallel. CREDIT: Derek Wood
How does your signature shoe fit in with your persona?
“I feel like the Puma shoe is a part of the ‘Starboy’ world. It’s the shoe Starboy would wear. We actually revealed we were first working with Puma in the ‘Starboy’ video. We’re already evolving in the next phase of our collaboration, so I’m gonna keep that a secret.”
You’re constantly reinventing yourself as a musician. How has that affected your personal style?
“Usually when I reinvent myself, I like to get rid of everything in my closet and replace it with how I’m feeling during that album phase. It never changes drastically, though; rather just very slightly over time.”
When you’re choosing onstage kicks, what do you look for?
“It depends. The longer the set, the more comfortable and light it has to feel. If it’s short, it doesn’t matter how it feels, so I can wear anything, sometimes even boots.”
Embracing the spotlight, at times, has been challenging for you. Have you overcome that?
“I think with time I’ve learned to be a little more comfortable. My fans show me that I can feel confidence. They give so much love in person and at my shows. I still get shy, though; it’s something I can’t seem to quite shake off.”
The Weeknd in the Puma Parallel shoe, shot exclusively for Footwear News. CREDIT: Derek Wood
As you reflect on your debut mixtape, ‘House of Balloons,’ what experiences during that era helped shape you?
“I spent a lot of time alone. My life is very different now than it was back then. It’s definitely something I would like to feel for a bit again. I’m continuously around people. I might want to shut the world out for a bit.”
How do you respond to criticism?
“I used to pay attention all the time; it would take over my life. Any kind of criticism would ruin my day, but through the years, I’ve learned to accept it and know the difference between constructive criticism, hate and just plain trolling.”
How has your Ethiopian heritage impacted you as a person and musician?
“It’s my culture. [The way] my mother raised me makes me who I am right now. Ethiopians are kind, caring and selfless people. One day, it will help me raise a family. Musically, it’s very important to me. The soul in my singing and the melancholy in my chords are very Ethiopian-inspired. It’s something that will always be embedded in me.”
Click through to view the full cover shoot.
Want more?
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It’s been a wonderful, exciting year here at the RAD DAD headquarters. We’ve gathered with our kids and partners and food and pulled together two fabulous issues of RAD DAD! Our third and final issue of 2014 will come out in November!
And so now we are beginning to look towards 2015. We are asking for everything we need to make three issues sustainable: paying the printer, the designer, the writers, the editors and the illustrators. We need $25,000.
We have 300 subscribers right now; if each one re-subscribes and gets two others to subscribe. We have it!
We also have some playful and amazing gifts for your support if you choose to donate more! So take a look and we hope you choose to help keep RAD DAD going through 2015!
See you in the playgrounds and grocery stores and streets and collective meetings. Remember: rad families can change the world!LAS VEGAS -- Tickets to the blockbuster fight between two-division world champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist VASYL LOMACHENKO and undefeated former world featherweight champion NICHOLAS "Axe Man" WALTERS will go on sale This Wednesday! Oct. 19 at 1:00 p.m. ET / 10:00 a.m. PT. Lomachenko and Walters will be battling for Lomachenko's World Boxing Organization (WBO) junior lightweight title on Saturday, Nov. 26, at The Chelsea inside The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. It will be televised live on HBO World Championship Boxing® beginning at 10:35 p.m. ET/PT.
Promoted by Top Rank®, tickets to the Lomachenko - Walters world championship event, priced at $200, $150, $100, $75, and $50 (general admission), will be available for purchase at www.cosmopolitanlasvegas.com/ or through Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000 and www.ticketmaster.com/. Room / ticket packages will also available.
The greatest amateur boxer of his era and arguably of all time, two-time Ukrainian Olympic gold medalist Lomachenko (6-1, 4 KOs), of Odessa, became a two-division world champion just as he did with his first professional world title, he won world title No. 2 in a record least amount of fights -- SEVEN! In his last fight, on June 11, he annihilated defending three-time WBO junior lightweight champion Roman "Rocky" Martinez via a cringe-worthy knockout punch in the fifth round.
Lomachenko captured his first world title -- the vacant WBO featherweight title -- on June 21, 2014, winning a scintillating majority decision over the previously unbeaten Gary Russell Jr.
It was Lomachenko's third professional bout, tying him with Thailand's SaensakMuangsurin for fewest fights to win a world title. Muangsurin won a junior welterweight title in 1975, also in his third professional fight Lomachenko first gained international renown by winning gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2012 London Games as a featherweight and a lightweight, respectively.
Walters (26-0-1, 21 KOs), from Montego Bay, Jamaica, has won 11 of his last 14 fights by stoppage. He captured the vacant World Boxing Association (WBA) featherweight title on December 12, 2012, knocking out Daulis Presscott (26-1, 19 KOs) in the seventh round.
He successfully defended the title three times during his three year reign -- all by knockout -- stopping Alberto Garza, former two-division world champion Vic Darchinyan and 2012 Fighter of the Year and four-division world champion Nonito Donaire in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds, respectivelyIntel is back today with a new CPU manufacturing process at 22 nm using their new 3D Tri-Gate transistor design. It’s the Sandy Bridge micro-architecture with a new 22 nm twist. Will we see any performance increase or just the standard lower power and better temperatures? Sit back and relax while we cross the Ivy Bridge.
Bridge Over the River Ivy – Ivy Bridge Architecture
If you are erudite about Intel’s strategy, you know they have a tick-tock strategy that they somehow manage to keep to like, um, clockwork. Ivy Bridge is a tick in this cadence, which is a process shrink to an existing micro-architecture. They also upgraded their iGPU and the platform comes with a new 7-series chipset. Our audience doesn’t exactly use the iGPU for graphics, but the upgrade should come with a decent boost for software that can use it in conjunction with Lucid’s VIRTU software.
Speaking of the iGPU, they boosted its performance partially with shared cache between the CPU and iGPU. The Ivy Bridge CPU comes in a pretty small 160 mm² package with a hefty 1.4 billion transistors. By comparison, Sandy Bridge had a die size of 216 mm² and 995 million transistors.
Before moving on though, we have the requisite eye candy from some images courtesy Intel.
As mentioned, this is Intel’s (and anyone else’s as far as I know) first use of a 3-D transistor. For more information on 3D Tri-Gate transistors, check out this page at Intel. The implications are interesting for overclockers in daily use, which we’ll be sure to check out in detail below. Let’s say the change to this transistor type flips the lid on the whole temperature-and-process-shrink paradigm.
On the right we have more details about the iGPU. We’ll probably explore the iGPU performance later, but this review is all about processing power.
The 7-series Panther Point chipset is Intel’s newest and it adds some things the 6-series lacked, while staying lackluster in others. The good part is that this is Intel’s first native USB 3.0 chipset. Even the X79 chipset lacked USB 3.0 for some reason or another, necessitating third-party controllers. There are only “up to four” USB 3.0 lanes available, but it’s there finally.
The 7-series chipsets retain Intel’s Smart Response Technology that debuted with the Z68 chipset, which is a boon to those who can’t afford a large SSD. It also gives new support for Intel’s Thunderbolt interface. Frankly, the chances of it usurping USB’s hold on the market is slim to zero, but hey; if anyone wants an alternative to the now-dated FireWire, here you go.
For everything but memory capability (and only at the very extreme end of that spectrum), the 6-series chipset is completely compatible with Ivy Bridge CPUs. You’ll lose some of the features (most importantly, PCIe 3.0 in some cases), but it will work without issue assuming your motherboard manufacturer releases a proper BIOS update. I can confirm that the ASUS Maximus IV Extreme-Z is perfectly ready for Ivy Bridge.
Here we have the more detailed block diagrams describing how everything is doled out with the three new Platform Controller Hubs (PCH) and the 3rd generation Core CPUs. The PCH on the left (Z77) is where most overclockers will hang their hat, with some budget-minded, more frugal folks going the Z75 route. The latter loses Thunderbolt capability and removes Rapid Storage Technology (RST).
The graphics interface is now PCIe 3.0, with 16x lanes available total. This is more than capable for pretty much anybody that wants to run two GPUs – eight PCIe 3.0 lanes is equivalent to sixteen PCIe 2.0 lanes.
Still – still – Intel only has two SATA 6Gb/s ports available. AMD has had six SATA 6Gb/s ports for two chipset generations now. I can’t fathom why Intel continues to buck the trend and leave us with only two current-generation SATA ports. With full backwards-compatibility, I think it’s time to let SATA II go now, don’t you?
One very important thing to note is the memory speed capability – “Up to 1600 MHz”. Now, I’m not sure if that means DDR3-1600 or DDR3-3200, but what I can tell you is – yowza – do these things have insane memory controllers. I’m not just saying that either. We have a G.Skill DDR3-2666 kit in testing and, whew, are those things fast.
The first thing many people will do when they get their new Ivy Bridge CPU is (what else?) overclock it. They increased the multiplier lottery this time, with chips capable of up to
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the Department of Treasury– have (in all likelihood improperly) claimed that substantive regulation changes were merely “procedural” or “interpretative” rather than “legislative,” it can too.
McClanahan rebuts this assertion that the CIA “should be allowed to violate the law because the Department of Treasury did it first.” Moreover, he clearly explains why the CIA’s regulation changes are “legislative.” First, the Agency’s previous 1997 regulations on MDR were defined and promulgated by the Agency as “legislative” regulations, so the Agency’s attempt to change their designation now to avoid public scrutiny is disingenuous, a departure from precedent, and does not satisfy the requirements for promulgating a “procedural” or “interpretative” rule.
Second, the Supreme Court has held that “agencies may not collect fees under IOAA [Independent Offices Appropriations Act] from individual parties for services which benefit the public generally.” President Obama’s Executive Order on Classification and Mandatory Declassification Review defines MDR precisely as such: “Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their Government. Also, our Nation’s progress depends on the free flow of information both within the government and to the American people.” (See National Cable Television Ass’n, Inc. v. United States, 1974.)
In one final irony, by using its “discretion” to waive MDR fees, the Agency is in violation of its own (incorrectly claimed) “procedural” and/or “interpretive” regulation. You see, the CIA’s new MDR regulation changed the Agency’s ability to charge fees from discretionary to non-discretionary. Despite this, in violation of its new, non-discretionary regulations, the CIA is now “as a courtesy to requesters” using its discretion to not charge fees that it argues are non-discretionary.
Despite the CIA’s decision to temporarily stop charging MDR fees –and the weakness of its case– the inaction of the Obama administration on this situation is very disconcerting. How can the American President attempt to lead a world-wide Open Government Partnership when his own Agency is rolling back transparency under his nose… and as his Department of Justice continues to doggedly defend the government’s fight against the people’s right to know?Renewing your driver's license can be a pain in the butt these days, but the task has caused quite a stir for one Florida woman.
Ashlee Lineberger of Englewood recently mailed in her $48 renewal fee for a new license and when she got her new state-issued ID back in the mail, she noticed that she was no longer from Englewood.
The license said she lived in "Eat Ass," Florida. We're still looking for it on the map.
"I only looked at it because I wondered what picture they would use," 31-year-old Lineberger said. "I thought I was a dreaming and I literally pinched myself. I was completely shocked."
Famous Tough Guys: "The Expendables" Edition
The line that was supposed to display Lineberger's street address was replaced by the vulgar message and the state Department of Motor Vehicles has no clue how the mishap occurred.
Lineberger's husband, Charles, said after getting the run around on the phone with the state DMV, the couple went to the local DMV to get some answers. What they got was laughter and a quote for another fee if they wanted the license fixed.
"They thought it was hilarious like it was some kind of joke," he said. "Then they wanted us to pay for another license."
Cheating Politicians
On Wednesday, state officials contacted Lineberger to apologize for the error and told her a new license - free of charge - would be in the mail. But she still doesn't have an answer to how she got the new address.
"It makes you wonder what these people are doing with all of this vital information if they can play around with a license like that," said Lineberger, who will be doing all her transactions in person from now on. "My view has changed that's for sure. You trust these people because they work for the government but somebody is obviously not doing their job."
But the Linebergers are not without a sense of humor. Ashlee said she plans on keeping the "Eat Ass" license even after she gets the real one.
Weird News Photos: Holiday Edition
"Imagine if I got pulled over by a cop and had to show this ID? I probably wouldn't be getting out of that ticket," she said. "That's priceless."Quick Launch takes you where you need to go fast! From the instant you open Space Gremlin you'll have access to all your hard drive volumes and external drives ready to scan. If you prefer you can also limit your search to popular places within your home directory. Clicking a folder takes you in to our finely tuned scanner that beats all the competition.
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Smart tools help you make the best decisions with your files. You can slice and dice your view to target the best files to either save or throw in the trash. Double-click a folder to zoom in for a better look. Ignore those files you just aren't ready to part with. When you've found a gremlin that needs to be cleaned up, you have the option to compress or move to trash. Safely empty your trash and come back to Space Gremlin to get an updated look. You even have the option to toggle hidden files that don't normally appear in Finder.
Power under the hood Space Gremlin uses a sophisticated algorithm called squarified treemaps to use the most of your screen real estate. Nothing is more important to us than effective visualization of data. The scanning engine used to analyze your hard drive is constantly tweaked to get the best performance with the lowest memory footprint. New features are continually being refined and sent out to users.
Space Gremlin is the best utility you can own to manage file usage on your hard drive. Analyzing disk space is fast and informative. By having a large perspective on your disk usage you can quickly free up several gigs of space being eaten up by those nasty gremlins. Buy now exclusively on the new Mac App store.NewsAbortion, Faith, Homosexuality
POSADAS, Argentina, October 11, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) - Angry, pro-abortion feminists mocked, spat on, and spray-painted Catholics who were standing guard in front of the cathedral of the Diocese of Posadas in Argentina on Saturday, an event that was caught on video by professional journalists and placed on YouTube and other media.
According to reports by local media, the bishop of Posadas, Juan Martínez, had closed the cathedral and canceled liturgical services there in anticipation of the presence of the women, who had gathered in the city to participate in the annual national National Women’s Encounter, an event that has become notorious for vandalism and attacks on Catholic churches.
Although the destructive behavior of participants in Argentina’s annual National Women’s Encounter is well known, Martínez had inexplicably asked the police not to place barriers nor to guard the cathedral, which was on the planned route of the feminists’ march through the city.
Local Catholics who placed themselves in front of the building to defend the structure from defacement were left defenseless as they were harassed and spray-painted by the feminists.
Following the attacks, which successfully defaced part of the building despite the presence of Catholic laity, Bishop Martinez said that the diocese had chosen “the road of peace and of non-confrontation,” but called the actions of the demonstrators “shameful.”
Calling the feminists “professional provocateurs” in a press conference following the attack, Martínez added that “we’re going to leave the paint for 48 hours so that people will reflect. The city was left vandalized, subjected, and violated. If they had done it to a synagogue, it would have been said that it was an anti-Semitic aggression. As it was against Catholics, there’s no problem.”
(Click “like” if you want to end abortion! )
Argentina’s National Women’s Encounter attracts thousands of women every year from extremist feminist groups, many of them homosexuals, to angrily demand the acceptance of their political agenda, which includes the legalization of abortion and the vindication of the homosexual lifestyle.
In 2010 they vandalized buildings in the city of Paraná, attacked Catholics in front of the city’s cathedral and seriously injured at least one person. Similar confrontations have occurred in other years as well, including 2007 and 2008.We are back in space this week. True space. Deep space.
Fred Gambino is a freelance concept artist and illustrator from Lea in the United Kingdom. He’s been producing art for over twenty-five years for a variety of media, including film, television, and games.
Below is a sampling of his work. Each image links back to the corresponding gallery. Enjoy!
Why do I like his work? Fred manages to capture both the loneliness and excitement of deep space exploration. That is one of the reasons I love art so much. I’ll never have the opportunity to travel to space. The majority of us won’t ever be that lucky, but artists, be they painters or writers or movie directors, have the ability to take us there nonetheless, and they do it through sheer talent and the power of imagination. And Fred is pretty awesome at doing just that.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Enjoy!A showcase of early Futurist architecture from 1907, the State Darwin Museum, set back on Valivola Ulitsa in the Akademicheskaya region, is devoted to our natural history. This it presents as an evolving progression from ferns, to animatronic dinosaurs and then onto ourselves, Homo Sapiens. This museum, in fact, represents the first one to promote Darwin’s theory of evolution.
This venue boasts another distinction: for 55 years the museum has been the only scientific establishment to open its doors to followers of Russia’s own Bigfoot cult. Each month, members of the International Centre for Hominology gather there to discuss their latest publications, the results of their field trips and to chew over their pet theories as to unknown-to-science ape-men.
Global man-ape Rumours
Last November (2015) the publication Newsweek assigned a special 100 page edition to what it called ‘the greatest and most controversial legend on earth’–Bigfoot.
The prominence of North America’s Bigfoot (or Sasquatch, to give it its Native American name) can obscure the fact that stories of something similar–hairy bipedal man-like apes–have long haunted the imaginations of many parts of the world.
Indeed, before that the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas had already made headlines courtesy of climbing expeditions to the area. The big game hunter Peter Byrne was sheltering in a cave in Arun Valley in Nepal on a hunt for the snowman in 1959. A messenger brought him a letter from his financer, the entrepreneur Tom Slick, which told him to drop the hunt and make his way to Willow Creek, USA where there was talk of something similar–Bigfoot no less. Thus the two legends–not so obvious in their similarity–became fused in the eyes of the media (Sykes, p-51).
Australia too has its Yowie, spoken of by the aboriginal people and dubbed by the white immigrants ‘the big Hairy fella’. The mountains of Southern and Central China has, for 2,000 years, been the scene of similar reports of a Wildman which they call the Yeren. This even prompted a study by the prestigious Chinese Academy of Sciences in the 1960s.
Then over in the swampland of Sumatra, the West Indonesian Island there is talk of Orang Pendek. This is another hairy human-like ape, but in this case one of diminutive stature (his name means ‘little man’). The tracks he leaves resemble those of a seven year old child, but wider.
It would not be until 1910 that the first westerner remarked over one, and then in 1923 a Dutch hunter found himself unable to fire at one, so human did it appear.
Since 1994 the British travel journalist Deborah Matyr has become something of an advocate for the creature. Having seen the thing several times herself she is a believer and has organised field trips to the tropical forests to locate it (Doncaster and Holland, p’s–174-176).
Russia, along with former countries of the Soviet Union, is not left out in any of this. Here there is a tradition of wood goblins stretching back centuries, and some more modern accounts which bear a similarity to the Himalayan yeti. The preferred term here is the one used by Mongolians to talk about their wild man–the Almasty.
Here the scene is kept alive by a coterie of elder statesmen in their seventies and eighties. Beset by attendant health issues, they plough a lonely furrow, self-producing books and pamphlets, providing the odd talking head on a sensational TV documentary, leading some expeditions for Japanese tourists, having the odd morale boosting meet-up with one of their American brethren, going out on the occasional field trip to look for signs, and enjoying a once a month social at the State Darwin Museum. Edward Crabtree
Testimonies and Traces
Before we chalk all this down to folk-tales though, there remain a perplexing array of cases where such beings put in appearances and make marks before bemused, and credible, spectators.
Two American biologists called Edward Cronin and Jeffrey McNeely took to camping out in the Arun Valley in Nepal in 1972. Their aim was to check out the flora and fauna of the region. What they did not expect to find, however, were the fresh footprints outside their tent when they arose one morning. These looked like those of an unidentified primate, and there were opposable digits–thumbs–on the feet. (Sykes, p-49)
Thirty nine years later, in the altogether different territory of Rutherford county in North Carolina, USA, a Vietnam vet called Thomas Byers, with his girlfriend Caroline Wright felt astonished by a seven foot tall being running across the highway. This growled at them and left a smell behind, but not before Byers had captured a five second video of the occurrence (Bainton, p’s 358-359).
Another video clip, this one posted on-line, originates from nearby a city called Adyagesyk, near the Krasnodar reservoir in south western Russia. This shows something moving through the forest as well as the footprints it supposedly left in its wake. Indeed, if NTV state television can be believed the beast had been the cause of calls made to the local emergency services. A search and rescue team then found tracks of 47cm in length and 27 centimetres wide.
“It would have taken 200 kilos to press down on the snow that hard” commented Andrei Kazaryan, a member of the search and rescue team (Moscow Times, January 16th 2015)
Nevertheless, until a full body or skeleton turns up which answers to the description of such man-like apes as described above, then qualified zoologists will be forever obliged to banish such accounts as nothing but those of folk-demons.
Looking for an I.D
Michael Trachtengerts’s business card introduces him as a ‘free researcher’ interested in ‘human origins’. Now an octogenarian, he still holds fast to a view of the Almasty as a corporeal creature and hence one waiting to be found by scientists anytime soon. For him this is the search for a ‘living fossil’.
“It is no more supernatural than a gorilla or a chimpanzee” he told me with confidence last December. This position is restated in the second part of his book Foundations of Hominology which he has just brought out. It is also the assumption behind his dual language website www.almas.ru.
Holders of the ‘living fossil’ paradigm like to draw parallels with other known creatures. Marine arthropods known as horseshoe crabs have made few evolutionary changes to differ them from their fossilised ancestors from 450 million years ago.
Trachtengerts’s long-time colleague, Igor Burtsev, who heads the International Centre for Hominology, however, feels that he has outgrown the living fossil model. After uncovering stick structures that he believes are left by the Almasty, and which take the form of rune-like glyphs, and having spoken to witnesses who tell of the creature materialising and dematerialising, he has joined a growing number of his American counterparts who suggest that this is an intelligent being in possession of paranormal capabilities. This idea has been aired elsewhere in Russia too: an article in the weekly Anomalny Novosti (No 50, December 2015) carries an article,the headline of which translates as ‘The snowman is not a man’. Burtsev has even suggested on more than one occasion that the entity could even be of off-world origin. (For more on this vexed debate see my own article: ‘Primates of the Paranormal’ at the www.unexplained.com website).
The snowman is no more supernatural than a gorilla or a chimpanzee. Michael Trachtengerts
Nevertheless, though to Trachtengerts the Almasty is of fearsome aspect, and could even eat human flesh and to Burtsev they are benevolent, they are both united in their tenet that it should not be shot, not even to prove its existence.
Relics
In North America bigfootology is a lucrative craze which comes complete with its gurus, its TV shows and fictional film tributes, online incestuous debates and even litigation between insiders.
The Russian counterpart can only limp along to try to keep up. Here the scene is kept alive by a coterie of elder statesmen in their seventies and eighties. Beset by attendant health issues, they plough a lonely furrow, self-producing books and pamphlets, providing the odd talking head on a sensational TV documentary, leading some expeditions for Japanese tourists, having the odd morale boosting meet-up with one of their American brethren, going out on the occasional field trip to look for signs, and enjoying a once a month social at the State Darwin Museum. They can be seen as survivors from a Soviet period during which people had more time, when travel within the Soviet Union was affordable, hiking was popular–and Darwinian speculation accepted within certain boundaries.
Last June (2015), it seemed as if help was on hand from a younger man. A 44 year old former geography teacher turned ground based tour operator for ROSCOSMOS, Valery Sushkov, announced the inauguration of a new Yeti Expedition Club. This was backed up with a website, business cards and other such paraphernalia. The objective was to bring together research with an open appeal to the tourist market. One focus was Kemerovo and a slogan for this was produced: “Mount Shoria: Motherland of the Russian Snowman”. Igor Burtsev was invited on board to act as the club President.
It was with a sense of optimistic fanfare that I reported this development for English readers in a piece in Phenomena Magazine in December 2015. The portents, a few months down the line, are not looking quite so good: Burtsev and Sushkov are no longer in touch and I have heard no ore of the venture from any of my contacts, although the website www.yetiexpedtition.ru does seem to still be under development. Such is the way with all too much in the Russian Bigfoot scene.
Doubts. New Leads
In any case this comingling of research with the commercial need to encourage visitors to areas of Russia has already caused some to doubt some evidence for the Russian Almasty.
Doctor Jeff Meldrum, a professor of anatomy and anthropology at the State Idaho University in Pocatello, USA is a science insider who is also convinced of the reality of unknown-to-science primates. This prominence lead to Meldrum being among those welcomed to the Kemerovo region where the local government and Almasty investigators were trying to set up a Day of the Yeti.
He later told Huffington Post that some of the findings had been ‘orchestrated’. He was lead to a cave called Azaskaya in Mount Shoria by a deputation which included Burtsev among its numbers. A tuft of ‘yeti hair’ that was ‘found’ seemed to him to have been pressed into the ground by a human agent. Tracks leading into the cave, he noticed, were those of the right foot only, and went in but not out. A supposed ‘nest’ of the Almasty, a bed of moss, had no traces of animal debris in it. Then when he and his camera-man tried to go further into the cave to do their own investigations, he was called back by his guides. All in all, the visit left this believer with an ‘uneasy feeling’ (Fortean Times, March 2013).
I think my view has altered more in favour of there being something out there than the reverse. Bryan Sykes
To give another twist to the saga, however, another academic, this one with a reputation as a doubter, has done a bit of an about turn on the Russian Almasty question.
Among the many books produced by Bryan Sykes, the professor of human genetics at Oxford University, the newest is called The Nature of the Beast. This turns the acetylene torch glare of cutting edge DNA testing to the Bigfoot and yeti conundrum.
He asked researchers from around the world to send him samples of hair taken from places were anomalous primates had been glimpsed. It is gut-wrenching to note that the vast majority of these transpired to have come from such things as horses and cows. After all, these animals have the kind of long hair that can easily become trapped on bushes and between rocks; Sykes also points out that such animals would be unlikely to have been mistaken for ape-men–so these negative results tell us nothing about the sightings themselves.
Sykes also took a fresh look at a celebrated case known as Zana, the wild-woman. This woman came to be captured in Abkhazia (between Russia and Georgia) in the late nineteenth century. Observed by hundreds of people all agreed on her hairy body and fantastic strength. She lived outdoors by preference and never learnt a human language.
She also begat offspring. Burtsev was the one who managed to unearth the skull of one of her sons, Kwhit, in 1971. Dmitri Perkulov, in more recent times took swabs of the saliva of Zana’s six living descendants in the region.
On scrutinising the skull, Sykes pronounced it to be ‘unusually large’ and ‘outside the range of modern human variation’ (Sykes, p-298). On testing the saliva Sykes describes the outcome as ‘very, very unusual’ (Sykes, p-306). He found it to be of African descent, but it did not match any records.
The conventional explanation has been that Zana was an escaped African slave: Sykes does not believe this however as her description is not that of an ordinary human being. He concludes that she may have belonged to ‘an antique race of humans’ who could still be living in the Caucuses! (Sykes, p-306).
Granted, this is neither the prehistoric throwback that Trachtengert’s holds out for, and still less the paranormal entity that Burtsev conceives of. It is significant, though that Sykes concludes his book by saying: “I think my view has altered more in favour of there being ‘something out there’ than the reverse” (Sykes, p311).
As we enter the Year of the Monkey, we can only hope that Russia’s Bigfoot aficionados survive a little longer to tell us more of the mysterious native that hides out in the world’s biggest country.
References:
Bainton, Roy The Mammoth Book of Unexplained Phenomena (London: Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2013)
Doncaster, Lucy/Holland, Andrew Greatest Mysteries of the Unexplained (London: Arcutus Publishing Limited, 2006).
Sykes, Bryan The Nature of the Beast: The first Scientific Evidence of ape-Men Survival into Modern Times (London: Coronet, 2015).Working as a journalist in Washington for parts of the past two decades always created an internal dilemma: Was I really just chronicling a football team, or was I peripherally participating in the continued disparagement of America's indigenous people? Even when I hid behind "professional duty," I always knew the answer.
When former referee Mike Carey revealed a year ago that the NFL honored his request not to work Washington's games the final eight years of his career, explaining, "It just became clear to me that to be in the middle of the field, where something disrespectful is happening, was probably not the best thing for me," I felt a strong kinship.
So, with no pressing work obligation at FedEx Field this year, I didn't go to the opener. I didn't go Sunday, either.
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• Name change inevitable for Washington's NFL team By Mike Wise
I missed nothing.
Oh, Washington finally earned something other than an insult from another analyst on a pregame show, physically emasculating the St. Louis Rams. And all across the overcast and drizzly region of the District, Maryland and Virginia on Monday, light figuratively cascaded down from the heavens, glistening off the burgundy-and-gold legions. With Tony Romo out for two months and the Eagles and Giants reeling at 0-2, delusions of an NFC East title danced in their hope-deprived skulls.
By and large, they're good fans; they deserve a reprieve from the clown show. Poor saps. They've yet to realize: shocking run to the postseason or 3-13 again, they cannot win.
Because after all the RGIII clickbait, the drama-a-day commode fires, after all the zaniness of the organization refusing to get out of its own way, the brand has been irrevocably tarnished.
It actually took professionally stepping outside the Washington bubble for the first time in a decade to fully grasp we've now come to a place we haven't been before.
In late June, the Washington Post ran a 16-question quiz, asking readers whether they could differentiate between statements made defending the Confederate flag and the name of Washington's NFL team. The exercise showed how the two were essentially interchangeable.
In early July, a federal judge upheld the stripping of the team's federal trademark protection on the basis of the moniker being offensive to Native Americans.
California, the most populous state in the nation and home to three NFL franchises, passed legislation this month ensuring no public school will ever call itself what Washington's NFL team calls itself.
In Madison, Wisconsin, historically a liberal town but practically middle America, kids can't even wear clothing to school with Native-themed teams on it. Imagine being the parent of an Indians or Braves fan and your child comes home to give you the lecture about a living people not being mascots.
Several dead-broke Native American tribes and organizations now won't even take Dan Snyder's money because they don't believe the owner's Original Americans Foundation is charitable; they know it's a sham geared toward actually promoting the team's name in Indian country and beyond.
The latest was the Indian National Rodeo Finals, which like many poor tribal organizations struggled mightily with what Snyder essentially asked them to choose between: cultural identity or financial need.
A year ago, it chose money, accepting $200,000 and plastering Washington team placards all over Las Vegas for its championship event. A year later, tugged like a wishbone by its people and feeling like a pawn, the Indian National Rodeo Finals publicly rebuked the team in a letter:
"After much soul searching, we have decided that we cannot in good conscience accept resources from you on the terms you have offered, no matter how desperately we need it," Bo Vocu, the organization's vice president, wrote. "That is because, as you know, the resources you are offering are not truly philanthropic -- they come with the expectation that we will support the racial slur that continues to promote your associated professional football team's name."
Think on that for a moment. The name has become so radioactive to many Native Americans that people desperately in need of resources are running away from a billionaire's money. Because of Snyder's insistence he will "never" change the name, parts of Indian country have essentially started their own Don'tFundMe campaigns.
I've bristled over the years that the issue seemed to be on an island by itself. But this is no longer merely a civil rights/social justice issue affecting our most marginalized ethnicity. Many people now have made the obvious leap that this issue impacts people of color.
Now part of the zeitgeist, it's impossible to get away from it.
Daniel Snyder's efforts to retain the name of his Washington NFL team will eventually be overtaken by public opinion. Larry French/Getty Images
From "Late Night With Seth Meyers" last month: "President Obama has announced plans to rename Mt. McKinley 'Denali' after its original Native American name. Because it turns out it's easier to rename a mountain than a football team."
From "South Park" pillorying the owner for an entire episode to built-in monologue jokes, Snyder's Last Stand is now regular late-night fodder. People now automatically make the association, whereas five, 10 years ago the issue bubbled up only to simmer back down.
Brought on by social unrest elsewhere, by so many issues breaking down along racial lines, a new era of consciousness has evolved -- one that helps people make an immediate leap to Washington's name as a symptom of the same problem. Though not always to the same degree, most rational-thinking people see the relation.
Look, the NFL has become a clearinghouse where we now debate some of our most pressing national issues. Racial slurs. Legal ethics. Economic fairness. Workplace integrity. Domestic violence. Public health. Roger Goodell's tone-deaf league is at the center of it all, one of the main entry points for discussion.
Between a raised racial awareness societally and the platform of mammoth cultural force like the NFL, the convergence of both has forever fundamentally changed the debate about the name.
More so than any other time in history, momentum has grown for change.
And most of the pressure for change is happening beyond the protective cocoon of team headquarters in Virginia. Similar to the civil rights movement, when Martin Luther King's strategy relied more on a grassroots movement and local action before any march on Washington, the power of using the name is eroding in small towns like Lancaster, New York, and Goshen, Indiana, in school districts like Houston's, which last year passed a law forbidding the use of Native American mascots, and states like California and Wisconsin.
Snyder has never been more isolated. He can point to whatever poll he wants. Movement on the issue is evidenced by high schools in double-digit numbers changing their names in just the past two years.
That's not a top-down strategy. The issue has evolved organically.
For the first time in a long time, a sense of optimism has emerged that it's really only a matter of time.
So whether coach Jay Gruden knows what he's doing, whether his team musters five wins or shockingly waltzes to 13, that's not what will determine a good season in Washington.
My only advice for Snyder and his dyed-in-the-past loyalists: Change is certain. Growth is optional.+) and potassium- (K+) gated + channels open at the beginning of the action potential, and Na+ moves into the axon, causing + channels open and K+ moves out of the axon, creating a change in polarity between the outside of the cell and the inside. The impulse travels down the axon in one direction only, to the As an action potential (nerve impulse) travels down an axon there is a change in polarity across the membrane of the axon. In response to a signal from another neuron, sodium- (Na) and potassium- (K) gated ion channels open and close as the membrane reaches its threshold potential. Nachannels open at the beginning of the action potential, and Namoves into the axon, causing depolarization Repolarization occurs when the Kchannels open and Kmoves out of the axon, creating a change in polarity between the outside of the cell and the inside. The impulse travels down the axon in one direction only, to the axon terminal where it signals other neurons.
In physiology, an action potential occurs when the membrane potential of a specific axon location rapidly rises and falls:[1] this depolarisation then causes adjacent locations to similarly depolarise. Action potentials occur in several types of animal cells, called excitable cells, which include neurons, muscle cells, endocrine cells, and in some plant cells.
In neurons, action potentials play a central role in cell-to-cell communication by providing for—or with regard to saltatory conduction, assisting—the propagation of signals along the neuron's axon toward synaptic boutons situated at the ends of an axon; these signals can then connect with other neurons at synapses, or to motor cells or glands. In other types of cells, their main function is to activate intracellular processes. In muscle cells, for example, an action potential is the first step in the chain of events leading to contraction. In beta cells of the pancreas, they provoke release of insulin.[a] Action potentials in neurons are also known as "nerve impulses" or "spikes", and the temporal sequence of action potentials generated by a neuron is called its "spike train". A neuron that emits an action potential, or nerve impulse, is often said to "fire".
Action potentials are generated by special types of voltage-gated ion channels embedded in a cell's plasma membrane.[b] These channels are shut when the membrane potential is near the (negative) resting potential of the cell, but they rapidly begin to open if the membrane potential increases to a precisely defined threshold voltage, depolarising the transmembrane potential.[b] When the channels open, they allow an inward flow of sodium ions, which changes the electrochemical gradient, which in turn produces a further rise in the membrane potential. This then causes more channels to open, producing a greater electric current across the cell membrane and so on. The process proceeds explosively until all of the available ion channels are open, resulting in a large upswing in the membrane potential. The rapid influx of sodium ions causes the polarity of the plasma membrane to reverse, and the ion channels then rapidly inactivate. As the sodium channels close, sodium ions can no longer enter the neuron, and they are then actively transported back out of the plasma membrane. Potassium channels are then activated, and there is an outward current of potassium ions, returning the electrochemical gradient to the resting state. After an action potential has occurred, there is a transient negative shift, called the afterhyperpolarization.
In animal cells, there are two primary types of action potentials. One type is generated by voltage-gated sodium channels, the other by voltage-gated calcium channels. Sodium-based action potentials usually last for under one millisecond, but calcium-based action potentials may last for 100 milliseconds or longer.[2] In some types of neurons, slow calcium spikes provide the driving force for a long burst of rapidly emitted sodium spikes. In cardiac muscle cells, on the other hand, an initial fast sodium spike provides a "primer" to provoke the rapid onset of a calcium spike, which then produces muscle contraction.[2]
In the Hodgkin–Huxley membrane capacitance model, the speed of transmission of an action potential was undefined and it was assumed that adjacent areas became depolarised due to released ion interference with neighbouring channels. Measurements of ion diffusion and radii have since shown this not to be possible. Moreover, contradictory measurements of entropy changes and timing disputed the capacitance model as acting alone.
Overview [ edit ]
Shape of a typical action potential. The membrane potential remains near a baseline level until at some point in time, it abruptly spikes upward and then rapidly falls.
Nearly all cell membranes in animals, plants and fungi maintain a voltage difference between the exterior and interior of the cell, called the membrane potential. A typical voltage across an animal cell membrane is −70 mV. This means that the interior of the cell has a negative voltage of approximately one-fifteenth of a volt relative to the exterior. In most types of cells, the membrane potential usually stays fairly constant. Some types of cells, however, are electrically active in the sense that their voltages fluctuate over time. In some types of electrically active cells, including neurons and muscle cells, the voltage fluctuations frequently take the form of a rapid upward spike followed by a rapid fall. These up-and-down cycles are known as action potentials. In some types of neurons, the entire up-and-down cycle takes place in a few thousandths of a second. In muscle cells, a typical action potential lasts about a fifth of a second. In some other types of cells, and also in plants, an action potential may last three seconds or more.
The electrical properties of a cell are determined by the structure of the membrane that surrounds it. A cell membrane consists of a lipid bilayer of molecules in which larger protein molecules are embedded. The lipid bilayer is highly resistant to movement of electrically charged ions, so it functions as an insulator. The large membrane-embedded proteins, in contrast, provide channels through which ions can pass across the membrane. Action potentials are driven by channel proteins whose configuration switches between closed and open states as a function of the voltage difference between the interior and exterior of the cell. These voltage-sensitive proteins are known as voltage-gated ion channels.
An in-depth process of how an action potential will pass through a neuron during neuron transmission including the 4 stages: resting potential, depolarization, re-polarization, and back to resting potential. The diagram shows how sodium ions and potassium ions interact to show how the changing of charge allows the action potential to cross with the use of facilitated diffusion and active transport.
Process in a typical neuron [ edit ]
Approximate plot of a typical action potential shows its various phases as the action potential passes a point on a cell membrane. The membrane potential starts out at −70 mV at time zero. A stimulus is applied at time = 1 ms, which raises the membrane potential above −55 mV (the threshold potential). After the
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-profile mass shootings, President Barack Obama has urged the American people to call on Congress to pass measures that would restrict access to guns and, hopefully, reduce gun violence. But after multiple pleas, Congress hasn't acted, even after the grisly mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.
So Obama is now acting on his own — with executive actions.
"Every single year, more than 30,000 Americans have their lives cut short by guns," Obama said at a press conference on Tuesday. "We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence erupt with this kind of frequency."
Obama met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Monday to consider what he can do without congressional legislation to reduce gun violence in America, which kills many more people in the US than other developed nations. In a press conference after the meeting, White House officials announced a plan they had been working on for months behind the scenes to address gun violence.
The changes attempt to tighten — but don't close — what's widely (but misleadingly) known as the "gun show loophole," as well as increase the efficiency of the federal background check system to avoid cases from falling through. The executive actions will also take smaller steps, ranging from improving the tracking of lost or stolen guns to encouraging technological improvements that will, in theory, make firearms safer.
This would not be the first time Obama has taken executive action on guns. In 2013, after Congress failed to pass gun control legislation following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Obama signed 23 executive actions and then a few follow-up actions that generally tightened the background check system.
But Obama's latest actions appear to be the boldest, touching on one of the longest-running issues with federal gun control laws and a broader hot-button debate about what to do about America's extraordinary levels of gun violence.
There are risks to Obama acting without congressional approval. Critics of the administration have already suggested that they will challenge new executive actions in court. Not getting legislation in the books also means that a President Ted Cruz (or Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, and so on) could unilaterally reverse Obama's actions. Shortly before the announcement of the plan, a congressional Republican also threatened to block funding for the Justice Department to stop the executive actions.
The Obama administration has pushed on anyway, arguing in an email, "The president has made clear the most impactful way to address the crisis of gun violence in our country is for Congress to pass some common sense gun safety measures. But the president has also said he's fully aware of the unfortunate political realities in this Congress. That is why he has asked his team to scrub existing legal authorities to see if there's any additional action we can take administratively."
Obama is also taking his call for more actions to the American people: On Thursday, he's participating in a CNN town hall about guns.
What Obama's executive actions on guns will do
Here's what the Obama administration plans to do:
The federal government will issue guidance that will narrow who can sell guns without a federal license, based on an evaluation of the circumstances surrounding individual gun sales. The idea is to make enforcement of existing federal laws stricter so fewer people — whether gun sellers or buyers — take advantage of the "gun show loophole."
The idea is to make enforcement of existing federal laws stricter so fewer people — whether gun sellers or buyers — take advantage of the "gun show loophole." The FBI will hire more than 230 more people to help run background checks — an increase of more than 50 percent to the current staff. Lynch said this was in part needed to keep up with rising demand. "We're looking to improve the efficiency and response time of the system," she said.
The government will also require background checks for people who try to buy restricted firearms through a legal entity, such as a corporation or trust. People were able to avoid background checks in the past through these entities.
The Department of Health and Human Services will finalize a rule regarding health record privacy laws to remove barriers to states providing mental health records to the background check system.
The administration will enforce tighter rules for reporting guns that are lost or stolen on their way to the buyer to make it easier for law enforcement to track down missing firearms.
Federal agencies will encourage and fund more research into technologies that can make guns safer, largely to reduce the risk of accidents.
In addition to these measures, the administration will continue pushing Congress to pass tighter gun control laws, and to direct more funds to enforcing existing gun laws and to mental health treatment.
Federal background checks are rife with loopholes
Obama's executive actions are a small but significant tweak to existing laws. In the US, there are several restrictions in federal law to buying a gun. Generally, the idea is that Americans who are underage, have serious criminal backgrounds, or are mentally ill should not be able to purchase a firearm.
Whether someone falls into any of these categories is typically evaluated through a background check: Under the federal system, licensed dealers are required to run these checks before they can sell someone a gun, typically by having the FBI check a person's criminal record, mental health history, and other factors. If someone fails a background check, he or she can't legally buy a gun.
But the system is riddled with loopholes. The most well-known way to bypass background checks is the private sales loophole: If someone purchases a gun from a private seller, such as a friend or family member, no gun background check is required. This is often mischaracterized as the "gun show loophole," under the assumption that people can simply go to a gun show and buy a gun without getting a background check. But licensed dealers at gun shows still have to carry out a background check. The actual loophole is that someone can meet with a private seller at a gun show — or, increasingly, over the internet — and buy a firearm from that person without a background check. In other words, the gun show doesn't create a loophole; the private sale does.
An equally big problem is that the system of background checks is notoriously underfunded, understaffed, and underresourced. Although there are no waiting periods under federal law, a check that turns out inconclusive can be extended for three business days. But these three days are a maximum for the government — and sometimes the three days lapse without the FBI completing its check, and a buyer can at that point purchase a gun without the completed check.
The FBI admitted that something like this happened with the shooter who killed nine people at a predominantly black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015: That shooter should have failed a background check for a handgun purchase after admitting to illegally possessing controlled substances in the past, but the FBI examiner did not obtain the shooter's record in time.
The federal background check system also largely relies on states' reports, including some data for mental health history and criminal records. Since states have their own budget issues to deal with, or may simply ideologically oppose the idea of background checks, states' noncompliance can create yet another way the system can fail to stop someone who shouldn't buy a gun from obtaining one. (State laws treat guns in a wide variety of ways; Slate has a good rundown of the differences.)
Obama's executive actions don't completely close any of these loopholes and faults in existing law, including the "gun show loophole," but they do take steps to tighten current restrictions on firearms and ensure that federal officials can actually enforce the law that's on the books.
Following the mass shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School in which a gunman killed 20 children, six adults, and himself, Congress was pressured to pass a bill that would have tightened the private sales loophole and potentially taken other steps toward restricting access to guns. But negotiations over the bill eventually fell apart, leading Obama to act on his own.
Obama is dealing with a Congress that won't act on gun control
It can be difficult to understand how the US hasn't done much to combat gun violence for years. America is unique not just in terms of gun violence but in terms of gun ownership — the country has by far the highest rates of gun ownership in the world. The research clearly shows that more guns mean more gun violence, so all those guns are leading to more deaths. And the public widely supports closing the loopholes in the law. Yet even with this research and public support, and despite thousands of mass shootings during Obama's time in office, Congress has decided not to act.
The reasons for this are complicated, but they're generally rooted in America's strong gun culture and the powerful lobby behind that culture.
The single most powerful political organization when it comes to guns is, undoubtedly, the National Rifle Association, which has an enormous stranglehold over conservative politics in America.
Anytime there's an attempt to impose new forms of gun control, the NRA rallies gun owners and other opponents of gun control to kill such proposals. These gun owners make up a minority of the population: anywhere from 34 to 43 percent of households, depending on which survey one uses. But that population is a large and active enough constituency, particularly within the Republican base, to make many legislators fear that a poor grade from the NRA will end their careers.
As a result, conservative media and politicians take the NRA's support — especially the coveted A-to-F ratings the organization gives out — very, very seriously. Sometimes politicians will go to absurd lengths to show their support for gun rights. For example, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) last year starred in a video, from IJ Review, in which he cooked bacon with — this is not a joke — a machine gun.
Although several campaigns have popped up over the years to try to counteract the NRA, none has come close to capturing the kind of influential hold that the organization has. Some of the groups — such as StopTheNRA.com, in part funded by Democratic donor Ken Lerer — didn't even last a few years.
Kristin Goss, author of The Gun Debate: What Everyone Needs to Know, said this might be changing. She argued that newer gun control groups like Everytown for Gun Safety and Americans for Responsible Solutions are much more organized, are better funded, and have more grassroots support than gun control groups have had in her 20 years covering this issue. As a result, Democrats at the state and federal level seem much more willing to discuss gun control.
But supporters of gun control face a huge obstacle: far more passionate opponents. As Republican strategist Grover Norquist said in 2000, "The question is intensity versus preference. You can always get a certain percentage to say they are in favor of some gun controls. But are they going to vote on their 'control' position?" Probably not, Norquist suggested, "but for that 4-5 percent who care about guns, they will vote on this."
What's behind that passion? Goss, who's also a political scientist at Duke University, suggested it's a sense of tangible loss — gun owners feel like the government is going to take their guns and rights. In comparison, gun control advocates are motivated by more abstract notions of reducing gun violence — although, Goss noted, the victims of mass shootings and their families have begun to put a face on these policies by engaging more actively in advocacy work, which could make the gun control movement feel more relatable.
There is an exception at the state level, where legislatures have passed laws imposing (and relaxing) restrictions on guns. In 2014, for instance, Washington state and Oregon passed laws ensuring all guns have to go through background checks, including those sold between individuals. "There's a lot more going on than Congress," Goss said. "In blue states, gun laws are getting stricter. And in red states, in some cases, the gun laws are getting looser."
Still, the NRA's influence and its army of supporters push many of America's legislators, particularly at the federal level and red states, away from gun control measures — even though some countries that passed these policies have seen a lot of success with them. From Obama's perspective, that forced him to act alone to get something done on guns.
Universal background checks would help, but they likely wouldn't bring gun violence down to other developed countries' levels
Although Obama's executive action will help slightly restrict access to guns, it won't come anywhere close to bringing levels of gun violence down to the levels of other developed countries. Neither would the Senate bill that ultimately failed. The reason for that is simple: The problem is, fundamentally, that the US has a lot of guns, so any measure that doesn't significantly reduce the number of guns will ultimately fall short of fully addressing violence.
The research on this is very clear. Reviews of the evidence by the Harvard School of Public Health's Injury Control Research Center have concluded that more guns lead to more gun violence. Other factors, such as socioeconomic issues, obviously contribute to violence, but guns are the one issue that makes America unique relative to other developed countries in comparable socioeconomic circumstances.
Take, for instance, this chart, from a 2007 study by Harvard researchers, showing the correlation between statewide firearm homicide victimization rates and household gun ownership after controlling for robbery rates:
A more recent study from 2013, led by a Boston University School of Public Health researcher, reached similar conclusions: After controlling for multiple variables, the study found that a 1 percent increase in gun ownership correlated with a roughly 0.9 percent rise in the firearm homicide rate at the state level.
This holds up around the world. As Vox's Zack Beauchamp explained, a breakthrough analysis in the 1990s by UC Berkeley's Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins found that the US does not, contrary to the old conventional wisdom, have more crime in general than other Western industrial nations. Instead, the US appears to have more lethal violence — and that's driven in large part by the prevalence of guns.
"A series of specific comparisons of the death rates from property crime and assault in New York City and London show how enormous differences in death risk can be explained even while general patterns are similar," Zimring and Hawkins wrote. "A preference for crimes of personal force and the willingness and ability to use guns in robbery make similar levels of property crime 54 times as deadly in New York City as in London."
How can the country address this? The research shows tightening existing gun control measures in the US would help. But as Harvard's David Hemenway told Vox's Dylan Matthews, it would likely take decades for the mild gun control measures proposed in the US to have a significant impact. "It's all speculation," Hemenway said. "I suspect it would take a while (decades) for the US to get down to gun violence levels of other developed countries because a) we have so many guns which are durable, and b) we have a gun culture — we tend to use guns more often in more situations than citizens of other developed countries."
To have a more immediate impact, then, the US would have to find a way to quickly remove the number of guns in circulation. Other countries have actually done that: In Australia, after a 1996 mass shooting, lawmakers passed new restrictions on guns and imposed a mandatory buyback program that essentially confiscated people's guns, seizing at least 650,000 firearms.
According to one review of the evidence by Harvard researchers, Australia's firearm homicide rate dropped by about 42 percent in the seven years after the law passed, and its firearm suicide rate fell by 57 percent. Although it's hard to gauge how much of this was driven by the buyback program, researchers argue it likely played some role: "First, the drop in firearm deaths was largest among the type of firearms most affected by the buyback. Second, firearm deaths in states with higher buyback rates per capita fell proportionately more than in states with lower buyback rates."
Still, similar measures would be very difficult to pass in America, due to the strength of gun culture and the gun lobby in the US — pushing Obama to act without Congress with a much smaller policy tweak.
Watch: America's biggest gun problem is the one we don't talk aboutA plan crafted to coax more people to use bicycles for short trips in the city won an initial backing from Milwaukee aldermen on Thursday, with just one raising a cautionary note on the potential cost of the proposed street improvements.
The Bicycle Master Plan maps out 125 miles of new bike lanes, 40 miles of bike boulevards and seven miles of paved trails that would make bicycling on city streets less frightening, according to its proponents.
The goal of the bike lane build-out, along with improved education and enforcement, is to put people on bicycles for 5% of all trips less than five miles, by 2020. Daily bike trips in the city would double from about 81,000 to 162,000.
The cost of the projects - striping bike lanes, building boulevards and adding paths – is $8.63 million.
Ald. Joseph Dudzik warned it would be hard to justify spending those dollars on bike paths, given the huge deficits in state and federal budgets. He also said he would follow the direction of his constituents, who may not be overly keen to new bike lanes being added to their streets.
“I’m not going to be bulldozed by a bunch of bicyclists,” Dudzik told the Public Safety Committee as it reviewed the plan.
The committee sent the guide to the full Common Council, with a recommendation that it be approved next week.
Even if the council approves the blueprint, as expected, none of the projects outlined would be started immediately. Individual projects and spending would have to be approved separately.
“These are goals,” said Ald. Nicholas Kovac, a cycling proponent. “These are things we’d like to do. It remains to be seen if we can get any money for it.”
Bike lanes and boulevards are likely to be added during street reconstruction or repaving projects, and when federal grant dollars become available, according to City Engineer Jeff Polenske. Having the plan in place will improve the city’s ability to obtain grants for bike and pedestrian projects, he said.
As mapped out in the planning guide, the network of bike lanes and routes would offer a designated ride option within 1/4 mile of nearly the entire city.
Beyond the basic bike lanes, the plan also calls for several more innovative efforts to make streets safer for cyclists – ideas that have been tested in places like Portland, Ore., Minneapolis, Minn., and Madison. Those include raised bike lanes, pavement markings and signal set ups that put cyclists first in line at intersections, and a bike-sharing program.
Other goals include designated mountain bike trails and a BMX venue in the city, and attended bicycle parking at sporting events and concerts.
Bike plan proponents hope to make city streets more accomodating for daily commutesTaylor Gipple (Photo: Courtesy of Taylor Gipple)
In the 2012 election, I was in college and would routinely get heckled by volunteers on the way to class asking if I had voted. Knowing their game, I would put in headphones before walking past them and would escape the inevitable questions and persuasion talks.
We think getting involved in politics is voting every four years. That thinking is wrong, but we simply haven’t been told otherwise. Getting involved in politics is knowing what is going on in your state, identifying problems in your local areas, bringing issues to light by voicing your opinions to family/friends, and participating in state elections. Getting involved in politics is getting in touch with your local community and then bringing the bigger issues to the national forefront.
I
Buy Photo Our Caucus offers unique viewpoints. (Photo: The Register)
t’s simply not just casting a vote every four years. As a citizen of the United States, your opinion is worth more than a vote every national election. Your opinion is what will shape the direction of our country. Your opinion is what will shape our laws. Your opinion is part of a democracy where we instruct the government what is best for the people. The government is supposed to work for the betterment of the people, but this can only happen if we get involved. Vote for candidates who identify with your beliefs. Argue with your friends about their opinions and what issues they think are important. But agree upon common ground.
Our generation is smart, but it is also accepting. We can handle discussing controversial topics. We won’t agree on everything, but we should focus on finding common ground and bringing those issues to light. We’re all really not that different and shouldn’t let our differences stop us from moving forward on the similar goals between us.
We’re millennials. We’re smart, we have opinions, we’re accepting, but still having differences, we move forward. If we get involved.
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Taylor Gipple is a 22-year-old Des Moines native and recent University of Northern Iowa graduate who works in IT in Des Moines.
To read more from the 12 Iowans who are writing about their experiences for Our Caucus, visit https://medium.com/our-caucus. Our Caucus is a Des Moines Register project designed to bring in varying viewpoints and experiences, especially from younger voters, during this election cycle.
Read or Share this story: http://dmreg.co/1YPV1NTReview and photos by Scott Rubin
Each year, WizKids Games comes up with a wild and sometimes wacky collection of characters that are only available at their big events. These Convention Exclusives include both prizes for winners of tournaments and battle royales and for-purchase items available to attendees while supplies last. The 2017 batch of limited edition figures includes an incredible array of characters from across the length and breadth of DC and Marvel Comics plus Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There’s also a cameo appearance by a real life athlete of huge renown getting his first shot in a miniatures game with the DC HeroClix Superman vs. Muhammad Ali set! The duo pack (with boxing ring!) will be available for purchase at National Championships events starting on April 1st, and also the World Championships at Origins Game Fair.
If you’re not familiar with it, Superman vs. Muhammad Ali was a one-shot comic published by DC Comics in 1978. Adapted from a story by Dennis O’Neil, the book was written and drawn by famous Superman artist Neal Adams who was (and is) known for his big, bold style. The story tells of the alien menace known as the Scrubb who come to Earth to challenge its greatest fighter in one-on-one combat to determine the fate of the planet! Both the Man of Steel and Ali (who was the World Heavyweight Champion when the comic was being written but had just lost the title when it came out after delays – he would regain the title later that year) claimed the title, though Superman’s claim was disputed as he came from Krypton and had powers.
The aliens offer the two a title bout before the main event, and Ali trains Superman in a special time-warping facility in the Fortress of Solitude that deactivates the superhero’s powers. Later on the alien planet, which orbits a red sun, and broadcast to viewers across the universe the two square off, and after a stunning fight Superman is staggered and falls to the mat. Ali then faces the alien champion, and holds him off in the ring while Superman recovers and attacks the Scrubb fleet. Both defeat their respective foes, and return triumphant to Earth. Late last year WizKids parent company NECA released an action figure set commemorating this comic (see more about that here), and now the “fight to save Earth from Star Warriors” comes to HeroClix!
The good folks at WizKids don’t often really get to stretch their legs when it comes to package design (besides putting together cool graphics and things like that). And that’s exactly why items like the Superman vs. Muhammad Ali set is so cool. Rather than just box up the contents and throw some images on the outside they went with a really nice window box that highlights the figures, the sweet boxing ring, and the details of the package itself. It’s decorated with artwork right out of the comic book, featuring narrow shots of the two fighters bookending the front window and getting their full glory on the sides of the box along with 3D renders of the respective figures. The back panel is all HeroClix with a big image of Ali and Superman in the ring. Around and behind all of this imagery is a bright red and yellow color background color scheme and bold verbiage. One last thing that I thought was really cool: there’s a pretty hefty cardboard insert in the pack that looks like a promotional poster for the fight with a big image of the two athletes and their names on the sides. You could definitely save this and use it in a display or something.
Alright, let’s get to the figures! First up is Muhammad Ali, aka the Greatest. The legendary boxer comes to HeroClix with a very aggressive figure capturing the champ as he sets up a knockout blow. Ali wears his iconic white trunks and boots with black belt and gloves, and replicating Adams’ cover artwork he leans down and slightly to his left while bringing up his hand behind him for a signature overhand right. The figure has a strong athletic physique without looking overly bulky, and the trunks mold appropriately to his legs as he moves. If you look really closely you can even see the included detail of laces sculpted into the champ’s boots! Lastly, WizKids pulled off a good face sculpt to represent Ali on such a tiny figure, staring down his opponent and watching for any weakness as he prepares to strike.
So, how does Muhammad Ali translate into HeroClix? Let’s check the tale of the tape! Clocking in at 75 points Ali is Indomitable, which makes perfect sense, and comes with two traits. The first says that when played on a team with Superman the champ doesn’t count for or against a theme team AND in that case at the beginning of the game you can choose to give him Battle Fury; the second, “Float Like a Butterfly,” gives him permanent Sidestep. Muhammad Ali is a powerhouse for the points with big numbers and a lot of powers. He starts with Charge, Combat Reflexes, Empower, and a special power called “Sting Like a Bee” giving him Precision Strike that can’t be reduced below 2! After two clicks the champ should be engaged in melee and so switches from Charge to Flurry, and mid-dial gets Toughness and Close Combat Expert. The flavor text on Ali’s card is perfect, capturing some of his more colorful and famous expressions. As is wholly appropriate, Muhammad Ali has the keywords Celebrity and Warrior.
Next we have Superman, a chosen hero of Earth despite being born on Krypton. The Man of Steel looks similar to the standard, classic interpretation of the hero with one notable difference… he’s wearing boxing gloves! Supes has the silver age costume in red, blue, and yellow complete with “S” chest logo, trunks, belt, boots, and cape. His pose comes right off the page, replicating the iconic cover image as he prepares to duke it out with Ali in the ring. Superman stands with a slight turn to his right, hunched over a bit to protect his body as he steps forward with his right leg and brings his hands up for the confrontation. There’s a lot of energy to his stance as he looks coiled and ready to strike, and the bright red cape flaring out behind him adds some nice dynamic motion. Superman is painted quite well and has a nicely detailed grimacing expression on his face. Plus, his black boxing gloves hands look super cool and unique whether he’s going up against Ali or any other HeroClix opponents!
What can this new Superman do? Well, quite a lot actually. He’s a hefty 225 points played at his most experienced level, and that brings with it the Superman Ally team ability, Flight, and a 7 range with one target. The first interesting thing you may notice is that this Superman is NOT indomitable; it’s rare to see the big guy without Willpower one way or another, especially in this price range. However, the inability to ignore pushing damage has been offset with absolutely huge stats and a full 11 clicks of life. 12/12/19/5 starting numbers paired with Hypersonic Speed, Super Strength, and Invincible all spell doom for the Kryptonian’s enemies. Three clicks in he switches things up, moving to Running Shot, Pulse Wave, Impervious, and a special power that gives him a crazy group Outwit shutting off the same standard power on all opponents in range and line of fire when Supes is standing next to Muhammad Ali (remember, they were actually working together against the Scrubb!). Superman’s 7th click is also the start of his 75 point dial, and that’s balanced to go up against the People’s Champion. Starting there and for the rest of his dial the Man of Steel loses Flight but gains Flurry and Sidestep via a special power while also adding Precision Strike and Battle Fury for the duration. Meanwhile, he’s protected by Invulnerability for three clicks before ending the dial on Toughness. Superman has the keywords Justice League, Kryptonian, Metropolis, Reporter, and Warrior.
Those two figures are great, but there’s even more to this set. Also included is an actual HeroClix-scale Boxing Ring special terrain piece! The ring itself is a sturdy plastic base 5 squares by 5 squares (about 7 ¾ inches a side at the very bottom), and the ring posts rise to 3 inches in height. The “canvas” and apron are pure white with a black grid of squares, the posts, turnbuckles, and corner pads black, and the “ropes” (real elastic) are bright yellow, all of which matches the Adams cover art as well. It’s all scaled really nicely to HeroClix figures, and with the 5×5 size you can pack in a bunch of combatants for a big melee or just two for a title bout.
The boxing ring is not just a pretty toy, but a fully functioning HeroClix item that can enhance your games in new ways. It counts as a piece of Special Terrain, and its card explains that a force can only have one such item which must be placed at least 3 squares from any starting area and can’t overlap another or different elevations. The ring costs 5 points and has four features. All of its squares count as clear terrain, characters that cannot ignore hindering terrain when moving must stop when crossing the ropes, characters outside the ring are -2 to attack characters inside (and vice versa), and characters in the ring have +1 to attack when making close attacks. Finally, if play the ring on the Sporting Arena map you get to bestow a +1 buff to defense against ranged attacks to one figure for the entire game.
Without a doubt, this is a fantastic set. Muhammad Ali is worthy of a title shot at 75 points, Superman has some really fun options at both of his point levels, and it’ll be very interesting to see the two played against each other and on the same team. They’ll go great with your other figures in any configuration too. Meanwhile, the boxing ring is a super fun, thematic piece that will look great in your displays or on the HeroClix map, and it brings back a lot of the things that made the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation rules so much fun for HeroClix players back in the day. If you’re going to be attending a HeroClix National Championship or Origins Game Fair this year then you have a chance to purchase the Superman vs. Muhammad Ali set along with the DC HeroClix Doomsday figure (stay tuned for a look at that figure too). Get yours and recreate the classic comic book battle to determine who really is the greatest!
Visit HeroClix.com for even more info as well as downloads of rules and maps, and check Figures.com regularly as we continue our reviews of new HeroClix!
Review and photos by Scott Rubin
Review samples courtesy of WizKids Games
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Steven Gerrard claims his new club LA Galaxy would be able to compete against "more than half" of the teams in the Premier League.
The former Liverpool captain signed an 18-month contract with the Galaxy in January and officially joined the club in July after completing the 2014/15 season at Anfield.
Gerrard, 34, has made a productive start to life in California, scoring on his MLS debut for Galaxy against San Jose Earthquakes last month.
Despite his short time playing in the US, Gerrard has been pleasantly surprised by the standard and insists a fully-strength Galaxy would be a match for the majority of Premier League sides.
"It's certainly not the Premier League, but it is striving for that and hopefully one day it will get there. It is still a level down for me, but the level has surprised me," he said.
If we were full strength, we could compete against more than half of the Premier League on a one-on-one fixture. That gives an ideal of the level. Steven Gerrard
"I think if we were full strength, we could compete against more than half of the Premier League on a one-on-one fixture. That gives an ideal of the level.
"I think we would still struggle against the top six sides. But we would be a match for a lot of the teams. That's just trying to get the people back home to gauge the level. So it has surprised me and it is better than I thought."
Galaxy take on New York City on Sunday, which will see Gerrard renew his rivalry with former England team-mate Frank Lampard.
Lampard joined City in July 2014 following his release from Chelsea, but only linked up with his team-mates last month after spending the entirely of last season on loan at Manchester City.
Ahead of their first encounter in the MLS, Gerrard admits it will be odd to line up against an old Premier League rival on the other side of the Atlantic.
"It's always strange to play against Frank, even when I played against him when he was at Chelsea because he was a team-mate and we shared the same dressing room with England for years," he added.
"I felt the same with all my England team-mates, it does feel different. But it is crazy and feels even stranger to be playing him over in America at the end of our careers. To be fighting against each other for a few more years, we just can't get away from each other."
Watch LA Galaxy v New York City live on Sky Sports 1 HD on Sunday from 7.30pm.The counterfeit product named Placebo Tablets pose a serious risk to your health and should not be taken.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has tested a product labelled Placebo and found that:
the tablets contain the undeclared substance clenbuterol.
Consumers are advised that clenbuterol is a prescription-only substance in Australia.
The supply of Placebo tablets containing undisclosed clenbuterol is illegal.
Placebo tablets have not been assessed by the TGA for quality, safety or efficacy as required under Australian legislation, and the place of manufacture is not approved by the TGA.
TGA investigations have shown that a number of people in Australia may have bought the product online.
Information for consumers
Stop taking Placebo tablets and take any remaining tablets to your local pharmacy for safe disposal.
If you have any concerns arising from your use of this product, consult your health care practitioner.
Action the TGA is taking
The TGA is working with the Australian Border Force (ABF) to help stop future shipments Placebo tablets from entering Australia.
If these tablets are found at the border by the ABF they will be seized and destroyed.
The TGA is advising consumers to exercise extreme caution when purchasing medicines from unknown overseas Internet sites and has produced a short video on the risks associated with buying medicines and medical devices online. Products purchased over the Internet:
may contain undisclosed and potentially harmful ingredients
may not meet the same standards of quality, safety and efficacy as those approved by the TGA for supply in Australia.
Report counterfeit medicines and medical devices
If you are worried about counterfeit medicines or medical devices, and want to report an issue, you can report the matter to the TGA:Please enable Javascript to watch this video
ST. LOUIS - A scary road rage incident and highway crash was captured on dashcam video in Missouri on Wednesday. The accident took place around 1 p.m. on southbound Interstate 270.
“I saw a yellow car go by, then I saw a gold Malibu and another white car driving fast. I was shocked. I figured something terrible was about to happen,” said eyewitness Bradley Derges.
Derges was right.
The gold car sped up, got in front of the yellow car, and then braked. The driver of the yellow car lost control of her vehicle, struck the inside median, and flipped four times.
Derges and other passersby came to the woman’s rescue.
“We didn’t know if car was going to catch fire, didn’t know what was going on. I knew I needed to stop,” he said.
Derges and another man busted out the window and helped carry the woman to safety. She was banged up but conscious. The other drivers did not stop.
Corporal Justin Wheetley with the Missouri State Highway Patrol said an investigation is ongoing.
“The major factor contributing to road rage is going too close. Everybody gets a little aggravated when you look behind and have someone following too close,” he said.TBP 009 :: Mike and Mark Anderson on Their Book, J-Star, and How Less Is More
Project Description
About Mark and Mike Anderson
I’m psyched to introduce this podcast with brothers Mark and Mike Anderson. We did a longer-than-usual interview this time, partly because there were two of them and mostly because they have a lot of advice to give. For the uninitiated, Mark and Mike are the Rock Prodigy guys, the authors of the new book The Rock Climber’s Training Manual, all about the training methods they’ve developed over the last 15 years. They’re the trainers who helped J-Star turn his training methods around in order to do “Biographie” (or “Realization”, 5.15a), but they also have impressive climbing resumes themselves, despite having high-stress jobs and families.
Mike is an Aeronautical Engineer, aka robot developer. He’s an officer in the US Air Force and he has 2 sons (5 and 8) with his wife
|
ot Democrats, so I asked Clinton the obvious question: Did she think Sanders is a real Democrat?
“Well, I can’t answer that,” she said with a smile. Then she proceeded to answer the question. “He’s a relatively new Democrat, and, in fact, I’m not even sure he is one. He’s running as one. So I don’t know quite how to characterize him.”
Clinton’s stock line as she has watched Trump & Co. savage one another for months has been some version of don’t-speak-too-ill-of-any-Democrat. But things have changed over the past couple of weeks, with Sanders’ team ratcheting up its attacks and speaking openly about a contested convention, GOP style.
She was ticked off — already factoring in an inevitable loss in Wisconsin on Tuesday — and was in a rare mood of public introspection, so a sit-down that was supposed to last a half-hour ran nearly 20 minutes over so she could more fully explain herself to a public that often views her with suspicion.
Clinton offered the dimmest possible assessment of Trump, comparing him to European neo-fascists and to the “bully” she had expected to face in 2000, then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. (Realizing that Cruz had his own shot at toppling Trump, she blasted the Texas tea party senator as equally “mean-spirited.”) Hillary and Bill Clinton are of two minds about Trump, people close to the candidate told me. They believe he can’t actually win a general election — but fear his recklessness and his association with longtime adviser Roger Stone, who is on a one-man mission to dredge up anything scurrilous or unflattering about the Clintons, especially Bill.
Still, it is Sanders who poses the most immediate threat. He is running hard — and hitting her hard — in New York, and she is clearly frustrated with his easy appeal to voters under 35. She even suggested for the first time (in public, anyway) that the septuagenarian from Vermont was feeding a simplistic, cynical line of argument to turn young voters against her.
“There is a persistent, organized effort to misrepresent my record, and I don’t appreciate that, and I feel sorry for a lot of the young people who are fed this list of misrepresentations,” Clinton said, a few minutes after talking herself hoarse at a rally here. “I know that Sen. Sanders spends a lot of time attacking my husband, attacking President Obama. I rarely hear him say anything negative about George W. Bush, who I think wrecked our economy.”
As with all of Clinton’s fights, this one has echoes of an earlier battle — not from the still fresh memories of the 2008 campaign, but from the formative experience of her 2000 Senate run, a race so distant that 2016’s first-time voters were in pull-ups when it happened. That first campaign began with the retirement of the tweedy public intellectual Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who was lukewarm on the Clintons) in mid-1999, debuted with her first-ever listening tour, swerved past an imploding Giuliani and ended up with a 15-percentage-point triumph over a lackluster Lazio.
Clinton sees the 1999-2000 race as a defining, fortifying moment, in many ways more important than her 2008 “glass ceiling” campaign. The year 2000 was her political Year Zero, when she capitalized on her high approval ratings in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and forged a career that has put her on the threshold of being the first woman to win a major-party presidential nomination. It also represented the first step in her ongoing political education, a struggle to overcome a natural reticence (sometimes lapsing into paranoia) she now admits has been an impediment all along.
As 2016 heated up, Clinton’s staff had urged her to admit something that was readily apparent to reporters who covered her: For all her resilience and brains, she’s been an inconsistent and sometimes unlikeable campaigner incapable of inspiring a crowd the way Sanders, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton can. Finally, this spring she began talking about it – and told me that learning to campaign was “a skill” to be acquired, not a gift to be effortlessly deployed, similar to the challenge she faced when learning to litigate in court as a young lawyer in the mid-1970s.
“I hope I’m a better candidate. I feel like I am. I mean … I’m not a natural politician,” she said. “I’m not somebody who, like my husband or Barack Obama, [where it’s] just — it’s music, right? I am someone who loves doing the job that I have. I would love having the job of president because I know how to do it. I know what the country needs. But the campaigning part is hard for me. … Some of this may be personal to me [and] from all the literature I’ve read, [it] may be gender-linked … I’m very comfortable saying, you know, “he,” “she,” “we.” But when I had to stand up in front of people and basically say, ‘I’m asking for your vote,’ I had to really work at that. It absolutely took years. … And, even today, I have to remind myself, you know, I’m asking people to vote for me.”
Before our interview, I spoke to a half-dozen or so current and former Clinton staffers to get a read on her state of mind: Was she frustrated that a victory eight years in the making is being held just beyond arm’s length by someone laughed off as a joke a year ago? In the wake of Iowa and New Hampshire, Clinton had been deeply aggravated by her team’s inability to put away Sanders; that eventually gave way to a sense of triumph as she racked up big wins in the South and the industrial Midwest — despite her stunning upset loss in Michigan on March 8.
These days, they told me, her pique is turning outward: She had expected the Vermont senator to fight on but has been aggravated by Sanders’ aggressiveness and how willing his team is to go after her by name (“There is, as you well know, a very negative, intense barrage of attacks on anybody who supports me. I did not see that in ’08,” she said).
But when Clinton complains about Sanders, she’s really just expressing her desire to move him out of the way so she can focus all of her attention on an enemy who poses a far more personal threat — Donald Trump.
And this is where the 2000 campaign becomes relevant to 2016. When Clinton and her staff search for examples of opponents who posed a similar danger, the only one who comes close is Giuliani, who was forced to drop out of the race in November 1999 due to prostate cancer and tabloid marital misery.
“There certainly are similarities,” she says of the comparison. “He [Giuliani] would go into being — from being a tough decision maker into really being a bully.”
When I point out that, in 1999, Clinton compared Giuliani to the late far-right Austrian politician Jorg Haider, she seizes on the idea that Trump’s approach is outside the American norm. “I think it’s fair to say there is a demagogic path that Europeans, South Americans, Asians have pursued, and we know where that leads,” Clinton said. “It’s not something we’ve had in our politics.”
Giuliani, who was considered a favorite to take the Senate seat before his implosion, spent much of mid-1999 heaping scorn on Clinton. Her attitude for much of it, she recalled was, “I’m just not going to respond to his tantrums.” She says she’ll adopt the same high-road attitude this time with Trump, though that doesn’t necessarily jibe with what her staff and surrogates say (“We are going to slam the shit out of him, early and often,” one top Clinton ally told me, adding that neither Clinton savors facing their one-time friendly acquaintance.)
But then, just as she was warming to the topic of Trump, Clinton broke off to assail the other Republican candidate who still stands a chance of securing the nomination: Cruz. “I don’t think that, you know, Ted Cruz is any better,” she told me, alluding to reports that his staff falsely circulated rumors that Ben Carson had dropped out after the Iowa caucuses. “Oh, I think he is a very, you know, mean-spirited guy. You can see it from how the Republican Party responds to him. It’s, you know, a difficult dilemma that they’re in, trying to figure out what to do. I mean, some of the things he did, even in his primaries, to fellow candidates, who were quite agitated about it.”
Yet for all of her self-deprecation, Clinton — even in during the training-wheels campaign of 2000 — was always tactically savvy. The signal event of the 2000 campaign was Lazio’s ill-fated stroll to Clinton’s side of the stage during the September debate in Buffalo just as he seemed to be gaining momentum.
Sipping her soda in Syracuse, Clinton savors the moment with the relish a fighter might get out of recounting the instant a perfect uppercut connected with an opponent’s jaw.
In the moment, Clinton simply saw it as an awkward, scripted maneuver by a poor man’s Giuliani. What viewers later parsed as her flinch wasn’t fear, she now says, it was her attempt to make Lazio look as stupid as she could. “I was more thinking that it would look artificial, it would look kind of phony, and I didn’t want to in any way interfere with a moment that I hoped would reflect badly on him,” she said.
She vividly remembers how, after she left the stage, the guys on the campaign “thought it was a real moment, where Lazio, you know, kind of overwhelmed me, and made me look like I was on the defense.”
Then she spoke to a couple of her closest friends and counselors, Mandy Grunwald and Ann Lewis, who saw something else — an opportunity to make inroads among middle-aged suburban women, who didn’t like the congressman’s body language.
Clinton is genially unapologetic about her decision not to hold a news conference for most of the winter. “I pay a lot of attention to local press,” she explained, repeating practically point by point a memo prepared for her by adviser Lisa Caputo in 1999. “There is an openness with the local press where, once you get to a national press position, like yours and the others that are traveling with me, you’re really under, in my impression, a kind of pressure to produce a political story.”
But she wants to make a larger point about the degrading of decision making — and points to my January podcast with President Obama, who said that tuning out distractions was one of the hardest parts of the presidency.
A lot of times, “I haven’t thought through what I want to say,” she said, pointing to a leader’s need for structured downtime to make informed decisions. “You know, a lot of the people in history who I really admire lived before the hyper-information age we’re living in. Even if they were governing or solving problems in consequential periods, like the Civil War or the world wars or the Great Depression or the Cold War, they had a period of time and space to actually think, to be private. … I don’t think human nature has changed in the last 50 to 150 years, but the stresses, the demands on those of us in public life have just exploded.”
When we talk about 2008, it’s less in the context of the political lessons learned than in the sheer physical and emotional demands the two-year marathon exacts on everyone involved. Her saving grace, she says, is a capacity to fall asleep in a minute on an airplane – and stay asleep even when it’s being buffeted by severe turbulence that scares the hell out of other passengers.
“I can’t fly the plane; I can’t change the weather — falling asleep, you’ll either wake up and things will be fine or you won’t,” she said. “Early on, back in Arkansas, we would fly on anything. I flew on crop dusters. I flew on planes that were so small you felt like you were putting on a pair of pants. I’ve been on planes where doors have flown off … I think [all that] set me up for just knowing that, once I put myself on the plane, I was just going to have to take a deep breath and hopefully enjoy it. I find that very true for a lot of life.”
Subscribe to Off Message here to get the podcast each week as soon as it lands.The owner of the Northtown Plaza has reeled in one of the big-name retailers from its wish list.
L.L. Bean has signed a lease to open its first store in the area at the Amherst shopping plaza, according to a document filed with the Erie County Clerk's Office.
The venerable outdoor retailer is the second tenant publicly identified for the plaza on Sheridan Drive near Niagara Falls Boulevard, after the Whole Foods Market now under construction at the site.
Industry experts said attracting a merchant with the reputation and popularity of L.L. Bean represents a major coup for WS Development, the company that bought Northtown Plaza in 2015 and has spent the past two years putting in place its plans to transform the shopping center.
"It could be the game changer for the future development of that plaza," said Colleen C. DiPirro, president and CEO of the Amherst Chamber of Commerce.
The family-owned retailer is known for its catalog of classic duck boots, cable-knit sweaters, lifestyle gear and other apparel fit for wearing on a cold winter night in Maine – or Buffalo.
WS Development officials on Friday declined comment on the L.L. Bean lease signing, referring The Buffalo News to a spokesman for the Maine-based retailer. Mac McKeever, head of public relations for L.L. Bean, would not say why the company was interested in coming to the Buffalo area and would not provide a preview of the Amherst store.
"I'll release any and all new store information as I am able," McKeever said in an email.
The L.L. Bean lease is the first sign that WS Development's strategy of turning over the current tenant roster in the Northtown Plaza to make way for upscale, out-of-town retailers with wide followings is paying off.
Massachusetts-based WS Development announced in 2014 that it planned to buy the Northtown Plaza and build a $15 million Whole Foods grocery store in the shopping center, followed by a $75 million redevelopment of the rest of the plaza. The $18.5 million purchase of the 19-acre plaza closed in 2015.
The Whole Foods is set to open this summer, but the developer hasn't offered specifics on what's happening in the rest of the 65-year-old shopping center.
The Northtown Plaza was filled when WS Development took over, but it has emptied out over the past two years. Just six businesses remain, including Fantastic Sams, Federal Meats and KeyBank.
WS Development circulated a marketing document three years ago with the names of the types of retailers the company sought to bring to Amherst. The list included L.L. Bean, Gap, Banana Republic, J. Crew and Lucky Brand Jeans, though many of the companies already are located at the Boulevard Mall or the Walden Galleria.
Also on Friday, The News obtained an updated list, dated March 2015, that has some different names on it, though it does not include L.L. Bean. It's not clear which companies have signed leases, which have signed letters of intent or which are just on WS Development's wish list.
The 2015 plan includes preppy clothier Vineyard Vines, coveted burger chain Shake Shack, luxury accessories maker Kate Spade, Buffalo Optical, current tenant Mabel Danahy's and home furnishings retailer Crate & Barrel.
The document filed with the County Clerk's Office, known as a memorandum of lease, is dated March 10. It shows L.L. Bean and WS Asset Management, under the name Northtown Property Owner LLC, reached an agreement on a 10-year lease, with a five-year option to renew, that took effect Feb. 27. Terms of the lease itself are not disclosed in the memo.
Drawings filed with the memo show a 15,500-square-foot store along the Eggert Road side of the plaza, but a note on the document cautions the final location of the building is subject to change.
WS Development is widely expected to tear down the two existing retail buildings on the plaza property and to construct new stores for any new tenants the company attracts to the plaza.
The first leases are the most difficult to get, DiPirro said, and the credibility of the two companies makes it that much easier for WS Development to attract other retailers.
"If we can get enough diversity of stores like that, it does become a destination," she said.
DiPirro said she'd like to see a variety of national and local stores and restaurants, and even mixed-use development, in the plaza. WS Development has had success with that model in some of its other properties nationally.
Stores such as Saks Off 5th, Neiman Marcus Last Call and Bloomingdale's Outlet often follow Whole Foods and L.L. Bean to the kind of high-end shopping center that WS Development is trying to build, said Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of New York retail consulting firm Strategic Resource Group.
The closest L.L. Bean store is in Victor, near Rochester, in the Eastview Mall. L.L. Bean also has stores upstate in the Syracuse suburb of Fayetteville and in the Colonie Center mall, outside Albany, which hosts a Whole Foods.
Fans swear by the durability of the clothing and the sporting goods, and the popularity of L.L. Bean has endured even as that of competitors Cabela's, Gander Mountain and Eastern Mountain Sports has ebbed and flowed, Flickinger said.
"L.L. Bean is doing as well as ever," Flickinger said. "A fantastic performance brand for people who just want to stay warm and dry at Bills games."
The commitment of Whole Foods, L.L. Bean and Nordstrom Rack, in nearby Boulevard Consumer Square, Flickinger said, is a sign of the region's recent revival in the eyes of national retailers.
"L.L. Bean 10, 15 years ago wouldn't even think of being in a market of Buffalo's size, simply because it was too small and shrinking," Flickinger said. "Now Buffalo is one of the prime opportunity markets."Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first African American woman to serve on New York's top court, was found dead in the Hudson River. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)
Sheila Abdus-Salaam, the first African American woman to serve on New York’s top court, was found dead in the Hudson River on Wednesday, police said. She was 65.
The body of Abdus-Salaam, a native of Washington, D.C., was found fully clothed in the river in Upper Manhattan at 1:45 p.m., a day after her husband had reported her missing, according to the New York Police Department. There were no signs of trauma or injury on the body, and the cause of death is still under investigation.
It is not yet known how Abdus-Salaam, who lived in Harlem, ended up in the river, or how long her body had been there. Her death shook the New York legal community, prompting responses from colleagues, judges, and state and local political leaders.
Abdus-Salaam, an associate judge on the New York Court of Appeals, was described by Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) as “a humble pioneer” and by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) as “a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all.”
“Through her writings, her wisdom, and her unshakable moral compass, she was a force for good whose legacy will be felt for years to come,” Cuomo, who appointed her to the state’s Court of Appeals, said in a statement.
Abdus-Salaam was born in 1952 to a working-class family of seven children in the District, where she attended public school. As a teenager, she was inspired to enter the legal profession after an encounter with civil rights attorney Frankie Muse Freeman, according to a 2013 news release from Seymour W. James Jr., attorney-in-charge of criminal practice of the Legal Aid Society in New York City. He commended Cuomo for nominating Abdus-Salaam to the State Court of Appeals, calling her an “ideal choice” based on her vast experience.
“Justice Abdus-Salaam has followed her inspiration by serving the public throughout her distinguished career as an attorney and jurist,” James, then president of the New York State Bar Association, wrote.
Before her nomination to the State Court of Appeals, Abdus-Salaam served as a justice in the First Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court, and for 15 years as a State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan. She graduated from Barnard College in 1974 and from Columbia Law School in 1977, and spent time working with indigent clients as a staff attorney at Brooklyn Legal Services. She also served as an assistant state attorney general.
Throughout her career, Abdus-Salaam’s colleagues have hailed the judge for her clarity as a writer and fairness as a decision-maker. Janet DiFiore, chief judge of the state Court of Appeals, said in a statement Wednesday that “her personal warmth, uncompromising sense of fairness, and bright legal mind were an inspiration to all of us who had the good fortune to know her.”
“Sheila’s smile could light up the darkest room,” DiFiore added.
Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam, center, receives applause after her confirmation to serve on the New York State Court of Appeals. (Mike Groll/AP)
In one of Abdus-Salaam’s most significant recent decisions, this summer she wrote the ruling on Brooke S.B. and Elizabeth A. C.C., expanding the definition of what it means to be a parent, particularly for same-sex couples. The existing definition, she wrote, had become “unworkable when applied to increasingly varied familial relationships.” She ruled that “where a partner shows by clear and convincing evidence that the parties agreed to conceive a child and to raise the child together, the non-biological, non-adoptive partner has standing to seek visitation and custody.”
When Abdus-Salaam was formally sworn in as the seventh member of New York’s top court, then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder traveled to Albany to honor her, his former classmate at Columbia Law School four decades earlier.
“Sheila could boogie,” he said before a courtroom packed with Abdus-Salaam’s legal colleagues, family and friends. “I read that during her confirmation process, Judge Abdus-Salaam received a standing ovation every time she appeared in public before members of the Legislature. Now, as someone who has appeared a number of times before Congress, I can tell you just how extraordinary that is.”
In announcing his nomination of Abdus-Salaam for Court of Appeals, Cuomo called the judge one of the state’s “most respected and experienced jurists” and praised her for having risen from “working-class roots.”
At a 2015 event in Brooklyn celebrating Black History Month, Abdus Salaam credited her mother’s efforts raising her and her siblings in Washington.
“If my mother wasn’t such a smart and resourceful woman, I might have ended up in foster care or worse,” Abdus-Salaam said. “Although she dropped out of school, my mother realized that a good education would help us escape the poverty that we were trapped in.”
In the wake of the news of her death Wednesday, Judge Jonathan Lippman, former chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, said the court “has suffered a terrible blow.”
“It’s just so shocking,” Lippman said, adding that she was “a lovely lady and judge. That’s why is makes it even more difficult to understand.”
Correction: This story has been corrected to say that Sheila Abdus-Salaam was the first African American woman to serve on New York’s highest court. An earlier version of the story also reported inaccurately that she was a Muslim. That also has been corrected.
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At an early point during my hour-long demo of The Evil Within 2, returning protagonist Sebastian ran into a room full of swinging bodies, their bleeding faces obscured by white masks. There was a weird red symbol painted onto one of its concrete walls. A camera on a tripod was the only other object of note, so I looked through it. Suddenly, I saw a door. Had looking at the camera made it appear? I was disorientated. Then a multi-headed, nude monster with a buzz-saw for a hand burst through the wall and screamed her way towards me.
Oh yeah, this was The Evil Within, all right.
Exit Theatre Mode
My time with the Evil Within 2 showed that while improvements have been made to the formula, it fundamentally remains the same. Sebastian is still a sort of stiff, bewildered protagonist, the monsters are still pulled from the golden era of Japanese horror, and the world is as grimy and oppressive as some of the darker moments of Jacob’s Ladder, a source of inspiration for original Evil Within director Shinji Mikami. But of course, that combination of quirks made the original game so much fun in the first place.
The demo itself took place in chapter 2, so much of it was tutorial-focused, which gave me a good grasp of Tango Gameworks’ ambitions for the sequel. After blindly running from the mutant-hydra, I found myself alone in a farmhouse. Like its predecessor, The Evil Within 2 looks to pull the rug out from under your feet at a moment’s notice, playing with sudden shifts in geography and atmosphere.
Exit Theatre Mode
As Sebastian made his way out into a forest bracketed road, he got an incoming transmission on his ‘communicator’ from Julie Kidman, his colleague from the previous game who he now shares an uneasy alliance with. Throughout The Evil Within 2 Kidman serves as your guide, though she’s not a resource on tap - every call appears to be context sensitive.
The immediate goal, it seems, was to find MOBIUS soldiers within Union, a small twisted town in STEM punctuated with an all American sign that reads “Welcome to Union, We’re Glad You’re Here!” Making my way through the Twin Peaks-Silent Hill-Resident Evil 7-esque back-water town - the twisted-Americana trope runs ripe in The Evil Within 2 - required me to kill multiple zombie-like enemies. It’s familiar stuff, but the act of killing has been streamlined, and it appears you no longer have to set fire to every enemy corpse for fear of re-animation.
Exit Theatre Mode
The Evil Within 2 has been streamlined elsewhere. Sebastian can upgrade his weaponry (in my case, just a handgun) and craft medical syringes using parts he collects through the world on workbenches, while Green Gel is now only used to upgrade Sebastian’s abilities in Tatiana’s Clair de Lune-tinged world. I was delighted to be reunited with the sardonic nurse, such a highlight in the original game, and the black cat from The Evil Within’s first DLC, The Assignment.
Of course, the reason Sebastian has returned to the world of STEM is to rescue his daughter, and this is where your communicator has a more practical function. I spent the latter half of my demo logging onto ‘resonance’ points - in this case, a child’s cry. When locked on, the communicator will show the direction and relative distance to the resonance point. As I made my way to the ghostly cry using what is, essentially, a tracking device from Alien, the earth split in two, much of the road falling down into an abyss. After killing an evil priest and a couple of his buddies, I stumbled upon the ghostly shadow of Sebastian’s daughter. The world shifted once more, and I began to walk through her memory. My hour was up.
This was definitely The Evil Within. I can’t wait to be plummeted into its hellscape once more.
Lucy O'Brien is Games and Entertainment Editor at IGN’s Sydney office. Follow her on Twitter.Protest against school closures in Chicago
Teachers union seeks to channel opposition behind Democratic Party
By Jeff Lusanne and Shane Feratu
29 March 2013
The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) organized a late-afternoon protest Wednesday against the city of Chicago’s plans to close 61 public schools.
A few thousand parents, teachers and community members participated in the march, only a partial expression of the mass sentiment against the administration of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s assault on public education. Over the past several months, thousands of parents and teachers have attended public hearings organized by the Chicago Public Schools to let off steam.
The aim of the CTU in calling the march was to channel opposition behind the Democratic Party political establishment in the city. The demonstration was far smaller than the mass protests during the time of the teachers strike in September, reflecting a widespread disillusionment of teachers with the CTU.
The school closure plan—one of the largest in US history—is the direct outcome of the betrayal of the teachers strike. The CTU shut down the strike as quickly as possible, pushing through a contract that accepted all of Emanuel’s demands and paved the way for the school shut downs.
Part of the march in downtown Chicago against school closings
Before marching, the CTU organized a rally addressed by Democratic Party politicians, including Jesse Jackson, along with CTU President Karen Lewis. Jackson, always present when the Democratic Party and unions are seeking to smother public opposition, offered up his usual pablum of empty chants. (A video of the remarks by Lewis, Jackson and other can be found here.)
At the rally, Lewis sought to present the attack on public education in racial, rather than class, terms, noting that the schools affected primarily African American students. “Let’s not pretend that when you close schools on the South and West sides, the children affected aren’t black,” she said. “Let’s not pretend that’s not racist.”
She failed to mention, however, that these neighborhoods are also the poorest in Chicago. The focus on race is aimed at dividing the working class, while also solidifying the CTU’s relationship with local Democratic Party officials. The Democratic Party and the Obama administration, which is leading a nationwide attack on public education, went unmentioned by Lewis.
The march in downtown Chicago against school closings
Supporters of the Socialist Equality Party distributed a statement, “ No to all school closures! Unite the working class to defend public education!,” which calls for the formation of independent committees to mobilize the working class against school closures, in opposition to the Democratic Party and the trade unions.
The WSWS spoke to many of those attending.
Expressing the sentiments of many Chicagoans, Kiarra, a mother of three and a sociology student told the World Socialist Web Site, “I think these closings are a question of class and inequality. We have stratification. We have overcrowding in public schools. We have too much testing. Testing does not determine abilities of students. And if there is no money for public schools like they’re saying, then why is there so much money for charter schools? They’re closing schools where children have special needs.
“These are working class issues and we’re going to fight for our children’s education. We need real social change today.”
Lee, a parent, said, “Things have got to change. It’s not just about fighting to keep your school open. We have to fight for all our schools. We have got to stop this as a whole, as working people, and not just as individuals. We just can’t go on like this. When Wall Street needs money, they give it to them. But they don’t have money for us?"
In commentary to the press, Lewis has made clear that the CTU is not opposed to school closings, but merely wants to ensure that the union is part of the process. (See, “ CTU president denies opposing school closures ”)
Since taking office, the Obama administration has carried out a nationwide assault on public education, pushing school closures and “turnarounds,” merit pay, and charter schools. The national teachers unions have expressed their support for these measures.
The main concern of the CTU is to maintain its dues income. CTU’s sister union, the Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff (ACTS), recently reached an agreement with UNO, the largest charter school company in Chicago, to collect dues from underpaid charter school teachers.
In part of its effort to prevent any discussion of the political issues in the fight to defend public education, the CTU focused its action in the demonstration on an act of “civil disobedience,” in which 131 marchers were arrested for blocking traffic. Among these was CTU Vice President Jesse Sharkey, a member of the International Socialist Organiaztion.The Mount Pleasant Police Department began a town-wide effort this morning to identify cars without Salt Life stickers on the back and serve them with citations. So far fifty-seven cars have been handed citations carrying a $500 fine until they can prove they’ve purchase and applied an approved Salt Life decal on their rear window.
Mt. Pleasant resident Randy Newburg said he’s happy the local police are finally taking this matter seriously. “It’s taken years of submitting complaints, but the police are finally doing something about these troublemakers,” he said. “This is Mt. Pleasant. The only life we know how to live is the Salt Life, and anyone who doesn’t want that for themselves can just move somewhere else and live an Unsalty Life.”
Resident Janet Holcomb was issued a citation early this morning on her way to work. “I guess I have to buy one of those douchey stickers now if I want to get rid of this fine,” she said. “What the hell does the Salt Life mean anyway? Half of the people with these stupid stickers on their cars don’t even own a boat. It’s ridiculous.”
Legal Expert Dwayne Harrison warned about the potential dangers of overly strict policing. “This is a pretty slippery slope,” he said. “First it’s a citation for not having a Salt Life sticker on your car, then it’s mandatory detainment for not having a Yeti cooler on you at all times. Before you know it, they’ll be executing people in the streets for not wearing Costa Del Mar sunglasses with the C-Line Retainer. This type of over-the-top enforcement needs to be stopped.”
The funds gathered from the citations will be used to pay for the emotional therapy true Salt Lifers now need after the Zac Brown Band canceled their music festival on Daniel Island.This is a set of words that no Baltimore Orioles fan wants to read.
Manny Machado appears to have suffered a terrible knee injury in the Orioles-Rays game… — Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) September 23, 2013
Buster Olney is extremely accurate in calling the injury “terrible” as Manny Machado’s knee went in a direction it isn’t designed to go while running through 1st base during Baltimore’s game with the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday afternoon. The exact nature of the damage is unknown at this point, but frankly, it would be a shock if Machado didn’t have a long-term injury with severe ramifications.
If Machado isn’t the “franchise player” for the Orioles, he’s awfully close, and he’s been one of the best third basemen in the league this season at just 21 years old. Thanks to incredible defense and 51 doubles, Machado has a 6.1 WAR season according to FanGraphs this year, and his absence for any lengthy period of time would be devastating.
Baltimore’s dying playoff hopes are suddenly on the backburner as the team awaits word of just how severe this injury might be. 21-year-old franchise cornerstones don’t grow on trees, and with how this one looked, anything and everything seems to be in play moving forward.When he was shooting his latest movie, Good Time, in Queens last year, Robert Pattinson would start the day with a run. And he'd be recognised, as always. Such is life for the 31-year-old actor formerly known as Edward Cullen, the broody vampire in the Twilight movies. Over five years and five films, he inspired such a vast and hysterical following that more than any star of his generation he became a prisoner of his own celebrity. He was forced to sell his home in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, because of paparazzi at the gates. They trailed him everywhere, entailing all kinds of Jason Bourneism, like swapping clothes with friends and assistants in restaurant bathrooms, sending them off in decoy cars, up to five at a time. And if he failed, if just one tweet went out with his location, then armies of paps and Twi-hards, crazed and shrieking, would come galloping over the horizon like the Dothraki hordes.
But after each run, something extraordinary happened. He got into costume as his character in Good Time, Connie Nikas, a Greek-American criminal from Queens, and just like that, the staring stopped. He could walk down the street unmolested. This latest film is his best performance by some distance, an electric, adrenalin shot of a movie that will establish him as one of the most vital actors of the day, so there's that. But this gift of anonymity may be equally precious. Good Time will put Pattinson's name in lights while simultaneously helping him blend into the background. Shooting it gave him his life back. It's handed the prisoner a set of keys, because as Nikas, Pattinson could move through the world again. He was free.
"It was amazing. Invisibility cloak," he says. "I've always wondered what can you do, just a simple thing to your face so you can just… exist in the world. And now I know. Darken your beard and put on these acne scar things and people will look directly into your face, and not even a glimmer. It's fascinating. Also earrings, there's something about fake diamond earrings."
He looks a bit Connie Nikas today, actually. We're in a booth at a private member's club in West Hollywood, and he's wearing a sports jacket on top of a hoodie, never mind that this is the height of summer. The jacket's Lacoste; very hipster I tell him. And he laughs.
"Is anyone not a hipster now? I think it's just normal culture," he says. "Anyway, I found this on eBay so, you know... I'd be cool if I had it from
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't start until charged for about five minutes. We're rather used to out-of-the-box power on; this device does not appear to hold charge for long even when switched off (it should have been factory-charged, for testing).
Mixed feelings
My first action on screen, the Android "unlock" swipe, showed up the rough edges of the display technology.
To cut costs, the Aakash uses a resistive touch-screen, instead of the now common capacitive variety.
Resistive touch uses a pressure-sensitive overlay, and is better suited to a stylus than a bare finger. The Aakash's touch sensitivity and speed are lower than what we're used to with today's touch-screens. (Resistive touch can be very precise, but is rarely so in the cheaper varieties.)
Probably the biggest challenge for the Aakash would be to keep up with the times India unveils $35 tablet computer
It also uses lower specs than we're now used to with tablets and netbooks.
There's 256 MB of memory and 2GB of storage (tablets start at 512MB and 16GB today), and a slow 366 MHz processor (a third of the 1GHz norm).
There's built-in wi-fi in this basic Aakash tablet. Another version, which I could not get hold of, has GPRS data connectivity, with 3G planned later.
What they've added on beyond the average tablet is two USB sockets.
I have mixed feelings about this probably-unique feature in the tablet world.
USB lets you use cheap "memory sticks", but having that stick jutting out of the top of a small tablet can make it unwieldy. And two of these slots?
The micro-SD card slot is a good thing, and I miss that in my iPad (Apple doesn't believe in expandability).
So what about the "made in India" part?
The Aakash Ubislate is assembled in DataWind's Hyderabad factory. The plant has a capacity of about 2,000 units a month, to be "eventually" ramped up to 100,000 a month.
As you'd expect in this global age, parts are sourced from all over the world. To try to "make" everything in any one country, whether India or the US, would be stupid. About a 10th of the components, by value, are locally sourced.
And the overall design (including adding USB!), the integration and the testing are probably all Indian. None of this is trivial.
Image caption Cheapest... but the Aakash has limitations
If you're an Android user, the big thing you'll miss on the Aakash is the Android Market.
That's where you'd usually go to for downloading or buying apps, as with Apple's App Store. Instead, there is GetJar, a relatively limited service mostly selling apps for phones.
The tablet's low-end specs are probably a good reason to limit functionality and apps. But removing Android Market does mean no access to the hundreds of thousands of Android tablet apps out there.
The other reason could be application focus: so that students using the Aakash stay with a limited set of apps, both to avoid distraction, and to avoid slowing things down to unusable levels.
All this would be less relevant if there were great educational content ready. There isn't.
Yes, delivering a tablet for $60 has taken hard work, extraordinary sourcing and some innovation.
But this is just a part of the uphill road to a successful device that could change education in India. There are many more pieces needed to complete that picture.
As the Simputer in India and so many iPad-wannabe tablets in the world have shown, it isn't about the hardware.
Great hardware is a sine qua non, but what you really need are the apps and content ecosystem.
While the courseware development happens, the world will move on, with even better tablets that leave the Aakash further behind.
Image caption The low battery life of the tablet is a concern
And while I like the 7" size for its portability, students will find it less friendly than a 10" display for educational apps. But yes, that would cost more.
And the battery is rated for three hours; we got a bit over two. The Aakash warms up in use. That means precious battery power is going away as heat.
So every school kid who uses it will probably need a charging socket in their desk. And that's not likely to happen soon. Leaving it to charge repeatedly in common areas is not practical, for a variety of reasons.
Cheaper plastics and a flimsy screen cover don't bode well for heavy student use. Nor for serviceability: after removing the inside screws, I couldn't put them back because the plastic threads had slipped.
Probably the biggest challenge for the Aakash will be to keep up with the times. That's what killed the Simputer - other than apps, by the time they tweak it and test it, portable computers will have jumped a generation.
Which is why it makes little sense to spend this much time and effort in "made in India" development.
So what other device could the Indian government have picked to subsidise? My bet would be either a cheap standard netbook, or an ultra-cheap, usable e-book reader that instantly access the vast amount of almost-ready content.
Prasanto K Roy ([email protected], twitter: prasanto) is chief editor at CyberMedia, a leading technology publishing group in India.Sears is recruiting engineers for a new software development office in downtown Seattle, and the venerable retailer has hired a group of former Amazon executives to lead the charge — renting space in a skyscraper just across town from the e-commerce giant’s headquarters.
The new Sears engineering office, in Seattle’s Columbia Center, will lead an effort to upgrade the technology and user experience for the Sears Home Services business.
It’s a big opportunity: The company describes Sears Home Services as the nation’s largest provider of residential services such as appliance repair, furniture cleaning, home remodeling, maintenance and other forms of home improvement — making more than 13 million house calls a year, for much more than just Sears products.
The new office puts Seattle on the front lines of Sears’ effort to bring a key part of its business into the modern era of technology.
Responding to our inquiries, the company said it wasn’t yet ready to talk publicly about its plans, but GeekWire pieced together the basics through permit filings, job postings and people familiar with various aspects of the initiative.
For starters, Sears has hired at least three former Amazon executives in recent months:
Ian Clarkson, the first general manager of the Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service;
Heidi Robinson, an early Amazon Fresh employee who was most recently with Seattle-based home improvement startup Pro.com;
and Parag Garg, a former Amazon Fire TV product manager who has worked for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Seattle-based home improvement startup Porch.
Garg’s LinkedIn profile describes him as the vice president of engineering and product for Sears connected solutions, overseeing engineering and product management for the Assurelink platform and Sears’ Internet of Things initiatives. Existing Assurelink products let users control their garage doors with their smartphones, for example.
However, the focus of the new Seattle engineering office is overhauling the technology for Sears Home Services. The former Amazon Fresh managers give the company a team experienced in building an online service and apps for scheduling home deliveries, along with the underlying technology infrastructure.
One job listing for the new Seattle office seeks a data scientist to work on a team that “delivers real-time, data-driven, distributed systems that make a positive impact on millions of Sears customers by applying machine learning technologies to enrich each customer experience.”
In addition to the data science job listings, Sears recruiters have started contacted software developers in the Seattle region, looking to hire mobile and user-experience engineers, core web services engineers, and technical PMs and product owners.
According to a sign at the company’s future office at Columbia Center (which has yet to be built out) the space is roughly 8,500 square feet, or enough room for about 35 to 55 employees, depending on the configuration.
Sears Holding Co., based in Hoffman Estates, Ill, is the parent company of Sears and Kmart. The company posted $36 billion in revenue last year, down from more than $45 billion two years earlier. Sears is the latest in a big wave of out-of-town companies that have established engineering centers in Seattle, including tech giants such as Google and Facebook, and also retailers such as Staples.A recent report by Arrowsmith noted that the success rates for new development projects in Phase II trials have fallen from 28% to 18% in recent years, with insufficient efficacy being the most frequent reason for failure (Phase II failures: 2008–2010. Nature Rev. Drug Discov. 10, 328–329 (2011))1. This indicates the limitations of the predictivity of disease models and also that the validity of the targets being investigated is frequently questionable, which is a crucial issue to address if success rates in clinical trials are to be improved.
Candidate drug targets in industry are derived from various sources, including in-house target identification campaigns, in-licensing and public sourcing, in particular based on reports published in the literature and presented at conferences. During the transfer of projects from an academic to a company setting, the focus changes from 'interesting' to 'feasible/marketable', and the financial costs of pursuing a full-blown drug discovery and development programme for a particular target could ultimately be hundreds of millions of Euros. Even in the earlier stages, investments in activities such as high-throughput screening programmes are substantial, and thus the validity of published data on potential targets is crucial for companies when deciding to start novel projects.
To mitigate some of the risks of such investments ultimately being wasted, most pharmaceutical companies run in-house target validation programmes. However, validation projects that were started in our company based on exciting published data have often resulted in disillusionment when key data could not be reproduced. Talking to scientists, both in academia and in industry, there seems to be a general impression that many results that are published are hard to reproduce. However, there is an imbalance between this apparently widespread impression and its public recognition (for example, see Refs 2, 3), and the surprisingly few scientific publications dealing with this topic. Indeed, to our knowledge, so far there has been no published in-depth, systematic analysis that compares reproduced results with published results for wet-lab experiments related to target identification and validation.
Early research in the pharmaceutical industry, with a dedicated budget and scientists who mainly work on target validation to increase the confidence in a project, provides a unique opportunity to generate a broad data set on the reproducibility of published data. To substantiate our incidental observations that published reports are frequently not reproducible with quantitative data, we performed an analysis of our early (target identification and validation) in-house projects in our strategic research fields of oncology, women's health and cardiovascular diseases that were performed over the past 4 years (Fig. 1a). We distributed a questionnaire to all involved scientists from target discovery, and queried names, main relevant published data (including citations), in-house data obtained and their relationship to the published data, the impact of the results obtained for the outcome of the projects, and the models that were used in the experiments and publications. The questionnaire can be obtained from the authors.
Figure 1: Analysis of the reproducibility of published data in 67 in-house projects. a | This figure illustrates the distribution of projects within the oncology, women's health and cardiovascular indications that were analysed in this study. b | Several approaches were used to reproduce the published data. Models were either exactly copied, adapted to internal needs (for example, using other cell lines than those published, other assays and so on) or the published data was transferred to models for another indication. 'Not applicable' refers to projects in which general hypotheses could not be verified. c | Relationship of published data to in-house data. The proportion of each of the following outcomes is shown: data were completely in line with published data; the main set was reproducible; some results (including the most relevant hypothesis) were reproducible; or the data showed inconsistencies that led to project termination. 'Not applicable' refers to projects that were almost exclusively based on in-house data, such as gene expression analysis. The number of projects and the percentage of projects within this study (a– c) are indicated. d | A comparison of model usage in the reproducible and irreproducible projects is shown. The respective numbers of projects and the percentages of the groups are indicated. Full size image
We received input from 23 scientists (heads of laboratories) and collected data from 67 projects, most of them (47) from the field of oncology. This analysis revealed that only in ∼20–25% of the projects were the relevant published data completely in line with our in-house findings (Fig. 1c). In almost two-thirds of the projects, there were inconsistencies between published data and in-house data that either considerably prolonged the duration of the target validation process or, in most cases, resulted in termination of the projects because the evidence that was generated for the therapeutic hypothesis was insufficient to justify further investments into these projects.
We wondered whether heterogeneous experimental conditions could be an explanation for the frequent inconsistencies (Fig. 1b). Interestingly, a transfer of the models — for example, by changes in the cell lines or assay formats — was not crucial for the discrepancies that were detected. Rather, either the results were reproducible and showed transferability in other models, or even a 1:1 reproduction of published experimental procedures revealed inconsistencies between published and in-house data (Fig. 1d). Furthermore, despite the low numbers, there was no apparent difference between the different research fields. Surprisingly, even publications in prestigious journals or from several independent groups did not ensure reproducibility. Indeed, our analysis revealed that the reproducibility of published data did not significantly correlate with journal impact factors, the number of publications on the respective target or the number of independent groups that authored the publications.
Our findings are mirrored by 'gut feelings' expressed in personal communications with scientists from academia or other companies, as well as published observations. An unspoken rule among early-stage venture capital firms that “at least 50% of published studies, even those in top-tier academic journals, can't be repeated with the same conclusions by an industrial lab” has been recently reported (see Further information) and discussed4. The challenge of reproducibility — even under ideal conditions — has also been highlighted, indicating that even in an optimal setting (the same laboratory, the same people, the same tools and the same assays, with experiments separated by 5 months), there were substantial variations, as the intra- and interscreen reproducibility of two genome-scale small interfering RNA screens was influenced by the methodology of the analysis and ranged from 32–99% (Ref. 5).
There may be several reasons for the observed lack of reproducibility. Among these, incorrect or inappropriate statistical analysis of results or insufficient sample sizes, which result in potentially high numbers of irreproducible or even false results, have been discussed6. Among the more obvious yet unquantifiable reasons, there is immense competition among laboratories and a pressure to publish. It is conceivable that this may sometimes result in negligence over the control or reporting of experimental conditions (for example, a variation in cell-line stocks and suppliers, or insufficient description of materials and methods). There is also a bias towards publishing positive results, as it is easier to get positive results accepted in good journals. It remains to be studied further whether there are indeed hurdles to publishing results that contradict data from high-impact journals or the currently established scientific opinion in a given field, which could lead to the literature supporting a certain hypothesis even if there are many (unpublished) data arguing against it. One might speculate that the above mentioned issues should be eliminated by the peer review system. However, reviewers have no time and no resources to reproduce data and to dig deeply into the presented work. As a consequence, errors often remain undetected7. Adding to this problem, many initially rejected papers will subsequently be published in other journals without substantial changes or improvements8,9.
We are aware that our data set — albeit quite large for wet-lab science — is still rather small and its statistical significance can be questioned. We are also aware that our own experimental results might also be irreproducible in other laboratories. However, the aim of our target validation work is: first, to increase confidence in the biology of the targets with an unbiased approach; second, to provide assays that need to be reliable during later stages such as compound optimization; and third, to transfer these assays to various laboratories in other departments in-house. With an average project duration of 6–12 months, numerous well-established cellular and in vivo models and several independent and often specialized laboratories that are involved in the projects with highly qualified scientists who are dedicated to target discovery, we feel confident that our data are quite reliable. It is important, however, to emphasize that we do not want to make the point that our experimental data are correct, whereas data from other groups are 'false'. We are not reporting fraud, but a lack of reproducibility. In fact, to our knowledge, none of the studies that our internal projects were based on was retracted or suspected to be flawed. However, with reasonable efforts (sometimes the equivalent of 3–4 full-time employees over 6–12 months), we have frequently been unable to reconfirm published data.
Our observations indicate that literature data on potential drug targets should be viewed with caution, and underline the importance of confirmatory validation studies for pharmaceutical companies and academia before larger investments are made in assay development, high-throughput screening campaigns, lead optimization and animal testing. Effective target validation, however, should not just be confirmatory, but should complement the knowledge on a particular target. An in-depth biological understanding of a target is required and should contribute to a reduction in the high attrition rates that are observed in early clinical development.
References 1. Arrowsmith, J. Phase II failures: 2008–2010. Nature Rev. Drug Discov. 10, 328–329 (2011). 2. Lehrer, J. The truth wears off: is there something wrong with the scientific method? The New Yorker [online], (2010). 3. Freeman, D. H. Lies, damned lies, and medical science. The Atlantic [online], (2010). 4. Osherovich, L. Hedging against academic risk. SciBX 14 Apr 2011 (doi:10.1038/scibx.2011.416). 5. Barrows, N. J., Le Sommer, C., Garcia-Blanco, M. A. & Pearson, J. L. Factors affecting reproducibility between genome-scale siRNA-based screens. J. Biomol. Screen. 15, 735–747 (2010). 6. Ioannidis, J. P. Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med. 2, e124 (2005). 7. Schroter, S, et al. What errors do peer reviewers detect, and does training improve their ability to detect them? J. R. Soc. Med. 101, 507–514 (2008). 8. Nemery, B. What happens to the manuscripts that have not been accepted for publication in Occupational and Environmental Medicine? Occup. Environ. Med. 58, 604–607 (2001). 9. McDonald, R. J., Cloft, H. J. & Kallmes, D. F. Fate of submitted manuscripts rejected from the American Journal of Neuroradiology: outcomes and commentary. Am. J. Neuroradiol. 28, 1430–1434 (2007). Download references
Acknowledgements We would like to thank B. Kreft and T. Zollner for their valuable contributions to this project, S. Schoepe for support in the data analysis and S. Decker for support with bioinformatics analysis of the results.
Rights and permissions To obtain permission to re-use content from this article visit RightsLink.And they said meth never did a body good.
The study, published Tuesday in PLoS One, exposed human lung cells to varying quantities meth, then infected them with Influenza A (H1N1) viruses, a common subtype of human influenza.
After only 24 hours after infection, the control group of cells, which had not been treated with meth, contained the same concentrations of the virus as did the meth-treated cells.
However, 30 hours after infection, the meth-treated cells possessed significantly lower concentrations of the virus than the control group did. After 48 hours, the difference was even more pronounced.
Researchers also determined that meth's apparent anti-viral effect most likely occurs during the viral replication that takes place after infection, according to the study.
Don't go becoming a real-life Walter White just yet, however. Meth's negative effects -- including brain damage, psychosis, heart disease and severe weight loss - far outweigh whatever anti-flu properties it may have.
However, scientists hope to now search for safer, structurally similar compounds that could be used to fight the flu.Yes, you read that right.
Back in March 1967, the outcry of Sunset residents was loud and serious enough that Muni rerouted Haight Street buses around the growing scourge that was the Haight-Ashbury district.
The Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub (he of this week’s Muni Diaries Podcast) unearthed his paper’s March 29, 1967 edition. There, sharing the front page with JFK’s widow, Jackie Kennedy, was the story by Mel Wax:
Members of San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission yesterday tried to find a way to “protect” people living in the Sunset from passing through the “Sodom” of the Haight-Ashbury District on Muni buses.
They agreed to reroute buses and trolley buses off Haight street on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
Commissioner Thomas P. Stack wanted to make the change permanent, at least until the Hippie era ends. He proposed that the 71 and 72 lines to the Sunset be routed off Haight street for six months, and he asked Muni Manager Vernon Anderson to come in with appropriate legislation to change the routing on April 11.
“It’s a demoralizing thing that children have to go five blocks through this no-man’s land twice a day, on the way to school,” said Stack.
He characterized Hippies as “this wild movement akin to Sodom of Biblical days.”
“We will protect the young.” Stack declared. “We will by-pass the area.”
Anderson said Haight-Ashbury merchants are willing to go along with a rerouting of Muni buses and trolley coaches on weekends and holidays, between 10 a.m. and midnight, when the district is jammed with sightseers.
But, he said, “there is no emergency on weekdays that would warrant rerouting Muni, and merchants would oppose it.”
Anderson conceded that, if 200,000 Hippies come to San Francisco this summer, the situation would change. And, he said, on Easter Week, when school was out, traffic was “impossible.”
“Many taxpayers, productive citizens of the community, feel very strongly about rerouting buses away from the Haight-Ashbury,” Stack persisted.
One such citizen attended the meeting — Marguerite Warren of 1746 32nd avenue.
“The numbers 71 and 72 buses, and the N line, are our lifeline in the Sunset,” she said. “We’re law-abiding citizens who want to get home to our dinners.”
Riding through the Haight-Ashbury, she said, created long delays, and, she inferred, cold dinners.
Deputy City Attorney William Bourne said Stack’s proposal for a six-month rerouting requires a public hearing and approval by the Board of Supervisors.
The temporary switch for weekends and holidays does not. It will be put into effect starting Saturday, for an indefinite period.
The commission approved rerouting the No. 71 (Haight-Noriega), No. 72 (Haight-Sunset), and No. 43 (Roosevelt) buses from Haight street to Waller street on the inbound trip, and on Page street outbound, between Stanyan street and Masonic avenue.I ended the call with a sense of despair and resignation that felt like it was drowning me. Yet again, a member of the cycling fraternity had confided to me a shocking anecdote, this time calling into question the integrity of cycling’s overlords. Yet again, despite my pleadings, they refused to share their knowledge with authorities. They were terrified that if ever their name was leaked they would be ostracized from cycling forever. Related Articles Report: Ashenden resigns from UCI’s biological passport panel
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USADA case against Armstrong could damage UCI, Ashenden says
Ashenden says: McQuaid must now help USADA's investigation
Pound calls for 'truth and reconciliation' for cycling
I don’t care what broadcasters, op-eds, ‘journalists with access’ or the sport administrators themselves have to say about this. I know the cycling fraternity are afraid to speak out, because I witnessed it myself yesterday. Omerta is alive and well in September 2012.
To put it bluntly: where else in the civilised world would we tolerate an environment where citizens were afraid to tell the truth? It was an epiphany for me to contemplate that grotesque realisation. I think omerta’s presence is a truly disgraceful indictment on the stewardship of the sport’s governing body.
However rather than merely criticise, I’m motivated to problem solve and that requires understanding what keeps the omerta in place. Perhaps then its roots can be identified and severed, starving the omerta of its nourishment. In my opinion, three ingredients must co-exist in order to sustain an omerta in cycling.
First, there must be something to hide. Despite the self-serving data bending and associated propaganda to the contrary, I am led to believe that there are pockets of organised, highly sophisticated dopers even within ‘new age’ cycling teams. Personally, I don’t accept that the ‘dark era’ has ended, it has just morphed into a new guise.
Second, the riders must fear reprisal if they share their knowledge with authorities. Whereas USADA’s charge letter indicates the bully was Armstrong, most riders would now recognise his relative impotence given that his modus operandi has been revealed and disgraced. Who else could riders fear? I am told they continue to fear the team hierarchies who have the power to ‘hire & fire’. They hold the rider’s future to ransom and thereby ensure they never ‘spit in the soup’.
Third, for an omerta to thrive the riders must doubt that anything would change even if they did take their information to the authorities. Everyone has witnessed the fate of Floyd Landis, Tyler Hamilton and Jörg Jaksche after they spoke out. I am sure that has left an indelible impression on current riders whose moral compass nags them to tell the truth but who have seen the likely outcome if they did. I think this is a damning legacy with which the current management at UCI will be forever tarnished.
If any one of those three ingredients were permanently removed from the cycling landscape, I think the omerta would begin to erode and eventually crumble. If there was nothing to hide, why stay quiet? If there would be no reprisals, why not speak out? If speaking out did change things, why wouldn’t a few noble souls come forward?
So I wholeheartedly support calls by USADA and Dick Pound to convene a ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ (TRC) for cycling. Someone, somewhere, needs to crack cycling’s omerta open, Dubin-esque style. It is not a question of survival – of course cycling will continue to exist even if there is no TRC. It will continue to exist just like it is today.
At the same time, I have grave doubts that Pat McQuaid’s amnesty would have the necessary credibility if it were convened under the ministership of the UCI. Cycling simply cannot be seen to be investigating itself on this exquisitely sensitive matter. Nevertheless, the UCI’s participation should be welcomed, as intuition tells me they would have some cathartic stories to tell.
The seeds of hope
However regardless of the forum and who convenes it, we would do well to cast our eyes toward the horizon and contemplate a post-TRC environment. The seeds of hope and reformation germinated and nourished by a TRC will quickly die if they are cast upon a barren landscape.
For example, a post-TRC future will no doubt include many confessed dopers as well as their confessed facilitators, lest the roads be half empty and some team cars driverless. That situation must be managed. A scenario where the same actors are thrown back into the same milieu without meaningful support via structural change is rife for exploitation, in the same way that the 1999 Tour de France was supposedly a redemption post-Festina but was instead hoodwinked and hijacked by a team of cynical conspirators.
Therefore, the TRC would address my first ingredient of omerta (i.e., there will be no substantial secrets left to hide if the TRC succeeds in providing an open forum), but what would stop the situation from reinfesting cycling a few years down the track? Another generation of secrets would have flourished in the meantime. Moreover, in the absence of structural change, the last two ingredients of omerta will be carried forward after the TRC has closed.
Specifically, individuals would still fear reprisal for disclosing their knowledge of wrongdoing, and riders would still be cynical that anything would change even if they did volunteer that information. The TRC is a first and vital step, but definitely not the last.
I think those two latter concerns can be expunged with a single solution: an investigatory unitset up specifically to receive and evaluate non-analytical evidence from within the cycling fraternity. It must also be imbued with the capacity to initiate sanctions on both riders as well as team hierarchies who fail to reform post-TRC.
One need only look to the USADA to see an exemplary example of how an investigative unit could be managed. Whereas the UCI might be anxious to house the unit beneath their antidoping commission and thereby maintain some level of control, I believe the inherent conflict of interest with the UCI’s desire to promote and globalize their sport is insurmountable.
Besides, there is already a template on which to base an ex-UCI investigatory unit. Currently, cycling’s Athlete Biological Passport is managed by an independent entity (the Lausanne APMU) who receive UCI’s imprimatur to execute those activities on its behalf. The teams, riders and race organizers currently outlay approximately 85% of the running costs for the Passport, even though it is still ostensibly seen to be ‘run’ by the UCI. I see no reason not to adopt a similar model for the funding and management of cycling’s investigatory unit.
Perhaps in the future, after cycling’s secrets have been laid bare during a reconciliation forum, after an investigatory unit has been set up to receive and investigate rider’s concerns, and after that unit has demonstrated itself to be morally and legally capable, perhaps then we can declare the omerta over.High school teachers are leaving the profession after being placed in subjects they aren't qualified to teach. More than a quarter of year 7 to year 10 teachers and 15 per cent of year 11 to 12 teachers in Australian schools are teaching a subject they have not studied above first year at university and for which they have not received training in teaching methodology, according to the latest Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) figures. The implications of this on retention rates and the mental health of teachers are widely overlooked, says Dr Du Plessis, a research fellow at the Australian Catholic University who is set to release a book in June on teacher burnout. "You feel guilty because you don't have an in-depth knowledge of the subject or the skills or knowledge to guide students, especially if they're in year 11 and 12," she said. "If you do this over a long period of time, you get exhausted and feel you're not achieving what you want to achieve. It can lead to burnout."
In some of the worst cases Dr Du Plessis has come across, teachers have been put on stress medication and needed counselling to cope with the burden of roles for which they don't have the proper training. About 37 per cent of teachers in their first or second year of teaching are in out-of-field roles compared to 25 per cent of those with more than five years' experience, meaning younger teachers tend to be disproportionately affected. In one such case that Dr Du Plessis looked at, a science teacher in her second year had been given physical education classes, but wasn't comfortable teaching in an open space. "She said if things didn't change, she would leave the profession," Dr Du Plessis said. "I think that's severe, to lose a science teacher because she's in an out-of-field area." President of the NSW Secondary Principals' Council Chris Presland said burnout is common among teachers placed out of their field.
"They're on this constant treadmill of just trying to keep ahead of the kids," he said. "They're frustrated and they'll look for another career. That happens a lot." Australian schools are experiencing the greatest shortage of qualified teachers in technical areas. In years 7 to 10 about 41 per cent of teachers IT classes, 23 per cent of teachers in physics classes, and 21 per cent in maths classes do not specialise in these areas, according to a 2016 ACER report. "It's hard to solve the real root cause of the problem, which is that for people with maths, science and IT credentials, a teaching salary is nothing in comparison to how much they can get in industry," Mr Presland said. "The first implication [of this shortage] is that if a school offers a technical subject, they're likely not to have qualified teachers."Jocelyne shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she looked around the tiny waiting room, desperate for anything to entertain her. She hadn’t even brought her cellphone with her – she was in too much of a hurry to make her appointment… Only to find that they were running late.
She’d forgotten all about her meeting when she’d gone to Mark’s place the night before. It wasn’t until her eyes fluttered open the next morning that she remembered.
At least it was an excuse to slip away. She thought.
Facing Mark that morning would have been too uncomfortable. Too painful. Too awkward.
It didn’t mean anything anyway. Jocelyne told herself firmly.
Still, she had no regrets. It had been exactly what she needed. And what Mark needed too. But it was a moment of comfort, nothing more.
Leaving that bed was so much easier than she’d thought it would be. And Jocelyne was able to slip away before he even knew she was gone.
Thankfully her parents did not question her when she returned to their house in the same dress she’d been wearing the night before. That was a welcome surprise. Maybe after all these years, they’d finally accepted her as an adult. Maybe they’d decided to stop judging her for her choices, or treating her like a child.
At least, Jocelyne certainly hoped so.
“Ms. Rosebrook?” A soft female called from the doorway across the room. Jocelyne rose to her feet, nodding.
“I apologize for the delay.” She continued. “Please, step into my office.” The woman gestured toward the door as she spoke.
With a deep breath, Jocelyne accepted her invitation.
She’d been so puzzled when the lawyer’s office had contacted her, before she’d even gotten on her plane to Windenburg. She was in the car on the way to the Willow Creek airport when she’d gotten the call.
They hadn’t given her many details, just that it concerned her brother’s will.
What could he have left me? She wondered. Why would he think of her, of all people?
Today, perhaps she would find out.
“So, Ms. Rosebrook.” The lawyer said, clearing her throat softly. “Let me start by extending my deepest condolences to you.”
“Thank you very much, Ms…?” Jocelyne hesitated, biting her lip uncertainly. She’d already forgotten the name written outside the office door.
“Lange.” She replied. “Roberta Lange.”
“Ms. Lange.” She finished, trying to smile.
“If you don’t mind, I have a few questions for you before we get down to business.”
“O-of course.” She muttered. What could this be about?
“I understand you reside in the United States, Ms. Rosebrook?”
“Yes.” She confirmed. “In Willow Creek.”
“And are you a United States citizen?”
She shook her head. “I have a green card.” She explained. “But my children are full citizens, like their father.” Why is she asking me this?!
“Ah, children?” Somehow, that seemed to grab her attention. “How old are the little ones?”
“Six.” Jocelyne smiled as she spoke. “They’re triplets, actually.”
Her eyes widened.
“I know.” The younger woman laughed. “They’re quite the handful… But their father and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She assured her.
“And… You aren’t married, is that correct?”
“N-no… Their father and I aren’t together.” Jocelyne’s brow furrowed. She simply couldn’t take this strange questioning anymore. “Ms. Lange, may I ask what all this is about?”
“Of course, of course.” The lawyer cleared her throat softly. “Just addressing the… circumstances of you and your… sons? Daughters?”
Despite her nerves, Jocelyne couldn’t help but laugh. “That always confuses people. Elliot and I thought we were being so clever… Our girls are Charlie, Alex, and Tony.” She explained. “Short for Charlotte, Alexandria, and Antoinette. Cute, right?” A small smile came to her lips. “It was his idea.”
Ms. Lange seemed thoroughly unamused by the girls’ nicknames. “Ms. Rosebrook, as you know, I’ve called you here today to discuss your brother’s will. Though I’m wondering if, given your circumstances, we may wish to reconsider this particular decision…”
“Reconsider what decision?” Jocelyne sighed heavily, her smile fading as her nerves finally got the better of her. “Please, Ms. Lange. What is this about?”
The woman took a deep breath. “Ms. Rosebrook, in the event of his and his wife’s deaths, Lucas has named you guardian of his son, Zayne.”
“What?!”
Ms. Lange cleared her throat once more, reading from the crisp white paper on the desk in front of her. “In the
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in Japan asking their favorite tsundere characters and came up with a list. Here are the top 10:
Mikoto Misaka 御坂 （ みさか ） 美琴 （ みこと ） （To Aru Series/とあるシリーズ） voiced by Rina Satou Hitagi Senjougahara 戦場ヶ原 （ せんじょうがはら ） ひたぎ（Monogatari Series/ 物語 （ ものがたり ） シリーズ） voiced by Chiwa Saitou Kirino Kousaka 高坂 （ こうさか ） 桐乃 （ きりの ） （Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai/ 俺 （ おれ ） の 妹 （ いもうと ） がこんなに 可愛 （ かわい ） いわけがない） voiced by Ayana Taketatsu Maki Nishikino 西木野 （ にしきの ） 真姫 （ まき ） （Love Live!/ラブライブ！） voiced by Pile Chitoge Kirisaki 桐崎 （ きりさき ） 千棘 （ ちとげ ） （Nisekoi/ニセコイ） voiced by Nao Touyama and Haruka Tomatsu Shana シャナ（Shakugan no Shana/ 灼眼 （ しゃくがん ） のシャナ） voiced by Rie Kugimiya Taiga Aisaka 逢坂 （ あいさか ） 大河 （ たいが ） （Toradora!/とらドラ！） voiced by Rie Kugimiya Louise ルイズ（The Familiar of Zero/ゼロの 使 （ つか ） い 魔 （ ま ） ） voiced by Rie Kugimiya Asuka Langley Soryu 惣流 （ そりゅ ） ・アスカ・ラングレー (Neon Genesis Evangelion/ 新 （ しん ） 世紀 （ せいき ） エヴァンゲリオン） voiced by Yuuko Miyamura Iori Minase 水瀬 （ みなせ ） 伊織 （ いおり ） (THE IDOLM@STER) voiced by Rie Kugimiya
Wow, Rie Kugimiya is in the top 10 four times! But she didn’t break the top 5. Does that mean she’s not the Tsundere Queen anymore? Will she be considered for roles in anime in the future?
Tsundere in Real Life
Naturally Japanese people eventually began looking for tsundere in their daily lives. The popular Japanese news site Mynaviwoman asked 100 working men if they’d encountered real life women who had this hot/cold personality. According to the survey, only 8.5% of men said yes. Those who said yes, were asked what the women were like. Below is a selection of translated answers:
“She completely ignored me at work, but in private stuck to me all the time. I wasn’t offended, but I kept thinking ‘don’t ignore me.’ ” (35-year-old precision machine salesman)
“She told me she was not interested in me at all, but always took the seat beside me and got close when she talked to me.” (33-year-old precision engineer)
“She was a really strong woman, but I saw tears in her eyes one day. My heart fluttered. She normally wasn’t ‘dere dere’ at all. If you can be patient with a girl who is usually ‘tsun-tsun,’ I totally recommend a tsundere girl… especially if you’re a masochistic guy.” (22-year-old IT engineer)
Although some men said they liked “tsundere” girls, others said the tsun tsun treatment was awful. One guy described it like this:
“She barely ever changed her facial expression and her words and behavior were abrupt. She definitely gave me a bad first impression. If I had to pick something good about her, it would be she’s good at saying one thing and doing another. I mean, she was good at bluffing.”
Have you met "tsundere" women or men in your life? Did you like their behavior? All the behavior described here sounds extreme. But I suppose we all have our reasons for acting certain ways in certain situations. There are so many factors behind peoples’ behavior, it’s hard to say.
Other ~Dere Words
Now that we’ve learned the meaning of tsundere and so much more, I think you’re ready to enter the vast landscape of “the other ~dere words.” Tsundere is only the tip of the iceberg. After this word became popular, people in Japan started creating all new ~dere words. There are a lot of labels for personality types that start out one way, but end dere dere.
Dandere ダンデレ （ ）
dandere だんでれ/ダンデレ （ ） is actually a Japanese homophone. This same word has two meanings.
The first “dandere” is made up of these two words:
dandii だんでぃ/ダンディ （ ） dere dere でれでれ/デレデレ （ ）
Dandii comes from the English word “dandy.” Dandy may feel antiquated to westerners, but it’s still used in Japan to describe manly and sophisticated men. David Beckham and George Clooney are both considered “dandies by Japanese people. Dandies look cool and don’t seem like the type to become affectionate. So if George Clooney were to use baby talk to dote on a cute puppy, that would make him dandere.
The second “dandere” is made up of these two words:
danmari だんまり/ダンマリ （ ） dere dere でれでれ/デレデレ （ ）
“Danmari” is the noun form of the verb “damaru 黙 （ だま ） る”, which means to be quiet. So this dandere describes someone who is quiet but actually feels “dere dere” in their hearts. If you really liked someone in middle school, but never talked to them (or anyone), then you were dandere. Oh, middle school. The most secure and non-turbulent time of life.
Examples of Dandere:
Kuudere クーデレ （ ）
If you’re calm and composed, but have a heart full of passion, then you might be kuudere くーでれ/クーデレ （ ）. It’s made up of these two words:
kuuru くーる/クール （ ） dere dere でれでれ/デレデレ （ ）
“Kuuru” comes from “cool” in English. This idea overlaps with both the “dandy” and “quiet” dandere types. A kuudere person is cool but also full of affection bottled up and stuffed deep inside. It describes a few different kinds of cool personalities:
Someone who acts like they’re not interested in other people except for one they like. To that specific person, they become dere dere.
Someone who likes a certain someone, but when that person comes around, they become shy and act cool.
Someone who acts cool at first, but over time they become more honest and affectionate.
Someone who acts cool but says or does cheesy or corny things.
Examples of Kuudere:
Yandere ヤンデレ （ ）
Have you ever been in love? Like crazy in love? Like so crazy in love you would kill anyonewhogetsinthewayofyourloveEVENTHELOVEITSELF!!!?
Then you might be yandere やんでれ/ヤンデレ （ ）. It’s made up of these two words:
yanderu 病んでる/ヤンデル （ ） dere dere でれでれ/デレデレ （ ）
Yanderu is written “ 病 （ や ） んでる” in kanji. It means “to be sick or depressed.” But in this case, “yanderu” means to be mentally ill. It usually describes someone deranged but still affectionate. But sometimes it can describe someone who fell in love so hard it made them crazy. Either way, a yandere person is usually dangerous. They’ll do anything (mostly killing) to keep other people away from their love. If they can’t keep people away, they’ll kill their love so no one else can have them. Makes sense, right?
Examples of Yandere:
Darudere ダルデレ （ ）
If Gudetama showed sudden burst of passion for someone you could call him darudere だるでれ/ダルデレ （ ）. It’s made up of these two words:
darui だるい/ダルイ （ ） dere dere でれでれ/デレデレ （ ）
Darui means weary, sluggish, or tiresome. It describes the feeling of being too tired to do anything. You can’t be bothered. Thus darudere people are mostly lazy, but sometimes passionate. For example, here’s a conversation between a darudere girlfriend and normal boyfriend from the book tsukue no ue no darudere kanojou 机 （ つくえ ） の 上 （ うえ ） のダルデレ 彼女 （ かのじょう ） (My Darudere Girlfriend on the Desk).
Girl:「………… おんぶ （ ） 」 Boy: 「 いや （ ） 、 歩 （ ある ） こうぜ？」 Girl:「………」 Boy:「…… わかった （ ） よ……」 Girl: Piggyback ride! (Asking him to put her on his back) Boy: C’mon, let’s walk, okay? Girl: ….. Boy: Alright…
Fun fact: Darudere is sometimes elongated into “darushimudere” referencing Dhalsim from Street Fighter II. Because why not?
Examples of Darudere:
Kyonko in The Gender-Flip of Haruhi Suzumiya
Amu Hinamori in Shugo Chara!
Yamato Nagamori in Lucky Star
Sadodere サドデレ （ ）
If you love to tease, but have a secret heart of affection you might be sadodere さどでれ/サドデレ （ ）. It’s made up of these two words:
sado さど/サド （ ） dere dere でれでれ/デレデレ （ ）
Sado comes from an English word “sadistic.” But Japanese people use it to describe someone who likes teasing others. Usually the term “esu エス （ ） ”, from the S in “sadistic” is used. So a person who is teasing someone incessantly is acting “S.” Thus a sadodere person loves to tease, but deep down they are bursting with dere dere love.
Examples of Sadodere:
Bakadere バカデレ （ ）
If you have trouble doing anything smart or even talking good and kant tipe vere gud, but you’re filled with love, you may be bakadere ばかでれ/バカデレ （ ）. It’s made up of these two words:
baka ばか/バカ （ ） dere dere でれでれ/デレデレ （ ）
Of course, if you’ve read our article about the meaning and history of baka, you know it means stupid. So bakadere is someone prone to stupidity, but sometimes very lovey-dovey.
Examples of Bakadere:
Nyandere ニャンデレ （ ）
If you’re thinking “Dere Dere Garfield” you’re not too far off track. nyandere にゃんでれ/ニャンデレ （ ） is made up of two words:
nyan nyan にゃんにゃん/ニャンニャン （ ） dere dere でれでれ/デレデレ （ ）
Nyan nyan is a Japanese onomatopoeia for a cat’s meow. So when combined with ~dere, it describes someone who snuggles up to their significant other using cat gestures. So there’s no dichotomy of personality like there is with other words in the ~dere family. Just a description of how someone is dere dere. But this isn’t the only use for nyandere.
Nyandere can also be used for someone who is usually cool but becomes dere dere only in the presence of cats. It also extends to tsundere people with neko-mimi (cat ears), cat girls or guys who are dere dere, cats who are dere dere, or cats who are tsundere. Basically anything that sometimes exhibits cat traits and sometimes exhibits affection.
Examples of Nyandere:
I’m a dog person, so I might be “wandere” rather than nyandere. wan-wan!U^ｪ^U
Other ~dere Words
Technically you can make any ~dere words you want. I’d like to make “okodere” or “pundere.” They both mean the same thing. The “oko” is from “okoru 怒 （ おこ ） る” meaning “to get angry.” The “pun pun プンプン （ ） ” is from the Japanese onomatopoeia for being angry. So both okodere and pundere mean a grumpy person who sometimes becomes dere dere.
What kind of ~dere word will you make? Tweet it at us with the hashtag #derelife. Who knows? You could make the next descriptor that affects all anime for years to come. ganbatte! がんばって！ （ ）
Discovering Something Deeper
“What? Are you done reading already? I just got started telling you about tsundere. Maybe we can talk about obscure Japanese internet slang again some time soon, okay?” (blush)
No matter how you feel about this new obsession with an age old social quirk, it’s a great example of how we categorize our storytelling habits. At the very least you’ll be able to ace that online tsundere quiz you’ve been putting off.
Even though we are labeling characters as one thing or the other, we are also showing our patience with difficult exteriors. Tsundere and all the ~dere derivatives acknowledge our complexity as human beings. Whether someone is outwardly brash, quiet, cool, or stupid, inside they have a desire to give and receive love.
And if we’re able to practice this patience and understanding with anime characters, perhaps eventually we’ll do the same with the complicated people around us as well.Share. The script needs a little more work. The script needs a little more work.
DC's long-gestating live-action movie Justice League Dark is undergoing a "script polish" from Gerard Johnstone.
As reported by Deadline, Johnstone was one of the potential directors in the running to take the helm of the darker take on DC's heroes, following Doug Liman's departure from the film to direct Lionsgate's upcoming sci-fi adaptation Chaos Walking.
While DC have chosen not to announce a new director (or any casting) as of yet, they were reportedly impressed enough with Johnstone's presentation and his work on the 2014 film Housebound that they've asked him to take a look at the script.
It's important to note that the wording "script polish" implies that they're just looking for Johnstone to make some revisions to the script as it currently exists as opposed to a full rewrite.
Justice League Dark, a franchise which traditionally features darker, more supernatural DC heroes such as Constantine, Swamp Thing, Deadman, Zatanna and Etrigan the Demon, has been in development since at least 2012, when it was announced that Guillermo del Toro was developing the concept. He turned in a version of the script back in 2014 but later left the project. The current version of the film was penned by Michael Gilio but Warner Bros. were reportedly "underwhelmed" by potential directors.
There have also been some legal rumblings following Universal's announcement of "Dark Universe" as the official title of their monster movie franchise, a title Warner Bros. and DC already use for Justice League Dark and a series of comic books.
If the wait is getting to you, you should check out the animated Justice League Dark movie that dropped earlier this year. We thought it was "so good it should be used as the blueprint" for the live-action version.
Exit Theatre Mode
Matt Davidson is a freelance writer for IGN who will do whatever it takes to get Matt Ryan back in Constantine's trenchcoat and keep him there forever. Check him out on Twitter.Photo
The glimmer of emotion that Hillary Rodham Clinton displayed in New Hampshire was startling because it was so out-of-character — almost as disconcerting as Jon Stewart returning to “The Daily Show” on Monday and not making fun of it.
Instead of the latest primary mishaps, Mr. Stewart devoted most of his mock news show to the writers’ strike and to his own decision to return to work without writers (or censors: he let off several obscenities that were not bleeped in time)
Mr. Stewart and his colleague Stephen Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report,” were following the lead of Jay Leno at NBC and other late night network hosts who went back to on the air last week without reaching a side deal with the writers guild. (David Letterman’s production company did work out a separate agreement for his program and “The Late Late Show” with Craig Ferguson. On Monday night, Mr. Letterman interviewed Tom Hanks and Mike Huckabee, and shaved off his strike beard on stage.)
Obviously, Mr. Stewart was torn. He skewered both his parent company — Viacom, which opposes the Writers Guild of America in the strike dispute — and the guild that has kept him off camera during one of the most volatile and exciting presidential elections since he began on “Comedy Central.”
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Last night, Mr. Stewart’s vexation was keener than his wit.
He likened the “Speechless” ads, a series of bleak, self-righteous black and white video spots on the guild’s Web site, to an anti-AIDS public service message. He noted that late-night talk shows stayed dark for just one week after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, whereas the current strike — a dispute over Internet revenues — had lasted nine weeks. And he joked, somewhat sourly, that by that calculation, “the writers’ strike is nine times worse than 9/11.”In 2008, a Best Picture nomination for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight looked like a sure thing. Though “popcorn cinema” didn’t have a track record for nabbing spots on the list — between 1999 and ’08, only The Sixth Sense and the Lord of the Rings trilogy stood out as both “prestige” and blockbuster fare — many considered Nolan’s second Batman movie to be the real deal. Amazing visuals, poignant themes, a standout performance by the late Heath Ledger, and rave reviews across the board were the perfect awards equation. Then, after months of speculation, the nominees were finally announced. The Dark Knight was noticeably absent from the Best Picture list.
Ledger went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, while the film itself won a Sound Editing award and earned nominations for Art Direction, Cinematography, Editing, Makeup, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects. But even four years later, the missing nominations for The Dark Knight and Nolan are widely considered one of the Academy’s more egregious snubs. Now it’s The Dark Knight Rises‘ time to run the Oscar race — will it fare any better? Once again, the evidence for Best Picture success is there, but award season prognosticators are playing it safe. No one wants another 2008.
“Without factoring in any films that might pop up on the schedule between now and December, there are probably, realistically, 19 films that could be in the Best Picture conversation,” says Erik Childress, Vice President of the Chicago Film Critics Association. The consistency of Academy members to nominate films that fit the “Oscar bill” — often dramas, usually star-studded, and with source material or talent behind the camera that gives it an evident Hollwood pedigree — allows savvy award seers to accurately predict what may or may not be fodder for consideration. With that mind, Childress believes we’ve only seen a few movies so far that could wind up in conversation by year’s end. “Only four of those films have been released as of yet: The Avengers, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Moonrise Kingdom and The Dark Knight Rises. If The Avengers isn’t rewarded for being the biggest hit of the year (not to mention one of the best reviewed), voters can look to Nolan’s film as being the more serious of the two and reward it as part of a larger landscape.”
In 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (the enterprise behind the Oscars) threw Hollywood a curveball with a rule that dramatically changed the award season. For the first time, ten films were nominated for Best Picture allowing more movies with less votes slip into the category. The impact of the rule was immediately apparent: In ’09, indie darlings like Precious and A Serious Man made the cut, while two sci-fi flicks — Avatar and District 9 — breached the top ten. In 2010, the Best Picture race finally had room for a Nolan epic, with a nomination for the mind-bending heist picture Inception (although the nod was bittersweet — the filmmaker was still left off the five-slot Best Directors list after garnering wins). 2011 saw the rule evolve once more, the set ten nominations transitioning to a sliding scale that gave greater weight to the vote count. The potential for a large roster opens up the playing field for a Dark Knight Rises nomination (it will be hard for the Academy to ignore a movie that’s already eclipsed the $500 million worldwide box office mark), but inevitable comparisons to The Dark Knight and Inception may leave Nolan’s trilogy-capper out of top tier of 2012.
“The question is whether the Dark Knight trilogy is really one that has had that same kind of support among Academy members up until this movie,” says Ed Douglas of ComingSoon.net. “The answer is ‘no.’ Neither Batman Begins nor The Dark Knight received Best Picture nominations … Since The Dark Knight Rises is closer to Batman Begins than The Dark Knight, we’re probably going to see another Best Picture snub, and probably only technical awards once again.” Childress doesn’t see Batman’s lack of Best Picture nominations standing in the way of The Dark Knight Rises — in fact, it might work in the movie’s favor. “Because of The Dark Knight‘s association with its big snubbing in 2008, despite getting eight nominations, there’s a make-up factor that the Academy doesn’t shy away from, especially when the films are of great quality and deserve to be in the conversation anyway.” Nolan’s lack of Best Director nominations adds to the “we owe him one” mentality found in the Academy thinking. “There’s an inside track for it that is only accentuated with it being one of the best-reviewed films of 2012.”
It’s hard to believe, but Oscars voters are people too. And like anyone with Internet at their fingertips, ears and eyes to pick up on the latest campaigning, and minds that have to make sense of it all, they’re aware of the almighty buzz. Nathaniel Rogers of The Film Experience puts it into perspective: “Though I am weary of the internet’s strange obsession with The Academy owing Chris Nolan for The Dark Knight (most filmmakers would kill to be snubbed to the tune of eight nominations and two wins for a single blockbuster in a non Oscar-friendly genre), I do recognize the sheer force of its angry wall of fandom and the estimable endurance of the mainstream media’s bandwagon bitching about the self same “snub.” AMPAS is not an impermeable monolithic fortress but an organization made up of people with different opinions who are, like any other people, subject to influence by way of public opinion.”
History aside, The Dark Knight Rises has found ample footing for an Oscar run in positive feedback. Critics and moviegoers alike laud the film. On the popular polling site Metacritic, The Dark Knight Rises holds a score of 78/100 from critics and an 8.7 from users, compared to The Dark Knight (82/100 from critics and an 8.9 from users), and previous Best Picture winners like The Artist (89/100 from critics and an 7.9 from users), The King’s Speech (88/100 from critics and an 8.4 from users), and The Hurt Locker (94/100 from critics and an 7.0 from users). Ropes of Silicon founder Brad Brevet believes positive reviews swing voters, and The Dark Knight Rises has won over the right people. “[Roger] Ebert’s review didn’t help but [New York Times critic Mahnola] Dargis loving it is pretty big. [LA Times critic Kenneth] Turan was big on it as well. It’s probably a no-brainer for a Best Pic nom, but probably a pat on the back and a placement outside the top five when all is said and done.”
Many believe the comic book foundation of The Dark Knight Rises, its predecessors, and its successors is the fatal flaw that will keep the genre from ever finding Oscar gold, but if there’s anyone who can pull through, it will be Nolan. The Artist won the hearts of cineastes with its throwback to the Golden Age. Nolan does the same thing with his Batman films, employing old school stylings of grandeur in the vein of David Lean and Stanley Kubrick, albeit with a dark, superheroic edge.” The Dark Knight series has elevated the superhero genre to art in the same way that the Godfather did for gangster films and The Lord of the Rings did for fantasy,” an anonymous Oscar voter tells Hollywood.com. The Academy member, in his 60s, put his vote with Nolan in 2008 and is more than ready to do it again with The Dark Knight Rises. “I personally nominated the Dark Knight for Best Picture and as of now, will certainly do the same for The Dark Knight Rises. It has all of the brilliant filmmaking elements that Dark Knight had, minus of course the remarkable performance of Heath Ledger. If Dark Knight Rises falls short in any way, it might simply be that no performance stands out to the extent of Ledger’s. However, Gary Oldman’s portrayal of Commissioner Gordon has consistently been the heart of these films and Anne Hathaway is easily the best Catwoman ever.“
In a discussion between two vets of the Oscar race, Anne Thompson of Indiewire/Thompson on Hollywood and Kris Tapley of In Contention, Tapley questions whether Warner Bros. will even campaign for The Dark Knight Rises. The studio has a full slate of potential awards contenders, including Ben Affleck’s Argo, Clint Eastwood’s Trouble with the Curve, and Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Is there room for TDKR? Thompson is confident they will. “They’re going to go for it because they went for Inception. You can tell: Nolan worked it. He went everywhere, he accepted every award from every guild. He could not be more eager and I think he was very disappointed.” A “For Your Consideration” campaign for Dark Knight Rises has a lot to offer: after all, Nolan has yet to be honored and this is the grand finale of a massive franchise. The triumph could swing both ways — 2011’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2 went out with a bang but failed to hook voters. On the other side, Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings found success in its final installment (but that was after three consecutive years of LOTR, unlike the four-year gap between Dark Knight and 2012’s sequel). There’s a solid case for why the film should take a Best Picture nomination.
If history repeats itself, Batman’s last act should walk away with at least one gold statue. “The Dark Knight Rises should have no trouble finding a handful of technical nominations,” says Rogers. “Contrary to the Internet’s belief system, the Academy actually likes Batman and especially The Dark Knight. His past seven films have shared 15 Oscar nominations and three wins and roughly half of that tally comes from the movie everyone claims was snubbed.” But if The Dark Knight Rises doesn’t swoop in and pick up the big award of the night this time around, fans shouldn’t fret: there’s always the reboot.
Follow Matt Patches on Twitter @misterpatches
[Photo Credit: Warner Bros.]
More:
Politics of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’: Is Batman of the One Percent or the 99?
Burt Ward on Robin: What It Takes to Bring Batman’s Sidekick to Life
‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Ending and When Fan Service AttacksWhat you're about to read is what happens when a sophomore fraternity guy at Vanderbilt emails a “pretty cool but also very respected” econ professor in order to apply the class's lessons to the pursuit of a “top-heavy blonde bombshell.” The econ professor, who has been described as “at least 65,” to his credit obviously put some time into thinking out the costs and benefits pertaining to this sophomore wooing the young lass. But regardless, it's still a ridiculous idea to email a professor like this. Brilliant, but ridiculous. We've put the prof's comments in bold italics.
XXXX, I found your analysis interesting. But the reasoning could have been a bit tighter and, given the potential rewards, I would hate to have you make a bad decision here. On the other hand, perhaps the benefits of learning from a bad decision would far outweigh the benefits received right now from a good decision. See my comments below in [bold italics]. I am glad that economics is helping your love life.
Hey there Professor,
My name is XXXX and I'm a sophomore in your class. I have been keeping up with the readings, participating in class and taking the self-quizzes. I feel like I have a strong grasp of the concepts that we have discussed. So, in order to get ready for our test on Friday, I have decided make some economic decisions in the real world.
I was hoping that I could get your feedback on my reasoning in this situation that has come up. If the girl that I am talking to starts playing hard to get, is that a bad economic decision on her part? [If she knows that you will put forth more effort and the ultimate benefits for her are significantly greater, it is rational for her to play hard to get.]
I know the first thing that you need to know is: how does she look? I'll refrain from adding any attachments, but if you take my word for it, she's a ten. We're talking top-heavy blond bombshell – certain back trouble in her future. The problem I see though, is that she is making the costs of me pursuing her. I have to invest a lot more time into the relationship. [As stated above that may be in her best interest. Even if she loses you.]
My attention span is an elastic good. Between class and house parties and intramural softball, my time has a very high opportunity cost. [Give your opportunity cost, perhaps continuing to pursue her is not a rational action.] Also, I don't know if you've noticed, but there are a ton substitute goods in this freshmen class. [Good point. That should put limits on your willingness to pursue.] I know we haven't covered incentives yet (the potential rewards of staying with her), but is the supply of my time spent on this female expected to decline? [Yes, there are diminishing returns. But just because they diminish does not mean you should stop pursuit.] Were these last few weeks just a sunk cost? [And yes, absolutely! They are sunk. Don't continue just because of past efforts. However, to complicate things– just a little more effort may pay off in a big way. And pursuit of a new target may cost a lot more than continuing this pursuit for just a bit more.]
It'd be great if I could get your feedback before the tailgate on Saturday. [Does all that help or hurt? What should I tell her, if she sends me questions?]
Thanks,
XXXX
See a funny email going around? Give us a tip!
“Five years ago, a Japanese psychiatrist and his colleagues observed something peculiar regarding two schizophrenia patients.
One was a 23-year-old man who had been hospitalized for a first episode of schizophrenia. While in the hospital he developed a severe case of pneumonia, which was treated with the antibiotic minocycline. Two weeks later, his schizophrenia symptoms resolved along with his pneumonia.
The other was a 61-year-old man who was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 20. During his most recent hospitalization for it, he developed a bedsore that was treated with minocycline. Two weeks later, the bedsore healed, and minocycline was discontinued. The patient’s schizophrenia symptoms worsened. Minocycline was resumed; within three days, the patient’s schizophrenia symptoms improved.
“I was so surprised by these developments,” the psychiatrist—Tsuyoshi Miyaoka, M.D., an associate professor of psychiatry at Japan’s Shimane University School of Medicine—told Psychiatric News. “Could minocycline have antipsychotic properties? I wondered.”
Pursuing Their Hunch
Miyaoka and his colleagues decided to explore this possible relationship by conducting a small open-label study. They gave minocycline (150 mg/d) as an adjunct to antipsychotic medication to 22 individuals with schizophrenia for a four-week period. Evaluation of the subjects showed reduction of more than 50 percent in both positive and negative symptoms. These results, even considering a possible placebo effect, suggested that minocycline might possess antipsychotic properties. And what was especially promising was that it seemed to be capable of countering negative symptoms, which are usually intractable.
Deanna Kelly, Pharm.D., and Gopal Vyas, D.O., discuss their minocycline-schizophrenia trial. “If we can show that this adjunct minocycline treatment works, it could be a breakthrough finding for schizophrenia treatment,” Kelly said, “especially since minocycline is inexpensive, we know its long-term safety, and it’s already available in the U.S.” Deanna Kelly, Pharm.D.
Deanna Kelly, Pharm.D., director and chief of the Treatment Research Program at the University of Maryland’s Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, read about these developments. “I was really excited about them,” she said during an interview, and thus she and her colleagues Robert Buchanan, M.D., and Gopal Vyas, D.O., decided to explore minocycline’s putative antipsychotic potential.
They gave minocycline to several patients with severe schizophrenia. As Vyas told Psychiatric News, he noted changes in these patients that he had never seen before in them. For instance, “Several showed improvement in group attendance and participation. One who exhibited more than a moderate amount of catatonic behavior was far more engaged in his treatment and was able to be successfully discharged after a prolonged hospitalization. He remains in the community to this day.”
About the same time, results from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that had been conducted on minocycline and schizophrenia were published in the February 2010 Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. The results, Kelly said, “got us even more fired up about minocycline’s potential against schizophrenia.”
Yechiel Levkovitz, M.D., of the Shalvata Mental Health Care Center in Hod-Hasharon, Israel, and colleagues had conducted a trial in 54 subjects with early-phase schizophrenia. The subjects had been given an atypical antipsychotic plus minocycline (200 mg/d) or an atypical antipsychotic plus a placebo and were followed for six months.
Minocycline showed a beneficial effect against not just negative symptoms, but against cognitive deficits—deficits that, like negative symptoms, are usually difficult to treat.
Still other minocycline-related schizophrenia results were published in April in the Journal of Psychopharmacology by Bill Deakin, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at the University of Manchester in England, and his international team. These results further persuaded Kelly that minocycline possesses antischizophrenia properties.
In that study, 144 subjects with early-phase schizophrenia had received antipsychotic treatment as usual plus minocycline or antipsychotic treatment as usual plus a placebo for an eight-week period. Minocycline was found to significantly reduce negative symptoms and somewhat improve positive ones.
But How Might It Work?
So what about this antibiotic is leading to hope that it can be a weapon against schizophrenia, and especially the usually intractable negative symptoms and cognitive deficits of the illness? “We don’t really know for sure,” Kelly acknowledged. “But minocycline is known to be capable of countering inflammation and of crossing the blood-brain barrier into the brain, and there is also growing evidence that inflammation might play a role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. So minocycline might be able to counter schizophrenia by countering inflammation in the brain.”
Only more research will show whether minocycline is truly an effective medication against schizophrenia, and such research is under way.
Kelly, Buchanan, and Vyas are conducting a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, to further explore minocycline’s impact on schizophrenia. Fifty subjects with severe schizophrenia who have shown only a partial or no response to the antipsychotic clozapine are being randomized to receive either minocycline (100 mg twice daily) plus clozapine or a placebo plus clozapine for 10 weeks.
“We are looking for its effects on positive and negative symptoms,” Kelly said. “We are also studying cognition to see whether minocycline helps with areas such as memory and learning. And we are measuring the levels of inflammatory markers called cytokines in the subjects’ blood, since we suspect that minocycline may counter schizophrenia by reducing inflammation in the brain. We hope to have results next spring.”
A similar trial is being launched at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, Kelly noted.
Also, a $3 million clinical trial of minocycline in schizophrenia patients is getting under way in the United Kingdom, the Independent newspaper reported March 2. It is being financed by that country’s National Institute for Health Research.
Meanwhile, schizophrenia experts are placing their bets on whether minocycline will turn out to be an effective treatment for schizophrenia.
“Since all [experimental drugs for negative symptoms or cognitive deficits in schizophrenia] have failed to date, you’ve got to bet that the next one will fail as well,” William Carpenter, M.D., director of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center and chair of the DSM-5 Psychotic Disorders Work Group, said. “But … if minocycline has efficacy for negative symptoms,
|
6 it is ranked the world's thirteenth-fastest computer on the TOP500 list with a LINPACK rating of 5.95 petaflops (5.95 quadrillion floating point operations per second)[3] and a peak performance of 7.25 petaflops from its most recent hardware upgrade.[4] The ultimate goal of the partnership between NASA and SGI is to attain a peak supercomputing performance of 10 petaflops, or 10 quadrillion floating point operations per second, in order to "increase the computational capabilities for research, [and] modeling and simulation work at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility."[2][5]
History [ edit ]
Built in 2008 and named for the Pleiades open star cluster, the supercomputer debuted as the third most powerful supercomputer in the world at 487 teraflops.[6] It originally contained 100 SGI Altix ICE 8200EX racks with 12,800 Intel Xeon quad-core E5472 Harpertown processors connected with more than 20 miles of InfiniBand double data rate (DDR) cabling.[7]
With the addition of ten more racks of quad-core X5570 Nehalem processors in 2009, Pleiades ranked sixth on the November 2009 TOP500 with 14,080 processors running at 544 teraflops.[8] In January 2010, the scientists and engineers at NAS successfully completed a "live integration" of another ICE 8200 rack by connecting the new rack's InfiniBand dual port fabric via 44 fibre cables while the supercomputer was still running a full workload, saving 2 million hours in productivity that would otherwise have been lost.[9]
Another expansion in 2010 added 32 new SGI Altix ICE 8400 racks with Intel Xeon six-core X5670 Westmere processors, bringing up to 18,432 processors (81,920 cores in 144 racks) at a theoretical peak of 973 teraflops and a LINPACK rating of 773 teraflops.[10] NASA also put an emphasis on keeping Pleiades energy efficient, increasing the power efficiency with each expansion so that in 2010 it was three times more power-efficient than the original 2008 components, which were the most power-efficient at the time. The integration of the six-core Westmere nodes also required new quad data rate (QDR) and hybrid DDR/QDR InfiniBand cabling, making the world's largest InfiniBand interconnect network with more than 65 miles of cable.[10]
After another 14 ICE 8400 racks containing Westmere processors were added in 2011, Pleiades ranked seventh on the TOP500 list in June of that year at a LINPACK rating of 1.09 petaflops, or 1.09 quadrillion floating point operations per second.[11]
InfiniBand DDR and QDR fiber cables are used to connect the all of nodes to each other, as well as to the mass storage systems at NAS and the hyperwall visualization system, creating a network made up of more than 65 miles of InfiniBand fabric, the largest of its kind in the world. Pleiades is built in a partial 11-D hypercube topology, where each node has eleven connections to eleven other nodes, with some making up to twelve connections to form a 12-D hypercube.[12]
In 2012, NASA and partners SGI and Intel began working on the integration of 24 new Altix ICE X racks with Intel Xeon eight-core E5-2760 Sandy Bridge processors to replace 27 of the original Alitx 8200 racks containing quad-core Harpertown processors. With a total of 126,720 processor cores and over 233 terabytes of RAM across 182 racks, the expansion increased Pleiades' available computing capacity 40 percent.[13] Each new Sandy Bridge node has four networking links using fourteen data rate (FDR) InfiniBand cable for a total transfer bandwidth of 56 gigabits (about 7 gigabytes) per second.[14]
In early 2013, work began on a larger hardware refresh for Pleiades, ultimately removing all of the original 4-core Harpertown processors and adding 46 SGI ICE X racks with 10-core Intel Xeon E5-2680V2 (Ivy Bridge) processors. When installation was complete in August 2013, the system's overall peak performance increased 62% from 1.78 petaflops to 2.87 petaflops.[15] The system was slowly upgraded again between January and April 2014, adding another 29 racks of Ivy Bridge nodes and increasing the system's theoretical computational capability to 3.59 petaflops.[16] To make room for the expansion, all of the system's remaining Nehalem nodes and 12 Westmere nodes were removed.
In late 2014, more Westmere nodes were removed to make room for new Intel Xeon Haswell processors, increasing the theoretical processing power by one petaflop to 4.49 petaflops.[17] In January 2015, additional Haswell nodes were installed and released to users, giving Pleiades a new peak theoretical processing capacity of 5.35 petaflops.[4] An upgrade, completed in June 2016, replaced all remaining racks containing nodes with six-core Intel Xeon X5670 (Westmere) processors with racks containing nodes using 14-core Intel Xeon E5-2680v4 (Broadwell) processors. This improved the theoretical peak performance to 7.25 petaflops.[4]
Role at NASA [ edit ]
Pleiades is part of NASA's High-End Computing Capability (HECC) Project and represents NASA's state-of-the-art technology for meeting the agency's supercomputing requirements, enabling NASA scientists and engineers to conduct high-fidelity modeling and simulation for NASA missions in Earth studies, space science, aeronautics research, as well as human and robotic space exploration.[2][18]
Some of the scientific and engineering projects run on Pleiades include:
The Kepler Mission, a space observatory launched in March 2009 to locate Earth-like planets, monitors a section of space containing more than 200,000 stars and takes high-resolution images every 30 minutes. After the operations center gathers this data, it is pipelined to Pleiades in order to calculate the size, orbit, and location of the planets surrounding these stars. [19] As of February 2012, the Kepler mission has discovered 1,235 planets, 5 of which are approximately Earth-sized and orbit within the "habitable zone" where water can exist in all three forms (solid, liquid, gas). [20] After setbacks following the failure of two of Kepler's four reaction wheels, responsible for keeping the spacecraft pointed in the correct direction, in 2013, the Kepler team moved the entire data pipeline to Pleiades, which continues to run light curve analyses from the existing Kepler data. [21]
As of February 2012, the Kepler mission has discovered 1,235 planets, 5 of which are approximately Earth-sized and orbit within the "habitable zone" where water can exist in all three forms (solid, liquid, gas). After setbacks following the failure of two of Kepler's four reaction wheels, responsible for keeping the spacecraft pointed in the correct direction, in 2013, the Kepler team moved the entire data pipeline to Pleiades, which continues to run light curve analyses from the existing Kepler data. Research and development of next generation space launch vehicles is done on Pleiades using cutting-edge analysis tools and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling and simulation in order to create more efficient and affordable space launch system and vehicle designs. Research has also been done on reducing noise created by the landing gear of aircraft using CFD code application to detect where the sources of noise are within the structures. [22]
Astrophysics research into the formation of galaxies is run on Pleiades to create simulations of how our own Milky Way Galaxy was formed and what forces might have caused it to form in its signature disk-shape. [23] Pleiades has also been the supercomputing resource for dark matter research and simulation, helping to discover gravitationally bound "clumps" of dark matter within galaxies in one of the largest simulations ever done, in terms of particle numbers. [24]
Pleiades has also been the supercomputing resource for dark matter research and simulation, helping to discover gravitationally bound "clumps" of dark matter within galaxies in one of the largest simulations ever done, in terms of particle numbers. Visualization of the Earth's ocean currents using a NASA-built data synthesis model for the Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) Project between MIT and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. According to NASA, the "ECCO model-data syntheses are being used to quantify the ocean's role in the global carbon cycle, to understand the recent evolution of the polar oceans, to monitor time-evolving heat, water, and chemical exchanges within and between different components of the Earth system, and for many other science applications."[25]
Gallery [ edit ]
Pleiades supercomputer outside view
Pleiades Westmere-based racks. The addition of the Westmere and Nehalem nodes increased the computing capacity available on Pleiades by 170%.
Networking gear
Ribbon cutting ceremony for the completion of the original Pleiades system in December 2008 with representatives from NASA, SGI, and Intel.
Close up view of one row of compute cabinets that made up the original Harpertown-based system.
TFinity storage
More cabinets
D-Wave quantum computer housed in the building
Wall of screens, supported by multiple GPUs, used for visualization
In popular culture [ edit ]
In the 2015 film The Martian, astrodynamicist Rich Purnell uses the Pleiades supercomputer to verify calculations for a gravity assist maneuver for a spacecraft, in order to rescue an astronaut stranded on Mars. Unlike what is shown in the movie, one need not be physically present inside the racks to run the computations; to submit jobs a user can connect from a remote location via ssh, while employing a SecurID.[26]Arcane Thief
By careful study of a secretive tome, you have learned the skill of stealing magical secrets and spells. Your knowledge of the arcane have been artificially increased.
Prerequisite: Rogue Arcane Trickster of 5th level or higher.
A magical tome titled; "Arcane thief" is in your possesion. Studying this tome has granted you access to feats of magic. However, some shortscuts in magic have consequences.
Arcane Thief 1st Artificial Arcana ─ 2nd Scroll Stealer +1 3rd ─ +2 4th Magical Shortcuts +3 5th ─ +3 6th ─ +3 7th ─ +3 8th??? +4 9th??? +5
Leveling this feat Your DM determines when you gain a level in this feat.. You may need a personal quest, achivement or find a secret that you do not yet know.
Artificial Arcana
Requirements: Arcane Thief Tome in posession.
You have artificially increased your knowledge of the arcane, gaining the following benefits:
You gain expertise in Arcana.
You get Advantage on Spellcasting checks to use spell scrolls.
You may attempt to use any Spell Scroll, regardless of the spells class requirements.
Artificially increasing your knowledge in Arcana may seems nice, but this knowledge is only as long as you have the tome of Arcane Thief. You lose the tome, you lose the benefits. Keep the tome close.
Scroll Stealer
Requirements: Arcane Thief Tome in posession.
If the character has access to a spellbook or scroll with the appropriate spell, he may pay the cost of creating a scroll and spend spell slots equal to the level of the spell plus one. A scroll created in this way has 5% per spell level chance of triggering a scroll mishap (DMG 104) instead of working as intended. You may only create a scroll in this manner with a spell level lower than or equal to twice your highest spell slot.
You also gein the following benefits:
You get a bonus to any checks to cast spell scrolls, shown in the Arcane Thief table.
Magical Shortcuts
Requirements: Arcane Thief Tome in posession.
You have gained the ability to artificially surpass your own innate magic. You gain the following benefits:F# is already a great language. The CTP version was a big step for F#, but, of course, there's still room for improvement. Here are some of my wishes.
Compile-time meta-programming
With CTP, quotation library has been improved. It's a very nice way to manipulate code at run time, evaluate it or compile it. I really enjoy this feature, which reminds me some Lisp (and the'operator), but I wish I could do this code manipulation at compile-time. This would make meta-programming much easier, it would improve performances. I guess it's possible to find many uses of this feature. Lisp, OCaml (with camlp4) already have similar features.
Suggestion: First, the user writes a transformation function, with type Quotations.Expr<'a> -> Quotations.Expr<'b>. Then, he compiles it into a library. Finally, he tells the compiler to call his function on the source code.
With attributes, it would be possible to call transformation functions on a particular piece of code.
[ <Transform ( "trace" ) > ] let foo x = //...
The "trace" function would be called to transform the foo function at compile-time.
I also believe such a feature would allow a stream fusion implementation.
Remove type annotations for objects, when possible
The following function is valid:
let f x = x + x
The type of x is determined by the context (i.e. how the function is called in the source code). I wish the following function was accepted as well:
let f' x = x. Length
Unfortunately, it requires explicit type annotations. It's the same behavior for inlined versions:
let inline g x = x + x let inline g' x = x. Length
Only g is accepted by the compiler. The generic solution for this uses an ugly syntax (see FSharp.Core/prim-types.fs for details).
Automatic code duplication
let f x = x + x
This function accepts either an int argument, or a float (or other types), but not both. Thus, this gives a type error:
f 2, f 2. 3
A workaround is to duplicate the f function:
let f x = x + x let f' x = x + x f 2, f' 2. 3
I wish the compiler duplicated the code itself, as C++ templates do. Of course, it's possible to use the "inline" keyword, but it's not always a good thing: it duplicates the code on every call, and some functions can't be inlined (e.g. recursive functions).
String interpolation
F# is often compared to scripting languages. String interpolation is a feature found in most dynamic languages. In most Unix shells, Perl and PHP, the syntax is:
"x = $x" or "x = ${x}"
In Ruby, it is:
"x = #{x}"
For backward-compatibility, string interpolation should be exlicit in F#. I suggest we add a $ prefix to strings with interpolation. For instance:
print $ "x = $x" print $ "1 + 2 = ${1+2}"
By the way, I'd like to see a "print" function in F# standard library: let print = print_any.
This feature is not very hard to implement, it can be syntactic sugar (which calls fprintf). I'm surprised most compiled languages don't have this feature.
Binary/unary operators
Some operators can be used only prefix, e.g. (!), (!!), (?+). Some operators can be used only infix, e.g. (+), (--), (%%).
Why not allow every operators to be used both infix and prefix? I'd like!!2 to be parsed as (!!) 2, and 4!! 5 to be parsed as (!!) 4 5.
Operators precedence
Precedence rules are quite hard to master and not very flexible. For instance, I'm always confused with the sformat library: how is parsed the expression a $$ b -- c @@ d ++ e?
Some languages (e.g. Haskell) allow the user to change operators precedence. I'd like to see this in F# too.
Duck typing
It's possible to have duck typing in F#, but the syntax isn't pretty. We often don't need duck typing in F#, thanks to the great type system, but I believe it would be sometimes nice to have it. Boo language is a statically typed language, but it has syntactic sugar for duck typing. Have a look at this page for details: http://boo.codehaus.org/Duck+Typing
Extension methods
Extension methods are great, but they sometimes don't work.
let inline f x = x + x
f works for any type with a (+) operator. If you define a new type with a (+) operator, it will work with f. But, if you use extension methods to add a (+) operator to an existing type, f doesn't accept it.
type A ( ) = static member ( + ) ( x:A, y:A ) = 3 type System. Boolean with static member ( + ) ( x:bool, y:bool ) = 3
Then, A() + A() is allowed, but true + true isn't.
FSI
I also have a few ideas to improve FSI (improve history, see the list of bindings, etc.). As FSI is somewhat outside the compiler, it seems to be quite easy to modify and improve it. I might give a try (feel free to send me suggestions for a better FSI).I know what you’re thinking. The best apple crisp, really?
Friends, I know this is a big claim, but I’ve had a lot of apple crisps in my life and know this one tops them all! I have a discerning palette when it comes to dessert, trust me.
I cannot wait to share this recipe with you. It’s perfect for fall and winter and will make you so many friends if you bring it along to holiday gatherings. Let’s get to it!
This recipe is simple, requiring just 1 bowl to prepare and simple ingredients you likely have right now. Since September, I’ve had a bowl of apples lying around constantly, which is a little dangerous now that I have this recipe on hand.
Think apple crisp once a week. Yeah, that’s probably going to happen all winter long.
This isn’t the healthiest apple crisp, but it does have some pretty amazing things going for it.
For one, it’s naturally sweetened with muscovado and coconut sugar. It’s also vegan butter-free, and uses coconut oil (or olive oil) instead.
It’s also gluten-free optional when you use a gluten-free flour blend in place of the unbleached all purpose.
The filling is perfect. Apples are generously coated with coconut sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and fresh ginger. Apple juice adds extra sweetness and helps cook the apples to tender perfection, while arrowroot and cornstarch help create a thick, caramel-like sauce.
The topping is amazing as well with plenty of texture from rolled oats, almond meal, and chopped pecans. Muscovado and coconut sugar add sweetness, while cinnamon adds warmth and autumnal flavor.
Friends, this truly is the best vegan apple crisp! It’s:
Tender
Warm
Comforting
Perfectly sweet
Subtly spiced
Perfect for fall + the holidays
& Insanely delicious
I made this for the first time for a group of friends and everyone was silent as we savored those first few bites. Imagine tender, perfectly sweet apples in a caramel-like sauce, under perfectly crisp, pecan-oat topping. I can barely describe how delicious it is. You absolutely must experience it for yourself!
One friend, who considers himself an apple crisp aficionado, admitted that this version was better than his mom’s famous recipe. That’s a high compliment if you ask me.
If you give this crisp a try, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it, and take a picture and tag it #minimalistbaker on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with. Cheers, friends!Show full PR text
PBS Launching Today on Xbox 360
– PBS to Provide On-Demand Access to Favorite Programs Such as
AUSTIN CITY LIMITS, FRONTLINE, MASTERPIECE and More –
Arlington, VA: Oct. 22, 2013--PBS announced today that full-length episodes and clips from favorite PBS programs and local PBS stations will be available for Xbox Live Gold members in the U.S. on Xbox 360 starting today.
The PBS app will include hundreds of videos from PBS stations, including full-length episodes from new primetime programs as well as the PBS archives, with new national and local content updated daily. PBS programming includes full-length episodes from programs such as AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, AUSTIN CITY LIMITS, FRONTLINE, MASTERPIECE, NOVA and SECRETS OF THE DEAD, as well as web-original video from PBS Digital Studios, winner of five 2013 Webby Awards.
Xbox 360 users will access and personalize their PBS experiences by identifying their local PBS station, which will provide them access to locally produced content along with signature PBS programs.
"This launch is an important next step in our strategy to make PBS content available through a variety of platforms, while maintaining the connection between the viewer and their local PBS station," said Jon Brendsel, Vice President of Product Development, PBS Digital. "While PBS member stations will always be the first place to find high-quality PBS programming, the launch of our Xbox 360 offering recognizes that viewers are looking to engage with their local station in the time and manner they choose."
"As one of America's favorite destinations for high-quality content on television and online, PBS is a great addition to our expansive lineup of entertainment experiences on Xbox 360," said Kathy Styponias, General Manager, Interactive Entertainment Business. "The addition of PBS is another example of how we're continuing to expand our catalog of entertainment so that Xbox Live members can find all of their favorite experiences in one place."
The app was developed by PBS and Digiflare. More information can be found at pbs.org/xbox.U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the White House in Washington, U.S. Thomson Reuters Autocratic leaders who may have had strained relationships with past US presidential administrations due to dubious human-rights records appear to have a new ally in the White House.
President Donald Trump's willingness to engage with some of the world's most notorious strongmen was on full display last weekend, when he extended White House invitations to Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte and Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha. Both the Philippines and Thailand enjoy treaties with the US, but their leaders' brutal crackdowns on drugs and dissent have marred their relationships with the West.
The overtures prompted outrage among human-rights experts and some Democratic lawmakers. Duterte's merciless anti-drug campaign has left more than 7,000 people dead since he took office in late June 2016, according to the Filipino news site Rappler. Nearly 3,000 have died at the hands of police.
"You know he's very popular in the Philippines," Trump said of Duterte on Monday. "He has a very high approval rating in the Philippines."
In an interview that aired on Sunday, Trump said he would be "honored" to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over his country's nuclear weapons program, provided certain conditions were first met.
Kim operates secretive prison camps where suspected dissidents are tortured, starved, and forced into hard labor. There is no free speech or religious liberty in North Korea, which has repeatedly threatened to attack its neighbors — and, ultimately, the US — with nuclear weapons.
"At a very young age, he was able to assume power," Trump said of Kim. "A lot of people, I'm sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he's a pretty smart cookie."
Trump meets Saudi crown prince at the White House in Washington Thomson Reuters
"We are watching in real time as the American human rights bully pulpit disintegrates into ash," Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted Sunday.
The White House has defended the invitation to Duterte — who called President Barack Obama an "idiot" and "son of a whore" after his administration raised concerns about the country's drug war and extra-judicial killings — as simply a "meeting," not a "thank you." An administration official told Reuters that it was aimed at preventing the Philippines from pivoting completely away from the US, which could "intensify" Duterte's "bad behavior."
But the outreach to Duterte and Chan-ocha — the Thai prime minister who heads a military junta and seized power in a coup in 2014 — was not the first time Trump has displayed an unforced affinity for, and even attempted to legitimize, leaders with authoritarian reputations.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader and called it a "great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond." Trump has twice defended Putin against accusations that he murders journalists and dissidents, saying in September that he hadn't seen "any evidence that [Putin] killed anybody" and telling Bill O'Reilly in February that in the US, "we kill people, too."
When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a referendum last month allowing him to vastly expand his presidential authorities and consolidate power, Trump called to congratulate him on his victory. The White House readout of the call did not mention Erdogan's crackdown on dissent, which has only intensified since a failed coup threatened his grip on power last summer.
In early April, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi was received at the White House for the first time since he seized power in a coup nearly four years ago. Trump praised the Egyptian strongman, saying they agreed "on so many things" and that el-Sisi had done a "fantastic job in a very difficult situation." El-Sisi orchestrated the removal of the democratically elected Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
President Donald Trump welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago state in Palm Beach, Florida. Reuters/Carlos Barria
Trump has also developed a "very good relationship" with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has intensified China's longtime policy of censorship and intolerance of dissent (which has included the periodic abduction of government critics), according to Human Rights Watch. Trump has said he and Xi have "great chemistry," an abrupt turn after he frequently lambasted China along the campaign trail.
Trump's behavior in the foreign policy arena, experts say, is either an indication of how he views strength and good governance, or a signal of his broader understanding that the US-led global order — and its commitment to liberal democratic values — is eroding.
Or both.
'There's certainly a tradition of collaborating with unsavory dictators'
The US has a long history of cooperating with authoritarian or dictatorial regimes in the name of furthering US national security interests.
The George W. Bush and Obama administrations continued supporting Hosni Mubarak, for example, even as they criticized the rights abuses that ultimately brought him down in 2011. And critics say Obama prioritized America's strategic partnership with Turkey, a key NATO ally, while not doing enough to punish Erdogan for his rights abuses.
Both Bush and Obama, moreover, maintained the US' support for Saudi Arabia, which human-rights organizations have judged as among the most repressive countries in the world.
"There is certainly a tradition in America's foreign policy history of collaborating with unsavory dictators in the name of pursuing our own security interests," said William Inboden, a professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin who served as the senior director for strategic planning on the National Security Council under George W. Bush.
The difference, however, is that previous presidents tended to caveat these partnerships with either a public or private warning about the need to uphold human rights and the rule of law.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
"Just about every administration since Franklin Roosevelt has had to cooperate with dictators, to some extent, in the name of US strategic interests," Inboden said, pointing to Roosevelt's alignment with Joseph Stalin during World War II to counter Nazi Germany. "But the US also has a consistent record of pushing these countries quietly, and sometimes publicly, to democratize and respect human rights."
Obama was slow to hold Erdogan accountable, but he refused to invite Erdogan to the Oval Office last April and expressed his concerns about the Turkish leader's "repression" on the sidelines of last year's Nuclear Security Summit in Washington. He was also a frequent critic of the Saudis' human rights abuses, and called on them to "share the neighborhood" with Iran after the US-led nuclear deal was signed.
Ned Price, the senior director of the National Security Council under Obama, said "engagement with adversaries absolutely has the potential to strengthen our national security and provide new opportunities to the American people."
"The Iran deal and new approach to Cuba are prime examples," Price said. "But this brand of principled engagement — predicated on years of preparation and ground work and always guided by our interests and values — is a far cry from what we've seen from this administration."
The White House has yet to release a statement condemning the human rights abuses of authoritarian leaders that Trump has spoken to or met with since taking office, even as the State Department has issued more nuanced reactions. In contrast to previous presidents, moreover, Trump himself has not reiterated the US's commitment to human rights and democracy in his joint press conferences with Egypt's el-Sisi, Price said.
"In offering some of his highest pride to some of the world's most brutal leaders, President Trump and his administration have left our values by the wayside, in some cases going out of their way to make clear they will not raise human rights and other previously indispensable elements in public," Price said. "That is not only a break from past Republican and Democratic administrations, it's also an affront to America's traditional role in the world."
'We need friends, and we need allies'
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said shortly after Trump met with el-Sisi that the administration is "going to play with whoever we need to play with" in order to further its counterterrorism goals. She said Trump "didn't say [el-Sisi] was 'fantastic' with human rights."
White House press secretary Sean Spicer reiterated that point Monday, telling reporters that Trump believes it is more effective to "build relationships" with these leaders privately than to chastise their human-rights practices in public statements.
Former US ambassador Jim Jeffrey, who served as assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser under George W. Bush, said Trump may be on to something.
"Trump finds himself willy-nilly committed to the global security order," said Jeffrey, who previously served as deputy assistant secretary for the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. "That requires working both with important allies and with difficult foes such as China and Russia."
To some extent, Jeffrey argued, it also requires the "ability to filter unpleasant realities" — like the fact that the US' ability to influence other leaders' governing styles "has always been vastly overrated."
Supporters of Turkish President Erdogan wave national flags as they wait for his arrival at the Presidential Palace in Ankara Thomson Reuters
"Trump doesn't seem overly concerned with the core of liberal democratic thinking," Jeffrey said.
And that may ultimately be to his advantage.
Jeffrey, a 35-year diplomatic and foreign policy veteran, noted that the "arc of history" seemed to be steadily turning away from liberal democracy and toward nationalism — even as Obama made a point of criticizing leaders like Erdogan and Putin, who have been reelected several times and enjoy high levels of domestic support despite their shaky commitment to human rights.
"When the arc of history was turning towards liberal democracy, American foreign policy could consist largely of beating up on people who weren't getting on the 'arc of history' train," Jeffrey said. "But it's obvious that this arc has broken down — there's been a turn away from liberal democracy and toward nationalism everywhere from the United States and Britain to France, Poland, and Romania."
Jeffrey said that the global order is more stable when it is comprised of states who respect both their citizens and each other. But he said that now, amid the erosion of the US-led global order, "we need friends, and we need allies."
'Birds of a feather flock together'
Inboden, the University of Texas professor who served under Bush, said that approach seems "very strategically short-sighted." Others don't think there's a strategy behind it at all.
Derek Chollet served as the principal deputy director Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's policy planning staff and, later, as the special assistant to Obama and senior director for strategic planning at the National Security Council. He said Trump may simply be "intuitively" attracted to the authoritarian leadership style.
"Birds of a feather flock together," Chollet said, adding that Trump — "more than any president in modern history, or ever" — has expressed authoritarian tendencies and beliefs.
"Whether it's the way he speaks about his enemies, the free press, or democratic constraints, his intuition tends to be authoritarian," Chollet added. "It's not a strategy, per se. It probably just feels natural for him."
Trump has called the press "the enemy of the American people" and lamented the ability of federal judges to block his immigration orders. He also questioned the judgment of the US intelligence community when it unanimously concluded that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to boost his candidacy and undermine Hillary Clinton.
Chollet acknowledged that the US' commitment to human rights is often in conflict with its need to preserve and foster certain diplomatic relationships, a point Spicer made during his briefing on Monday.
"It's a very tricky balance," Chollet said. But it requires "making clear that, even amid these partnerships, we still stand by human rights, are concerned about what is happening inside those countries, and are prepared to opt out of these partnerships if necessary."
Inboden agreed.
"The Erdogans and el-Sisis of the world will always try to peddle a bogus bargain to the US," Inboden said. Namely, that the US has no leverage when it comes to condemning human rights abuses because it can't afford to alienate the leaders of such strategically important countries — no matter how questionable their governing style may be.
"We've seen that pattern before," Inboden said. "But, judging by America's diplomatic tradition, we can balance those competing interests."Known as Rhiannon in Wales, Macha in Ireland, and Epona to the Gauls this ancient horse goddess is one of the most well-known of all the Celtic gods and goddesses. Horses played an important role in Celtic society. Naturally, the protector of horses would play an equally important role. Epona has been revered since the Iron Age. She is the protector of horses, stables, and horse owners. She is the guardian of agriculture and transportation. In addition, Epona has been associated with birds. Her birds were said to have the ability to put the living to sleep and to rouse the dead. She has also been pictured with cornucopias and baskets filled with fruits, especially apples and thus she has been linked to fertility.
She is often portrayed riding a horse, next to a horse, or surrounded by several horses and feeding foals. In parts of central Europe she was believed to be a magical white horse that brought shamans to the spirit world.
Epona translates as “divine mare” or “mare goddess”. Small shrines, known as aediculae, were built in her honor by horse owners and often decorated with roses. More inscriptions, statues, and shrines dedicated to Epona have been found than for any other Celtic god or goddess. Even the Romans adopted this Celtic goddess. Her statues can be found alongside other Roman gods and goddesses. Greek author, Agesilaos, tells the story of Epona’s birth. A women-hating man named Furius Stellus had relations with a mare, who in turn gave birth to Epona, who had the ability to take human or horse form.
As with most gods and goddess in history, at least one day is set aside just to honor them. Epona’s feast day is held on June 13th, while The Festival of Epona is on December 18th. The festival is a Roman celebration, the only celebration by the Romans that honored a Celtic deity.
-Prayer to Epona-
by arisaema
Lady of the fields bless the beasts
that go on hoofed turned paths
brown and white, dun and grey sides
dappled and brindled, spotted and splashed liquid eyed and sweet grass
breath
keep them from the bone breaking death
roses I give thee, like the Romans of old
no more than dust now, no matter how bold You who can sing the living
to sleep
and make the dead breathe
I ask you to keep
the mare and the foal,
the cow and her calf
from all that would harm
or hinder their path
Arisaema is an artist in Southern California.
Use the navigation area on the left to find crafts and recipes for The Feast of Epona.On May 27, 1944 — little more than a week before the D-Day invasion — 1st Lt. Frank Fazekas was at the controls of his P-47 Thunderbolt when it fell from formation over northern France, spiraling into a farm field near a village called Buysscheure in the Nord Pas-de-Calais region.
German soldiers — maybe from an air defense artillery unit that shot the plane down —surrounded the still-smoldering site, according to witnesses. Fazekas’ wingman, certain the crash was fatal, gave a brief statement when his mission was complete.
And, eventually, the farmer closed up the ground and replanted, likely leaving the remains of the pilot, dead at 22 years old, entombed with his plane.
This summer, in a unique collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and an academic institution, a team from the University of Wisconsin–Madison recovered wreckage and possible human remains from the crash site — confirming the plane to be the Thunderbolt Fazekas was flying and the field as his resting place.
“We’re proud to be able to offer any expertise the university can to a mission like this,” says Charles Konsitzke, associate director of the UW Biotechnology Center and facilitator of the UW–Madison contingent. “We’re
|
rushing touchdowns were first in the league in 2013.
Last year, Shutdown Corner's Brian McIntyre called the 27-year-old running back the "best bargain" on Kansas City's roster.
His combined 1,980 yards amounted to 35 percent of the Chiefs' total yardage from scrimmage, according to Teicher, which was the highest percentage of any player in the league.
Football players—running backs in particular—have a short shelf life, so you can understand why Charles would want to cash in while he still can. When his current contract expires, he could be viewed as past his prime, thus hurting his earning power.
Getting Charles back to the team will be a top priority for the Chiefs. The drop-off between him and backup running back Knile Davis is pretty significant.
If Kansas City wants to advance to the postseason out of what will be a competitive AFC West, then it will need the three-time Pro Bowler before the season begins.Pinterest UIG via Getty Images
It's called dulse.
Here’s the story of a happy accident.
It starts with abalone, a somewhat hard to come by shellfish that’s lovingly referred to as the “bacon of the sea.” (It's excellent gently panfried, or slow-cooked in panna cotta.) Now, the mollusk is typically harvested by divers, deriving its delicate, smoky, and buttery umami flavor from its primary diet: a red lettuce-like seaweed that grows along the Pacific and Atlantic coastlines. This plant is called dulse.
Part of the reason abalone is such a delicacy to procure is because dulse is incredibly difficult to harvest, meaning abalone has been hard to scale in any meaningful way. (A feathery 8-ounce bag of dehydrated dulse flakes will set you back close to $20 bucks.) But now, a team of researchers from Oregon State University have patented a growable strain of the seaweed that’s as nutritious as kale, tastes like bacon, and is, most importantly, easy to grow. And here's the thing: It might even be better than the abalone it was intended to feed.
“The original goal was to create a super-food for abalone, because high-quality abalone is treasured, especially in Asia,” said study author Chris Langdon. “We were able to grow dulse-fed abalone at rates that exceeded those previously reported in the literature. There always has been an interest in growing dulse for human consumption, but we originally focused on using dulse as a food for abalone."State of io.js
Mikeal Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 27, 2015
The most successful open source initiative in living memory.
A lot has happened in the few months since io.js was announced. An ambitious release date was set for January 13th, Fedor’s Birthday, and after a lot of hard work from a remarkable number of people we made it with just a few timezones to spare ☺
In addition to the first release there have been 4 patch releases which have been downloaded over 400K times.
We’re seeing more contributions than anyone could have anticipated. Since we announced the project two people, Chris Dickinson and Colin Ihrig, have been added to the TC (the project’s governing body) for their outstanding work on the project. Domenic Denicola has also been invited to the TC meetings as a non-voting participant (like myself and Rod Vagg) which has opened up collaboration with v8 and TC39.
In the lifetime of node.js™ there have never been more than 8 active committers. Last week Chris Dickinson onboarded 8 new committers to io.js with plans to bring on another round this week.
Current releases of io.js are releases of v8 slated to be marked stable and released in Chrome in early March. From that point on we will have a stable channel, using the latest stable v8, and an unstable channel with the next line of v8 development. This means that you can expect io.js to be marked stable in March. The unstable line will continue and be used for testing new features in both io.js and v8.
Some tasks outside of core development have already grown to the point that they necessitate their own project teams and committers. In addition to the build group which was established when we launched there is now a website group and a streams group. We expect to see working groups form around evangelism, documentation, i18n, nan, and the roadmap in the future. These groups offer a much wider range of participation from the community.
When io.js began the largest concern was the lack of contributors to node.js™. Now io.js’ biggest problem is keeping up with the flood of contributors coming in, participating in every facet of the project. io.js isn’t just healthier than node.js™ today, it’s healthier than node.js™ ever was and this is only the beginning.Wiccans flexed their muscles earlier this month by railing against the media's treatment of Christine O'Donnell's witchcraft revelations. Now, they've succeeded in getting the makers of Witch's Wit ale to change their logo from a witch burning at the stake.
After famous witch lady Vicki Noble saw the label in the store, she shot off an email to her witch friends. The New York Times reprinted a choice bit of the email:
"Can you imagine them showing a black person being lynched or a Jewish person going to the oven?" she wrote. "Such images are simply not tolerated in our society anymore (thank the Goddess) and this one should not be, either."
After being bombarded with emails, the brewery's founder agreed to change the label. The once-ostracized witch community grows stronger every day! Won't be long until we see campaign ads declaring: "I'm not a witch, but some of my best friends are."> import Data.Char
> type Field = Int -> Int -> Int
> data Grid = Grid Int Int Field
Field
> instance Eq Grid
> instance Show Grid where
> show (Grid w h f) = concat
> [[digit (f x y) | x <- [0..w-1]] ++ "
" | y <- [0..h-1]]
> digit 0 = '.'
> digit n = chr (48+n)
> instance Num Grid where
> Grid w0 h0 f0 + Grid w1 h1 f1 = Grid
> (w0 `max` w1) (h0 `max` h1)
> (\x y -> f0 x y + f1 x y)
count :: Grid -> Int
f
g
count f + count g == count (f+g)
count
> gsum (Grid w h f) = sum [f x y | x <- [0..w-1], y <- [0..h-1]]
> point x y = Grid (x+1) (y+1)
> (\x0 y0 -> if (x0, y0) == (x,y) then 1 else 0)
> circle x y r = Grid (x+r+1) (y+r+1)
> (\x0 y0 -> if (x-x0)^2+(y-y0)^2<r^2 then 1 else 0)
> test1 = circle 10 10 5+circle 7 13 4+point 5 5+point 9 12
> test2 = gsum test1
*Main> test1
................
................
................
................
................
.....1..........
........11111...
.......1111111..
......111111111.
......111111111.
.....1222211111.
....11222221111.
....11222321111.
....1112222111..
....111122211...
....1111111.....
.....11111......
................
*Main> test2
116
> scale n (Grid w h f) = Grid (w*n) (h*n)
> (\x y -> f (x `div` n) (y `div` n))
count (n `scale` f) = count f
gsum
gsum (n `scale` f) = n^2 * gsum f
^
Field
> data EGrid = EGrid {
> eWidth::Int, eHeight::Int,
> faces::Field, hedges::Field, vedges::Field, vertices::Field
> }
(0,0)
> g2e (Grid w h f) = EGrid w h
> f
> (\x y -> f (x-1) y `max` f x y)
> (\x y -> f x (y-1) `max` f x y)
> (\x y -> f (x-1) (y-1) `max` f (x-1) y `max` f x (y-1) `max` f x y)
> fsum (EGrid w h f _ _ _) = gsum (Grid w h f)
> esum (EGrid w h _ e f _) = gsum (Grid (w+1) h e)+gsum (Grid w (h+1) f)
> vsum (EGrid w h _ _ _ v) = gsum (Grid (w+1) (h+1) v)
> measure a b c g = let e = g2e g in a*vsum e+b*esum e+c*fsum e
gsum
> area = measure 0 0 1
((n^2) *). area = area. scale n
a
b
c
measure
mystery_property1 = measure a b c
((n^1) *). mystery_property1 = mystery_property1. scale n
mystery_property1
a
b
c
mystery_property1
a
b
c
measure
mystery_property2 = measure a b c
((n^0) *). mystery_property2 = mystery_property2. scale n
mystery_property2
scale
gscale
EGrid
g2e. (scale n) == gscale n. g2e
mystery_property2
measure 1 0 0 $ point 0 0
measure 1 0 0 $ 2 `scale` point 0 0
measure 1 0 0 $ 3 `scale` point 0 0
4a+ 4b+ c = x
9a+12b+4c = 2x
16a+24b+9c = 3x
measure 0 1 (-2)
measure 0 1 (-2)
4a+ 4b+ c = x
9a+12b+4c = x
16a+24b+9c = x
measure 1 (-1) 1
measure 1 (-1) 1
measure 1 (-1) 1
measure 1 (-1) 1
measure 1 (-1) 1
> euler = measure 1 (-1) 1
euler
euler
> test3 = euler test1
test1
area
measure
The problem I ultimately want to solve, and its solution, is described in the paper Target Enumeration via Euler Characteristic Integrals. My goal here is to show how to implement that solution on a computer and make it accessible to a wider audience.Suppose we have a set of targets we want to count. This could be anything from enemy tanks rolling over the plains to electronically tagged wildlife roaming the countryside. Each target has a region of influence which might simply be circular in shape, or might be more complex and depend on the target. Now suppose that we have a high density of sensors scattered over our domain and that each sensor can tell us how many regions of influence it lies in. Roughly speaking, each sensor counts how many targets are nearby. How do we compute how many targets we have in total?Here's an illustration:There are four targets. The region of influence for each one is coloured making it easy to see which region is which. I've labelled each region with an integer showing how many targets can be detected in that region. The idea is that we'd have a very dense scattering of sensors in our domain, each sensor reporting an integer. In effect we'd be getting an image like a rasterised version of that picture. But we wouldn't be getting the convenient colours, just an integer per pixel.At first it seems like a trivial problem. The sensors can all count, and if every target is in range of a sensor, every target will be counted. But we can't simply add the numbers from all of the sensors as many sensors will be in the domain of influence of the same target. If we sum all of the numbers we'll be counting each target many times over. We need to be able to subtract off the targets that are counted twice. But some targets will be counted three times and so on. And how do we tell when a target has been counted twice when all we have are counts?We'll make one simplifying assumption in solving this problem: that the regions of influence are simply connected. In other words, they are basically some kind of shape that doesn't have holes in it. That could mean anything from a square or disk to a shape like the letter 'W'. But it excludes shapes like annuli or the letter 'B'. If we make this assumption then we can solve this problem with a very simple algorithm that will work in almost all cases. In fact, the only time it fails will be situations where no algorithm could possibly work. But there's a little ground to cover before getting to the solution.We'll make another simplifying assumption for now. That the sensors are arranged in a rectangular grid. So the data we get back from the sensors will be a grid filled with integers. That essentially turns our problem into one of image processing and we can think of sensor values as pixels. Here's a picture where I've drawn one domain of influence and I've indicated the values returned for three of the sensors.So lets assume the sensors have coordinates given by pairs of integers and that they return integer counts. The state of all the sensors can be represented by a function of this type:We'll assume that we get zero if we try to read from beyond our domain. We can represent a grid of sensors, including the grid's width and height, using:For efficiency something of typeought to read data from an array, but I'll not be assuming arrays here.We can define display and addition of two grids:Ourultimate goal is to define some kind of count function with signature:Now suppose the functiongives the counts corresponding to one set of targets andis the count corresponding to another. If the region of influence of these two sets of targets is separated by at least one 'pixel' then it should be clear thatSo at least approximately,is additive. We also need it to be translation invariant. There's only one function that has these properties, summing up the values at all pixels:We can implement functions to make some example grids:And now we can build and display some examples:Here's a typical output:It should be pretty clear that this doesn't count the number of targets. So how can we implement something additive and yet count targets?Another operation we can perform on grids is scale them. Here's an implementation of scaling a grid:Scaling up an `image' shouldn't change the number of targets detected. It should only correspond to the same number of targets with double-sized regions of influence. So we'd also like the following property:It's easy to see that thatactually has the following property for n>0:is the power function. For some reason lhs2TeX displays it as an up arrow.) These requirements are pretty tough to meet with an additive operation. But there's an amazing transformation we can perform on the data first. Instead of working on a grid with one value for each pixel we'll also store values for the 'edges' between pixels and for the'vertices' at the corners of pixels.So lets define a new kind of grid to be a tuple offunctions, one for faces (ie. the pixels), one for horizontal edges, one for vertical edges, and one for vertices.The lower left vertex isbut we need to add an extra row and column of vertices on the right. Similarly we'll need an extra row and an extra column of edges. We can now `resample' our original grid onto one of these new style grids:I'm using the rule that the value along an edge will be the maximum of the values on the two impinging faces. Similarly, the vertices acquire the maximum of the four faces they meet.I'll try to illustrate that here:I hope you can see, from the placement of the labels, how I've attached values to edges and vertices as well as faces.We now have a bit more freedom. We have three different types of sum we can carry out:(We could sum over horizontal and vertical edges separately too, but if we did that then a 90 degree rotation would give a different target count.)Now we can define a measurement function that takes three `weights' and gives us back a weighted sum:We can reproduce thefunction asTry some examples to test thatNow I can leave you with some challenges:1. Find some suitable argumentsandtoso that we get:I'll let you assume that there is some choice of values that works.(Hint: you just need to try applyingto a few scalings of some chosen shape. You'll quickly find some simultaneous equations inandto solve. Solve them.)2. Can you find a simple geometric interpretation for? Assume that the original input grid simply consists of zeros and ones, so that it's a binary image. It shouldn't be hard to find a good interpretation. It's a little harder if it isn't a binary image so don't worry too much about that case.3. Now find some suitable argumentsandtoso that we get:4. Can you find a simple interpretation for binary images? You might think you have it immediately so work hard to find counterexamples. Have a solid interpretation yet? And can you extend it to images that consist of more general integers?5. Optimise the code forassuming the image is binary and that the input is on a 2D array. Ultimately you should get some code that walks a 2D array doing something very simple at each pixel. Can you understand how it's managing to compute something that fits the interpretation you gave?6. Define a version ofcalledthat works ons. Among other things we should expect:and that the invariance properties of the mystery properties should hold with respect to gscale.I'll answer most of these questions in my next post. If you findyou've rediscovered one of the deepest notions in mathematics. Something that appears in fields as diverse as combinatorics, algebraic geometry, algebraic topology, graph theory, group theory, geometric probability, fluid dynamics, and, of course, image processing.Let's start with exercise 1 from my previous post. I allowed you to assume there was a solution. Knowing this we only need to try scaling up one shape. Here are three scalings of a single pixel:For the 1x1 square we have: 1 face, 4 edges, 4 vertices.For the 2x2 square we have: 4 faces, 12 edges, 9 vertices.For the 3x3 square we have: 9 faces, 24 edges, 16 vertices.(If you don't feel like counting these yourself you can use code like:and so on.So now we have some equations:We find a=0, c=-2b. I'll pick b = 1, c = -2. There's a straightfoward interpretation offor binary images. It computes half of the perimeter, the semi-perimeter. There's a nice way to see this. We can try to count the number of edges in a shape starting from the number of faces in it. You can think of each face as being surrounded by 4 "half-thickness" edges. Where two faces meet we get a full thickness edge, so using half the number of faces counts internal edges correctly. But around the border of a shape we are left with contributions from only a face on one side. So we're only counting the perimeter edges by half. We get a shortfall of the semi-perimeter. Working backwards tells us how to compute the semi-perimeter from the total number of edges and faces.For more general images, not just binary ones, we can roughly think ofas computing the sum of the semi-perimeters of all of the isocontours of our image.The interesting case is now exercise 3. This time our equation is:Now we get a solution a = 1, b = -1, c = 1. If you try computing this for a few shapes it looks like it's counting the number of connected components of a binary image. However, once you realise the possibility of some holes in your image you find that it always turns out to be the total number of connected components minus the total number of holes.Here's an example. Treat this as a single complete image:It has two components and one hole so we expectto give us 1. We can count:14 faces42 edges29 verticesGiving 29-42+14 = 1.I'm not sure which is the easiest proof that vertices-edges+faces counts the number of components minus the number of holes. One approach is this: we only need to consider one connected component at a time. Remove its holes. Now build up the shape one pixel at a time starting with one pixel and ensuring that you have a hole-free shape at each stage. It's not hard to enumerate all of the possible ways you can add one pixel to an existing shape and show that each such addition leavesunchanged. If you now make a single pixel hole in your shape you'll see that it lowersby 1. If you now continue to add pixels to the hole, in a way that doesn't change the number of holes, you'll see thatremains unchanged again.computes what is known as the Euler characteristic of a shape. I talked a little about this in one context earlier and showed how to compute it in another context here. The Euler characteristic is a topological invariant of a shape in the sense that a rubber sheet deformation of a shape leaves the number of holes and the number of components unchanged.The above description shows that the Euler characteristic is particularly easy to compute. It simply requires a map-reduce operation over the entire grid. But what about the separate terms: the number of components and the number of holes? These seem like simpler notions and you might expect them to be just as easy to compute. Actually they are harder to compute. Compare also with flood fill algorithms which solve a related problem. Minsky and Papert show in their book Perceptrons that any topological invariant that can be learnt by a one layer neural network (with certain resonable restrictions) must be a function of the Euler characteristic. I find it quite amazing that this notion from topology is connected (no pun intended) to learnability.We can defineI have sketched an argument thatcounts #components-#holes. If we assume that each of our connected components has no holes then it counts the number of components. But here's a neat thing: if we *add* two images that contain strictly overlapping shapes (ie. not just touching each other along their boundaries) then because of additivity,will still count the number of shapes. In other words, if you did the exercises then you solved the target enumeration problem. It's pretty miraculous. You could splat down thousands of geometric shapes into an image. They can overlap as much as you like. But as long as they don't touch along a boundary you can still compute the total number of shapes. If two shapes do touch along a common boundary then no algorithm can work, after all they'll be indistinguishable from a single connected shape. For a quick example, notice howrecovers thatis the sum of 4 shapes that don't touch.Consider our original measurement. This sums the values at each pixel. It is a numerical approximation to the integral of a function sampled at each pixel. Likewise each of thefunctions is numerical approximation to a generalised type of integral. The original paper uses these integrals to solve its problem. I have simply used a discrete version.I apologise for only sketching proofs. It takes considerably more work to provide rigorous proofs. But I encourage you to experiment with the code and attempt to find counterexamples. The history of the Euler characteristic is itself characteristed by a kind of back and forth between attempted proofs and counterexamples than in a strange way mirrors the innocent looking definition: vertices-edges+faces.By the way, some people have propsed that the Euler characteristic is a kind of generalisation of the idea of counting. It shares many properties with the usual notion of cardinality.One last thing: I have implicitly shown that target counting is learnable by a certain type of one-layer neural network.And thanks to @alpheccar for pointing out the original target enumeration paper.I'm repeating this as a possibly apocryphal story I have heard from other parties: Minsky and Papert demonstrated that the only learnable topological invariants for single layer network are functions of the Euler characteristic. In particular, they demonstrated the unlearnability of connectedness. This was a precisely stated no-go theorem that discouraged and slowed investment in neural network research for many years and helped contribute to the AI Winter. Is there a good historical book on this period of AI research?FORT WORTH, Texas -- Suspended New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton and his wife of nearly 20 years have filed dueling divorce petitions in Texas.
Payton filed a petition in Tarrant County district court seeking a divorce from Beth Payton on June 14. It lists the grounds as "discord or conflict of personalities" and seeks to divide the couple's assets and provide for joint custody of their two children.
Beth Payton filed a counter petition on June 26 requesting that she receive primary custody of the children and exclusive rights to make other decisions, such as those concerning their medical care and education, on their behalf. It also asks that the coach pay child support and pay for the children's medical care.
The breakdown of the Paytons' marriage comes during an already difficult year for the embattled coach, who has been suspended for the entire 2012 season in connection with an NFL investigation that concluded the Saints had a bounty system for the past three seasons that paid defensive players improper cash bonuses for injury-casing hits to targeted opponents.
The divorce papers were filed in Texas because the couple moved to an exclusive neighborhood in the Fort Worth suburb of Westlake in 2011. Payton has said since his suspension that he hopes to spend as much time as possible with his children and even coach his son Connor's football team.
It is not clear how the divorce may affect the coach's plans, but the papers indicate that he has already moved out of the couple's primary residence.
Sean Payton could not be reached for comment and his attorney, Gary Nickelson, did not return a call to his office. Beth Payton's attorney, Heather King, declined comment.
The Paytons' move from suburban New Orleans to Texas was initially met with angst by Saints fans who were concerned that the most successful coach in club history, who joined the Saints in 2006 and won a Super Bowl in his fourth season, was no longer as personally invested in the community as he had been during his first five years there.
However, the coach, who was an assistant in Dallas for three years before coming to New Orleans, stated that he and his wife had long aspired to live in the neighborhood to which they moved, and to enroll their daughter Megan, 15, and Connor, 12, in an elite private school there.
Payton commuted regularly between Dallas and New Orleans during the 2011 season. The travel did not appear to interfere significantly with his work. The Saints won the NFC South Division with a 13-3 record and set numerous club and NFL records with the offense that Payton designed.Despite its limitations - such as only allowing files of 16MB and under! - the DSiWare platform served up some gems. Among our favourites were the Rytmik apps from Cinemax, which provided various themed music creation tool on the portable; at the time they left us rather impressed.
Pleasingly we don't have long to wait until the series comes into the current generation. Cinemax has issued an update on Rytmik Ultimate for the 3DS eShop, confirming that it's currently in the approval process with Nintendo and targeting a December release.
As for new features, Ultimate will bring various online features into the mix. You'll be able to share your compositions via the 'Rytmik Cloud', which naturally also play songs uploaded by others. Most pleasingly the online service will apparently also mean that "users may exchange their songs and cooperate on their composing"[sic]; the idea of working with a buddy on a great track is certainly appealing.
Let us know whether you're looking forward to this, and below is a video from the Summer in which Cinemax showed off some tracks created in the new app.Looking for news you can trust?
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In a simple model of democratic politics, there are three basic drivers of political decisionmaking:
The collective opinion of average citizens
The collective opinion of the affluent
The lobbying of interest groups
But which of these really matter? Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page studied 1,779 policy outcomes over two decades and came to a pretty simple conclusion: the collective opinion of average citizens doesn’t matter a whit:
When the preferences of interest groups and the affluent are held constant, it just doesn’t matter what average folks think about a policy proposal. When average citizens are opposed, there’s a 30 percent chance of passage. When average citizens are wildly in favor, there’s still only a 30 percent chance of passage. Conversely, the odds of passage go from zero when most of the affluent are opposed to more than 50 percent when most of the affluent are in favor.
Interest group lobbying, it turns out, also has an effect on policymaking—but business interest groups matter a lot more than mass interest groups. This comes via John Sides, who has much more detail about the study here. But none of it should come as a surprise. We’ve seen plenty of results like this before.Beijing says Britain’s concerns over Chinese involvement in the Hinkley Point nuclear project are “China-phobic.” It said the UK would be “foolish” to turn its back on relations between the two countries, news agency Xinhua claims.
British Prime Minister Theresa May shocked trade and diplomatic circles last month when she postponed the final decision on the approval of the proposed £18 billion ($23.5 billion) nuclear power station - Britain’s first in decades.
In a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, May said she looked forward to “strengthening cooperation with China on trade and business and on global issues.” She also confirmed she would attend the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, in September.
However, delays were allegedly prompted by concerns that state-owned Chinese companies are being allowed to invest in sensitive infrastructure, and the closeness with Beijing that developed under May’s predecessor David Cameron.
Writing last October, May’s joint chief-of-staff, Nick Timothy, writing for the ConservativeHome website, questioned the wisdom of the so-called “golden” relationship negotiated by Cameron and Xi.
He claimed Beijing is using economic opportunities to buy Britain’s silence over human rights abuses.
Timothy said MI5 believe Chinese intelligence services “continue to work against UK interests at home and abroad,” and that it was “baffling” that China would be allowed to play a role in sensitive sectors such as energy.
In an English language op-ed published this week, the Xinhua news agency said the reassurances in May’s letter over Britain’s commitment to the “golden era” in relations between the two countries was a “laudable move in the right direction.”
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But the government platform hinted that future commercial opportunities with China would depend on the approval of the Hinkley project.
“After divorcing with the EU, Britain would be foolish to decline stronger trade ties with China, whose markets remain home to tremendous business opportunities,” the article, penned by journalist Zhu Junqing, goes on.
It said the worries are “as groundless as they are unnecessary,” claiming it would be “commercially suicidal” for China to use the project to damage Britain’s national security.
“London’s misgivings over Chinese involvement in its key infrastructure is yet another stroke of China-phobia,” it said.
Earlier this month, China’s Ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming said ties between the two nations had reached a “crucial historical juncture” in the wake of the Hinkley Point postponement.
“If Britain’s openness is a condition for bilateral cooperation, then mutual trust is the very foundation on which this is built,” he said.
“Right now, the China-UK relationship is at a crucial historical juncture. Mutual trust should be treasured even more.”
China General Nuclear Power (CGN) is a key investor in Hinkley Point alongside the French energy company EDF. CGN is expected to fund about a third of the project.
A decision on whether it will go ahead is expected in the autumn.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
ST. LOUIS (KTVI) - A south city man brutally attacked in the Soulard neighborhood while walking his dog during the day. The attack was caught on tape and police hope that will help them solve the case.
Police said the 29-year-old victim was allegedly punched and kicked by six teenagers in an attempted robbery around 4 p.m. on Wednesday. The man was caught off guard and attacked from behind, causing him to fall to the ground. Authorities said the suspects surrounded the victim and demanded his belongings. But when the victim said he didn’t have anything, they began punching him and kicking him. The male was able to stand up and run for help.
One resident in the area saw the entire attack.
“They pulled their hoods, all you could see were their eyes and noses. It just so happened that this guy was walking down the street,” the man said. “If it were not for him, it could have been us.”
The man's face was swollen following the attack but he did not need to go to the hospital.
Meanwhile, the search continues for his attackers. If you have any information on the suspects’ identities, you’re asked to contact the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department or CrimeStoppers at 866-371-TIPS.I was convinced that I was just going to get a gift this season, I got a happy message from my regifter....they let me know my gift would be coming but they had gotten in an accident and it would be a few weeks... It was SO worth the wait!! I put in my profile that I was just getting into polymer clay and boy did my secret santa deliver! They sent me an message letting me know they had shipped my gift but some of it might take a few weeks to get here. After opening my package, I can't imagine what else they could send me... I got an 11 piece tool set, a 10 pack of different colored polymer clays, 9 different colored Lumiere paints, a face mold kit (with 6 faces!), and a pack of four blades with handy dandy handles!July 18, 2012
Gary Lapon examines the myths perpetrated by a right-wing "movement" that seeks to deter young people from using contraception--despite the peril to their health.
THE GLOBAL youth revolt has helped to topple regimes in North Africa and shaken the 1 percent all over, most recently in Montreal and Mexico. From struggles against dictators in North Africa and the Middle East, to battles over the right to education in the Americas and Europe, to strikes by young workers against sweatshop conditions in Chinese factories, to fights against austerity and the power of banks in Europe and the U.S., the youth are rising.
I don't have a crystal ball, and one wouldn't help me if I did, but I'm willing to bet that when the history books are written--at least those written by our side--they will describe the defining characteristics of a generation of young people coming of age today as a rejection of the status quo and the will to fight for a better world.
Not so, according to the folks at 1flesh.org, who claim that "if anything can be said of our generation, it's this: We want sexy back."
1flesh.org, a slick website that dubs itself "the revolt against contraception in marriage" (complete with the Ron Paul-esque use of a backwards "love" in a heart in the word "revolt") is an absurd, yet dangerous, attempt to tap into this rebellious spirit in order to promote monogamous sex, without contraception, within the context of marriage.
One of the graphics available at 1flesh.org website
Basically, the group uses slick web design and graphics based off of Internet memes to promote pseudo-science that blames contraception and sex without marriage for all that is wrong in our sexual lives (and then some).
ACCORDING TO 1flesh.org, sex without condoms is the solution to all of the problems that distort sexual relationships in our society. You see, they, "a group of college kids," have "narrowed all the wackness down to its primary cause: The widespread use of artificial contraception."
The "wackness" consists of "sky-high rates of divorce, abortion and STDs; a world bored with sex and bored with romance; a world in which more and more people are turning to pornography to find sexual satisfaction; a world in which 1 in 5 women report being sexual assaulted, and the human body--the sexiest thing in the universe--is used to sell cars."
They're right about some things: STDs are indeed "wack" (in that they can have significant negative impacts on health and disproportionately affect poor people, women, LGBT people, youth and people of color); millions of people are sexually and romantically unfulfilled; the bulk of the porn that's out there is sexist, degrading and exploitative; and sexual assault, the objectification of women and the commodification of sex is fucked up and needs to be changed.
(An aside: If you can overlook the sinister for a bit, the site--stuck in a time warp where kids think Justin Timberlake is cool, call things "wack," and believe it's fun to "freak out your grandma" with your advocacy of sex without condoms--will elicit more than a few chuckles.)
However, divorce and abortion, as well as access to contraception, are all gains of struggles for women's rights that should be defended.
First, take divorce. Rising divorce rates can be, and often are, viewed as evidence that today's marriages are somehow getting worse, as opposed to those from the supposedly idyllic 1950s, when most people lived happily ever after. You know, when popular television shows featured jokes about domestic violence as their tag line ("One of these days, Alice!
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13 at $2.3 billion. The Detroit Lions are No. 31 at $1.6 billion and the Buffalo Bills are last at $1.5 billion.
In a separate story, Forbes also called the Vikings’ new home a “game-changing stadium.”
The final tally on what the building will seat for Vikings games: 66,655, up from the previously estimated 66,200. Forbes said the average ticket price is $85. The place is sold out for the season.
The stadium officially opens for the NFL season on Sunday as the Vikings play host to the Green Bay Packers in a nationally televised game beginning at 7:30 p.m.
Twitter: @rochelleolsonThe United States fired cruise missiles at Syria last night in response to this week's chemical attack that killed more than 80 Syrian civilians — the first direct U.S. assault on the Bashar al-Assad government and Donald Trump's most dramatic military order since becoming president.
The strikes hit the government-controlled Shayrat airbase in central Syria. U.S. officials say the airbase was the originating point for the military planes behind Tuesday's gas attack, said to have involved the use of chlorine mixed with a nerve agent, possibly sarin.
The UN held an emergency meeting on the situation.
11:30 am UN Security Council will hold meeting to discuss Syria —@KentUNCBC
59 missiles launched
Fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles were launched from the USS Ross and USS Porter in the Mediterranean Sea, with 58 of them hitting their intended targets in Syria at 3:45 a.m. local time Friday. The missiles targeted the base's airstrips, hangars, control tower and ammunition areas, U.S. officials said.
A U.S. official said all but one of the missiles struck their intended targets.
Trump ordered the strike from his Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida, where he is hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Assad "launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians using a deadly nerve agent," Trump said in a prepared statement after the cruise missile attack became public knowledge.
The airstrike in Syria targeted the Shayrat military airbase in Homs. (CBC)
"There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the chemical weapons convention and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council," Trump said, calling it a "targeted" strike.
The Syrian military said at least seven people were killed and nine wounded in the missile strike. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition monitor, also put the death toll at seven, including a general and three soldiers.
Barrage of cruise missiles hit airbase near Homs 0:44
A statement from the army command described the attack as an act of "blatant aggression," saying it had made the United States "a partner" to the likes of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and other militant groups.
Syria said the strike would not deter it from driving out those groups.
'Act of aggression,' says Russia
The Kremlin early Friday confirmed it received advance warning, while a Russian lawmaker was quoted by Interfax as saying no Russians were injured, according to his sources.
Russian officials said six jets were destroyed. The head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said over a dozen hangars and a fuel depot were also damaged.
A Kremlin spokesperson said Russian President Vladimir Putin sees the missile strikes as an act of "aggression against a sovereign state in violation of international law." Iran issued a similar statement.
Cruise missiles were launched at Syria around the time Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping sat down for a dinner in Palm Beach, Fla., at the beginning of a two-day summit on April 6, 2017. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press) Russia said it would now suspend a deal with the U.S. to prevent mid-air incidents over Syria, and that it would help Syria strengthen its air defences again.
U.S.-Russia hotline still open
Senior U.S. military officials say Russia has agreed to maintain a hotline aimed at preventing midair collisions in Syria.
The declarations contradict Russia's claim that it has suspended military "deconfliction" talks after the American missile strikes.
The officials say there have been U.S.-Russian discussions since Thursday night's attack of the Syrian military base. They say American officials have sought to make sure the talks would continue, and the Russians have provided confirmation they will.
The officials weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.
The hotline was established after Russia intervened militarily in 2015 to ensure Russian and U.S. planes conducting combat missions in Syria's skies don't stumble into an accident or confrontation.
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Could complicate quagmire
It's unclear what authority Trump is relying on to attack another country. When Obama intervened in Libya in 2011, he used a UN Security Council mandate and NATO's overall leadership of the mission to argue that he had legal authority — arguments that many Republicans opposed. Trump can't rely on either justification here.
President says strike on Syria in the 'vital national security interest' of the U.S. 2:50
In Syria, the Obama administration largely pulled back from its support for so-called "moderate" rebels when Russia's military intervention in September 2015 led them to suffer a series of battlefield defeats. Instead, Obama sought to work with Russia on a negotiated transition.
Trump called on "civilized nations" to join U.S. now but it's unclear whether he is adopting any broader effort to combat Assad.
The assault risks plunging America into the middle of Syria's conflict, complicating the safety of the hundreds of U.S. forces fighting a separate campaign against the Islamic State group in the north of the country.BEIJING: History and politics meshed together at an event organised by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to welcome two new members, India and Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan claimed the legacy of Shah Jahan in exhibits put up at the event. Another SCO member, Kazakhstan, claimed legacy of Timur (Tamerlane), regarded as an ancestor of the Mughals.Senior officials from all eight SCO countries, including China, Russia and four Central Asian states, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, attended the event.Presenting a picture of Delhi’s Red Fort with the Indian flag fluttering above it, the Pakistani side claimed it was a fort in Shalamar Gardens in Lahore. “These are masterpieces from the time of the brilliant Mughal civilisation, which reached its height during the reign of Emperor Shah Jahan,” it went on to say.The exhibit mentioned elegant marble palaces and ornamental ponds within the fort. The mention of Mughals at the SCO event is interesting because of Babar, the first Mughal ruler, came from Central Asia, which is strongly represented in the Eurasian club of nations.The Indian exhibit displayed the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort of Agra while saying, “An immense mausoleum of white marble, built in Agra between 1631 and 1648 by order of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favourite wife, the Taj Mahal, is the jewel of Muslim art in India, and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage.”Kazakhstan put up an exhibit of a mausoleum saying, “The Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, in the town of Yasi, now Turkestan, was built at the time of Timur (Tamerlane) from 1389 to 1405.“In the partly unfinished building, Persian master builders experimented with architectural and structural solutions later used in the construction of Samarkand, the capital of Timurid Empire.” Pakistan also exhibited a picture on the ruins of Moenjodaro.Buy Photo Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker delivers his State of the State address during a joint session of the Wisconsin State Legislature. (Photo: Rick Wood, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)Buy Photo
MADISON - Contractors won't have to work with unions on taxpayer-funded building projects and parents will have an easier time getting an anti-seizure drug derived from marijuana, under legislation Gov. Scott Walker signed Monday.
The measure on labor agreements, which passed the Legislature on party-line votes, is the latest in a series of moves to roll back union power by Republican lawmakers in recent years. Walker signed the law at Amerilux International, a De Pere distributor of construction materials.
The cannabis oil legislation is a bipartisan measure aimed at helping children who can suffer from scores of seizures in a single day.
Project labor agreements establish wages and other conditions for certain projects. Walker said the legislation will protect taxpayers by ensuring local government "neutrality" when it comes to those agreements.
“By forbidding state and local governments from requiring contractors to enter into agreements with labor organizations, we’re promoting healthy competition between contractors," Walker said in a statement. "This means the contractor ultimately chosen for the project is the one that has demonstrated excellent service and will work at good value for Wisconsin taxpayers."
Republicans were critical of the agreements put in place for plans to build a $500 million arena for the Milwaukee Bucks that is being partially funded by taxpayers. GOP lawmakers say project labor agreements will still be allowed, but companies just won't be required to adopt them.
RELATED: GOP lawmakers take aim at mounting school referendums
But Democrats say Senate Bill 3 will interfere with the ability of local governments to get the best value for projects in their area. Unions say such agreements provide skilled workers who do quality work and make living wages.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said in a statement that the agreements are sometimes needed to ensure big projects are completed on time and to deal with "quality control, health and safety, and productivity problems."
"These types of agreements can enable costs to be more tightly controlled and ensure that there are no disruptions to the construction schedule, for example from strikes. These factors far outweigh the unproven assertion that PLAs drive up project costs," Barrett said.
Touring the site of the Bucks arena last week, Walker praised the "great progress" being done on the work there.
Great progress on the @bucks arena in Milwaukee! pic.twitter.com/V9movFNSgf — Governor Walker (@GovWalker) April 11, 2017
On Monday, Walker also signed Senate Bill 10, which would make it easier to acquire cannabinoid oil, or CBD oil.
The oil is made from marijuana and used to treat seizures in children. Under normal circumstances, the oil won't make users high because it's extremely low in the active substance known as THC.
The legislation passed the Assembly unanimously last month and cleared the Senate in February on a 31-1 vote, with just Sen. Duey Stroebel (R-Cedarburg) opposing it.
Supporters say the CBD legislation was written specifically to ease the fears of families nervous they could be arrested simply for possessing the oil to treat their children.
In 2014, legislators and Walker approved legislation — Lydia's Law — to allow families to obtain CBD oil in extremely limited cases to treat a patient. But the conditions have proved so restrictive that families and physicians have been unable to make use of it and the legislation's namesake, Lydia Schaeffer, died as a young girl before she could ever try the treatment.
The latest legislation would ease those limits, allowing families to possess CBD oil for any medical condition if approved by a physician on a yearly basis. A similar bill passed the Assembly last year but failed to get through the Senate.
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"Today, we’re making it easier for people in our state to obtain CBD oil without a psychoactive effect to treat a medical condition as advised by their doctor," Walker said in a statement.
The passage of the CBD oil legislation comes as Democrats are promoting legislation to allow medical marijuana. That measure has not gained support among majority Republicans, however.
Read or Share this story: https://jsonl.in/2ptDK3BCabela's. Wikimedia Commons The wilderness-themed store Bass Pro Shops is buying Cabela's for $65.50 per share, or about $5.5 billion.
The outdoor-recreation retailers are expected to close the deal in the first half of 2017.
Bass Pro Shops is also launching a new credit-card partnership with a banking subsidiary of Capital One.
Guggenheim Securities was Cabela's exclusive financial adviser, and JPMorgan was the sole financial adviser to Bass Pro Shops.
Goldman Sachs advised Bass Pro Shops on the bank transaction and provided debt financing, while Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, RBC, and UBS are providing debt financing. The Kessler Group and Credit Suisse advised Capital One.
Here's the press release:
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. & SIDNEY, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's Incorporated (NYSE:CAB), two iconic American outdoor companies with similar humble origins, and with a shared goal to better serve those who love the outdoors, today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Bass Pro Shops will acquire Cabela's for $65.50 per share in cash, representing an aggregate transaction value of approximately $5.5 billion.
In addition, upon closing Bass Pro Shops will commence a multi-year partnership agreement with Capital One, National Association, a wholly-owned national banking subsidiary of Capital One Financial Corporation (NYSE: COF), under which Capital One will originate and service the Cabela's CLUB, Cabela's co-branded credit card, and Bass Pro Shops will maintain a seamless integration between the credit card program and the combined companies' retail operations and deep customer relationships. All Cabela's CLUB points and Bass Pro Shops Outdoor Rewards points will be unaffected by the transactions and customers can continue to use their credit cards as they were prior to the transaction. Capital One intends to continue to operate the Cabela's CLUB servicing center in Lincoln, Nebraska.
A driving force behind this agreement is the highly complementary business philosophies, product offerings, expertise and geographic footprints of the two businesses. The essence of both Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's is a deep passion to serve outdoor enthusiasts and support conservation. The combination brings together three of the nation's premier sporting brands: Cabela's, a leader in hunting; Bass Pro Shops, a leader in fishing; and White River Marine Group, a worldwide leader in boating, which is part of Bass Pro Shops.
Bass Pro Shops, Cabela's and White River Marine Group represent the best of American entrepreneurship, innovation and devotion to customers. The combined companies will strive to provide a remarkably enhanced experience for customers, increased opportunities for team members and greater support for conservation activities.
CABELA'S
Founded in 1961 by Dick, Mary and Jim Cabela, Cabela's is a highly respected marketer of hunting, fishing, camping, shooting sports and related outdoor merchandise. Today, Cabela's has over 19,000 "outfitters" operating 85 specialty retail stores, primarily in the western U.S. and Canada. Cabela's stores, catalog business and e-commerce operations will blend seamlessly with Bass Pro Shops and White River Marine Group. Over the past 55 years Cabela's has built a passionate and loyal base of millions of enthusiasts who shop both at its retail stores and online.
BASS PRO SHOPS
Bass Pro Shops, founded in 1972 by avid young angler Johnny Morris, is a leading national retailer of outdoor gear and apparel, with 99 stores and Tracker Marine Centers located primarily in the eastern part of the U.S. and Canada. Morris started the business with eight square feet of space in the back of his father's liquor store in Springfield, Mo., the company's sole location for the first 13 years of business. Johnny's passion for the outdoors and his feel for the products and shopping experiences desired by outdoor enthusiasts helped transform the industry. Bass Pro Shops, which employs approximately 20,000 team members, has been named by Forbes as one of "America's Best Employers." The company also operates Big Cedar Lodge, America's Premier Wilderness Resort, welcoming more than one million guests annually to Missouri's Ozark Mountains.
WHITE RIVER MARINE GROUP
In 1978, Morris revolutionized the marine industry when he introduced the world's first professionally rigged and nationally marketed boat, motor and trailer packages. Tracker quickly became and has remained the number one selling fishing boat brand in America for the last 37 years running. White River Marine Group offers an unsurpassed collection of industry-leading brands including Tracker Boats, Sun Tracker, Nitro, Tahoe, Regency, Mako, Ranger, Triton and Stratos.
MANAGEMENT COMMENTARY
"Today's announcement marks an exceptional opportunity to bring together three special companies with an abiding love for the outdoors and a passion for serving sportsmen and sportswomen," said Johnny Morris, founder and CEO of Bass Pro Shops. "The story of each of these companies could only have happened in America, made possible by our uniquely American free enterprise system. We have enormous admiration for Cabela's, its founders and outfitters, and its loyal base of customers. We look forward to continuing to celebrate and grow the Cabela's brand alongside Bass Pro Shops and White River as one unified outdoor family."
"Cabela's is pleased to have found the ideal partner in Bass Pro Shops," said Tommy Millner, Cabela's Chief Executive Officer. "Having undertaken a thorough strategic review, during which we assessed a wide variety of options to maximize value, the Board unanimously concluded that this combination with Bass Pro Shops is the best path forward for Cabela's, its shareholders, outfitters and customers. In addition to providing significant immediate value to our shareholders, this partnership provides a unique platform from which our brand will be extremely well positioned to continue to serve outdoor enthusiasts worldwide for generations to come."
"This opportunity would not be possible without the contributions of the many wonderful Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops and White River team members," Morris said. "All three companies are blessed to have been built by the extraordinary efforts of many tremendously talented, dedicated people throughout our respective histories, and we're thrilled to consider what the combined team can achieve going forward."
Following the closing of the transaction, Bass Pro Shops intends to celebrate and grow the Cabela's brand and will build on qualities that respective customers love most about Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops. In addition, Bass Pro Shops recognizes the strength of Cabela's CLUB Loyalty program and intends to honor Cabela's customer rewards and sees potential over time to expand the program in the combined company.
Bass Pro Shops appreciates and understands the deep ties between Cabela's and the community of Sidney, Nebraska. Dick, Mary and Jim Cabela founded their company in Sidney in 1961, and the company has flourished with its base of operations there ever since. Bass Pro Shops intends to continue to maintain important bases of operations in Sidney and Lincoln and hopes to continue the very favorable connections to those communities and the Cabela's team members residing there.
Bass Pro Shops Founder and CEO Johnny Morris will continue as CEO and majority shareholder of the new entity, which will remain a private company with a continuing long-term view of supporting the industry and conservation. Morris earned a reputation as a leading retailer and conservationist. In 2008, the National Retail Federation named him as Retail Innovator of the Year. In 2015, the same organization named him as one of 25 People Shaping the Future of Retail in America. In 2012, The Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies named Morris Citizen Conservationist of the Year.
"Conservation is at the heart and soul of Bass Pro Shops. Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's share a steadfast belief that the future of our industry, and the outdoor sports we all love, depends - more than anything else - on how we manage our natural resources," said Morris. "By combining our efforts, we can have a profound positive impact on the conservation challenges of our day and help foster the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts."
PREFERRED FINANCING
Bass Pro Shops is proud to have secured preferred equity financing from the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs and Pamplona to facilitate the transaction. Goldman Sachs has committed $1.8 billion and Pamplona has committed $600 million for a total preferred financing commitment of $2.4 billion.
The Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs is one of the leading private equity investors in the world, focusing on assisting large, high-quality companies with best-in-class management teams to achieve their growth objectives. The division brings significant experience and a strong track record of success in supporting industry-leading founder-led businesses. Pamplona Capital Management is a New York and London based specialist investment manager established in 2005. Pamplona is currently managing its fourth private equity fund, Pamplona Capital Partners IV, LP, which was raised in 2014. Pamplona invests long-term capital across the capital structure of its portfolio companies in both public and private market situations.
TRANSACTION DETAILS
The transaction provides Cabela's shareholders with a premium of 19.2% to Cabela's closing share price on Sep. 30, 2016, the day prior to announcement of the transaction, 39.7% to the closing share price on Dec. 1, 2015, the day before Cabela's announced its exploration of strategic alternatives and 57.1% to the 90-day volume weighted trading average prior to Dec. 1, 2015. Immediately prior to closing, Capital One will acquire certain assets and assume certain liabilities of Cabela's World's Foremost Bank. The cash proceeds from this transaction will remain with Cabela's until it is acquired by Bass Pro Shops.
The transaction agreements were unanimously approved by Cabela's Board of Directors following a comprehensive review of strategic and financial alternatives.
The transaction, which is expected to close in the first half of 2017, will be completed through a cash merger and is subject to approval by Cabela's shareholders, as well as regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
J.P. Morgan served as exclusive financial advisor to Bass Pro Shops and Latham & Watkins served as Bass Pro Shops' legal counsel, with expert assistance from O'Melveny & Myers. Goldman, Sachs & Co. served as financial advisor to The Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP served as legal advisor. Goldman, Sachs & Co. also served as advisor to Bass Pro Shops on the bank transaction, and Morrison & Foerster served as legal counsel. BofA Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo Securities LLC, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., RBC Capital Markets, UBS Securities LLC, and Goldman Sachs are providing debt financing to support the transaction.
Guggenheim Securities served as exclusive financial advisor to Cabela's and Sidley Austin LLP and Koley Jessen P.C., L.L.O. served as Cabela's legal counsel.
The Kessler Group and Credit Suisse acted as financial advisers to Capital One and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Chapman and Cutler acted as legal advisers.Code School, the online learning destination that grew out of founder Gregg Pollack’s longtime efforts in creating and sharing technical content with a developer audience, has now made the leap to mobile. With the new iOS application, developers can watch Code School’s over 300 instructional videos covering JavaScript, HTML/CSS, Ruby, iOS and Git as well as other popular developer tools, like Chrome Dev Tools, for example.
Much of the content in the new app is free, while those who subscribe to Code School’s premium product will be able to unlock all videos. The app, however, is meant to complement but not replace Code School’s online educational resource, which is where developers learn hands-on by coding in the browser while watching screencasts and other course videos.
A Community First, A Business Second
The idea for Code School came about through Pollack’s own interest in creating educational content for developers, which he began doing around eight years ago. His focus at the time was the then still relatively new framework, Ruby on Rails. “As with any new technology in its infancy, the documentation sucked,” Pollack explains. “So I would blog about it. I got into podcasting; I would go and speak at conferences about it; I would create videos about it…it was just something I would do in my spare time,” he says.
For his day job, Pollack consulted, eventually rebranding his consultancy to “Envy Labs” around five years ago. All the educational material he was publishing was attracting clients, but he wasn’t trying to turn that content into a money-making business of its own at that point, he says.
But in November 2010, Pollack released what soon became a popular course, “Rails for Zombies,” where he combined video content with coding in the browser for the first time. This was long before other online “learn to code” startups even existed — for instance, competitor Codecademy wasn’t founded until the following year.
“Other people had done the coding in the browser thing,” Pollack admits. “But we put it together in a new way,” he says. In the Rails course, developers would watch a video then practice what they learned in the browser, and then repeat that process over and over again. Though this was still free content, there were so many users coming in, Pollack realized there was the potential to do more.
By March 2011, that business idea became Code School, launching with just one free Rails course and one paid. Today, the site has grown to include over 40 courses across a variety of topics and designed for a wide range of developers, from the newcomers looking to learn coding for the first time, to more advanced developers looking to refine or expand their skills.
However, most of the audience identifies as either intermediate or advanced, a recent user survey found, with 33 percent and 29 percent, respectively, claiming those skill levels, versus the 14 percent who said they were beginners, or the 24 percent who knew just enough to get by.
Code School today has roughly 40,000 users actively learning on its website at any given time, and has seen 1 million sign-ups to date. Around 15 percent of customers have reported some sort of positive outcome after taking Code School courses, like a promotion at work or a new job.
Now the company is working to reach an audience who is interested in learning while on the go with its new app. Though, obviously, the app doesn’t include the ability to code alongside the videos, it can serve as a way to reinforce what you previously learned while practicing on the web, familiarize yourself with new topics, or just brush up on rusty skills.
The bootstrapped startup, based in Orlando, is now a team of 35, and profitable since the beginning.
What makes its courses unique amid what’s now a large number of online learning competitors is the time that goes into course production, says Pollack. It may take six people three months to make just five hours of content, he notes. That may seem like a drawback in terms of scaling the product, but the founder claims it’s a feature. “What we’re creating is more like creating a video game than just a screencast,” he says.
Some videos in the new app can only be unlocked by subscribing to Code School online for $29/month. Pricing discounts for teams are also available, and the company claims customers including Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, Zendesk, and Fandango as using its product.
Code School is a free download here.Tractor and Farm Equipment Leasing
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When you think of tractors, unlike the average person, you don't conjure up an image of an old farmer with a stalk of wheat in his mouth lazily sitting on his little green tractor tilling his fields. Today's farmer and the tractors they drive are sophisticated and smart. As reported by the Farm Equipment Manufacturer's Association, demand for Tractors and Farm Equipment is high, driven by strong commodity prices and export sales. 4-Wheel tractors sales are leading the industry which grew by almost 20% in 2010.
The digital age is drastically reinventing the world's oldest industry and today's tractors have become command centers for an automated business operation that would make even a Japanese car factory blush. Today a farmer can put his tractor on auto-pilot driven by a GPS navigation system and get digital readouts of the soil while he sprays just the right amount of fertilizer for each plant, saving both money and the environment at the same time.Three days after Valentine's Day, 1-800-Flowers is still apologizing to customers whose flowers and candy never showed up.
1-800-Flowers (FLWS) sent nearly 1,000 individual apologies on Twitter, plus more on Facebook, but many customers still weren't satisfied.
It wasn't the only flower delivery service with upset customers, though the number of 1-800-Flowers complaints appeared to outpace those for FTD (FTD) Flowers and ProFlowers.
Some frustrated customers complained that the phone lines for 1-800-Flowers were jammed over the weekend. They also sent emails and filled out online forms, only to receive automated replies
Their frustrated and upset online posts told stories of wilted and broken flower arrangements, or those that never arrived at all.
"It's been a very frustrating experience," said Vy Nguyen of South Carolina. She helped her dad order flowers to be delivered to her mom's workplace, but they didn't show up. "We tried to do something nice for my Mom and she ended up with no flowers on Valentine's Day and she was very upset as she should be."
Nguyen said she called 1-800-Flowers multiple times, but the automated phone system hung up on her. She sent several emails and finally got a response after she sent a publicly-visible message on Twitter.
She was given a different phone number to call and eventually a customer representative revealed her order had been canceled and a refund was on the way. For the trouble, Nguyen said the representative offered a free "apology arrangement" -- then withdrew that offer. Now, Nguyen is waiting for her original order to be refunded as plus a voucher for $20 off a future order. She said she doesn't plan to use the voucher because she's taking her business elsewhere.
Related: This Valentine's Day, you love stocks
Other customers told CNNMoney that 1-800-Flowers also promised them a refund and a discount voucher.
The company's spokesman did not return a call requesting comment on Sunday. But it posted a message to customers on Facebook: "Our customer service center is open 24x7 and our caring team is working hard to resolve every concern, and won't stop until we do.... Due to the weather issues we experienced, wait times are longer than we would like."
1-800-Flowers is headquartered on Long Island, N.Y., and many impacted customers appeared to live along the East coast, which was hit hard by a snow and ice storm for Valentine's Day.
Related: Atlanta restaurant loses $75,000 due to storm
Social media postings suggest the company still hasn't answered every customer call.
After the flowers Mike Wilson ordered for his significant other never arrived in Toronto, he spent at least three hours on Friday and Saturday waiting on the phone for a 1-800-Flowers representative. His only reply from the company was an automated email acknowledging the complaint he filed on its website.
"The person that I was shipping these to is a very understanding person. I'm probably more disappointed than she is," he said. But the delivery issue was only half of it. "I think I'm actually more discouraged by the poor handling after the fact."
His delivery still hasn't arrived, but late Sunday -- after his story was covered by CNNMoney -- 1-800-Flowers reached out to him. The company initially offered him a $20 voucher and to reschedule his delivery, but Wilson wasn't satisfied until they agreed to reschedule the delivery and fully refund his order.
Sara Naeseth's order didn't make it to a truck either. The chocolates she ordered three weeks ago for her boyfriend, Daniel, were listed for days as sitting in an Illinois distribution center.
Of the customers who spoke to CNNMoney, Naeseth may be most fortunate: besides the refund and voucher, 1-800-Flowers is shipping the chocolate tower she originally ordered.
Her order is now scheduled to arrive Friday -- just one week late -- but 1-800-Flowers has already moved on. The latest offer plastered on its website is a sales pitch: "Stuck in the Valentine's doghouse? Get out with flowers and gifts that wow!"Educators, health care providers and researchers have known for some time that low socioeconomic status is connected to poor health, including in children, but a new study led by a San Francisco State University psychologist has shed light on what can be done to protect young people from negative outcomes.
The keys? A more positive parent-child relationship as well as the child’s own ability to manage his or her response to stressful situations, according to research published last month in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
“In pediatricians’ offices or in school nurses’ offices, people often talk about what things in the environment can mitigate negative physical health impacts, and here we find that there are actually aspects of parenting that can be protective,” said Melissa Hagan, a San Francisco State University assistant professor of psychology and lead author of the study.
The results have implications not just for parents but for health-care providers and educators, who often play key roles in the well-being of young children.
Hagan and her colleagues surveyed the general health of 338 kindergarteners from diverse backgrounds throughout the San Francisco Bay Area at both the beginning and end of the school year. They found that those from low socioeconomic households generally had poorer health in the spring than classmates from higher-income households.
Discovering that it took less than a year for such health disparities to manifest was dramatic in itself, but the research also provided some clues as to how they could be avoided. The researchers also asked parents to describe their relationship with their child, and found that the absence of a “negative” parent-child relationship — for example, the parent describing the child as disappointing or reporting a lot of conflict with their child — helped reduce negative health outcomes in children from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
They also tested how well the children managed their emotional and physiological response to stressful situations, and found that those better able to self-regulate their responses were also protected from health impacts. That ability could be connected to the parent-child relationship, but Hagan cautioned that the study looked at each factor individually and that just one of the two factors was enough to make a difference.
“Children see the world through the eyes of their parents, so the way that children interpret things and deal with things is that they look to their parents to make sense of the world,” Hagan said. “Parents who are able to make sense of the world in a sufficient way are going to do a lot to help their children in terms of physical and mental health.”
For health-care professionals, Hagan said, the research suggests that, in addition to the usual typical checkup, pediatricians should also ask parents how they are feeling about their relationship with their child and educate them on ways they can help their child better respond to stress.
“It’s important to help parents make the child’s environment as predictable and consistent as possible, since increased structure can go a long way toward helping children regulate themselves,” she said. “That said, you do not want so much structure that they’re not exposed to anything, because it’s through being exposed to some level of moderate stress that we learn to deal with it.”
Hagan and her fellow researchers are now looking at how the health of a low socioeconomic household can be impacted by the surrounding neighborhood, taking into account factors such as the availability of parks and health-care facilities or the number of home foreclosures.
“Socioeconomic adversity, negativity in the parent child-relationship, and physiological reactivity: An examination of pathways and interactive processes affecting young children’s physical health,” by Melissa J. Hagan, Danielle S. Roubinov, Nancy E. Adler, William Thomas Boyce, and Nicole R. Bush was published in the November/December edition of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.The Arizona congressional candidate who changed his name to Cesar Chavez and switched to the Democratic party was thrown off the ballot by a judge on Tuesday, according to Fusion.
Chavez was removed from the ballot because 700 of his nomination petition signatures were invalid.
He was sued by Alejandro Chavez, who charged that the candidate misled voters by filing to run for the seat before switching his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. The lawsuit also contended that any signatures collected before he switched parties are invalid.
The judge dismissed the parts of the lawsuit that charged that Cesar Chavez missed the deadline to register as a Democrat and the complaint that he purposely misled voters was dropped.
The candidate now known as Cesar Chavez ran as a Republican under his given name, Scott Fistler, in 2012 for the same seat in Arizona’s heavily Hispanic 7th congressional district.
Image via 12 News and The Arizona RepublicAs Joni Mitchell sings, “They Paved Paradise and Put up a Parking Lot”... Rome Cobblestone Roads are Being Asphalted
After 2,000 years, Rome will replace some of their cobblestone roads with asphalt. Most of the stones to be replaced over the next few months were laid down in the 16th and 17th centuries. Soon, even the ancient Roman stones may be replaced in all but the pedestrian walkways and piazzas.
Sampietrini
The old cobblestones, known as “sampietrini” (sampietrini translates as little stones of St. Peter’s) were originally used in St. Peter’s Square.
Cherish The Remaining Cobblestones
Paving of the Via Delle Botteghe Oscure and stretches of roads that run along the Tiber River were prioritized.
More roads will be paved over time, leaving only a small number of cobblestone walkways in the city. The cobblestones will be left in place in Piazza Venezia, a large square in the heart of Rome and the Fori Imperiali which connects the Coliseum with the forum.
What is driving this change?
The stones are prone to potholes, replacements are difficult to produce, the existing stones are expensive to repair (only 8 people are trained to replace cobblestones) and the vibrations from cars and buses driving on the old roads damage historic monuments and palaces.
The stones also pose a danger to scooters and high heels, especially when they are wet and become slippery.NEW YORK (Reuters) - Crude futures closed up slightly Tuesday, getting some relief from a weak dollar but not making significant strides as traders prepared for the end of the year.
The dollar is generally inversely related to the price of oil, and so a small the decline in the dollar index.DXY may have lent some strength to crude oil, according Thomas Saal, an analyst with INTL Hencorp Futures. Saal said prices may have also been boosted as
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.
Advanced propulsion is an area of science and physics that a lot of very well-educated and very serious-minded people are currently exploring:
“Every year, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics awards prizes for the best papers presented at its annual conference. Last year’s winner in the nuclear and future flight category went to a paper calling for experimental tests of an astonishing new type of engine. According to the paper, this hyperdrive motor would propel a craft through another dimension at enormous speeds. It could leave Earth at lunchtime and get to the moon in time for dinner.”
And who do we have to thank for this premier contribution to modern science and the stuff of science fiction?
“In 1957, German theoretical physicist Burkhard Heim publicly outlined a new idea for spacecraft propulsion. It was based on his new theory of physics which successfully described Einstein’s theory of Relativity within the framework of Quantum Mechanics, and it married the two so effectively that he became an instant celebrity. Such a goal was long sought by Einstein himself, but never realized.”
Might it be that within StarTrek lore there’s inspiration drawn from Burkhard Heim and his ideas? Could be. Maybe someone more familiar with Star Trek could fill us in on that one?
It’s also worth pointing out that there are fundamental differences between Warp Drive and the proposed Hyperdrive technology.. but that’s another story. Much too technical for now.
Amazon.co.uk Widgets
Transparent Aluminium
Clearly this can’t be real?
While seemingly improbable and bound to test the mettle of the best minds in metallurgy, transparent Aluminium (Aluminum for the US readers) is right here and right now:
“The Air Force Research Laboratory’s materials and manufacturing directorate is testing aluminum oxynitride – ALONtm – as a replacement for the traditional multi-layered glass transparencies now used in existing ground and air armored vehicles. … ALONtm is a ceramic compound with a high compressive strength and durability. When polished, it is the premier transparent armor for use in armored vehicles. … ALONtm is virtually scratch resistant, offers substantial impact resistance, and provides better durability and protection against armor piercing threats, at roughly half the weight and half the thickness of traditional glass transparent armor,…”
Hypospray
Bringing 23rd century into the 21st century would obviously be something of a shot in the arm for the medical industry and medical science in general, that’s for sure.
Also sure to draw a smile of satisfaction from Doctor “Bones” Leonard McCoy. So please welcome the Hypospray:
“It isn’t called HypoSpray, but the SonoPrep is a similar means to an identical end: painless injections. After 20 years of research and development, Prof. Joseph Krost of Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel has developed the device which applies ultrasonic waves to a small area of skin, opening microscopic pores and allowing medication to pass into a patient’s bloodstream.”
Cloaking Device
You’ll be forgiven for not seeing this one coming a little sooner.
However, for those guys currently developing Cloaking Device technology, it’s still very much a work in progress, with much more still to be done before a fully-working prototype is viable – which will no doubt be a relief to any fledgling Klingon Empire out there:
“Physicists have drawn up blueprints for a cloaking device that could, in theory, render objects invisible. Light normally bounces off an object’s surface making it visible to the human eye. But John Pendry and colleagues at Imperial College London, UK, have calculated that materials engineered to have abnormal optical properties, known as metamaterials, could make light pass around an object as so it appears as if it were not there at all.”
And for now, there are significant limitations that rely on some advances in other technologies:
“However, Pendry’s team’s design could currently only work at wavelengths larger than visible light. Designing a cloaking device for visible wavelengths could be tricky as it would involve creating nanoscale metamaterials.”
Universal Translator
Say what? The idea of a true, real Universal Translator will undoubtedly leave some people a little tongue-tied, but not for much longer.
So whether you’re fluent in Andorian or just learning Bajoran, getting lost in translation may be a thing of the past:
“ViA, a wearable computer maker, has developed an Earth-based language translator that will be available later this year to the U.S. military and English-speaking consumers.”
And here’s something from a recent press article:
“ViA Team Mission Statement: To develop a near real time, two way, mobile, lightweight, robust and low cost multi-lingual language translation device that can be operated with minimal training in a hands free manner.”
What can I say? Words fail me.
Force Fields
While this final technology was always likely to draw some flack, I can assure you, Force Fields are very real, tried & tested and are due to be in production and then on a battlefield (hopefully not too close to you or I) very soon:
“The system can simultaneously engage several threats, arriving from different directions, is effective on stationary or moving platforms, and is effective against short and long range threats (such as RPGs and ATGM). Trophy was designed to be effective in open or closed terrain, including urban area and can be operated under all weather conditions.”
Phasers
Clearly unfazed by the challenge of developing weapon technology from the 24th century, scientists have set to the task of creating stunning laser beams as a means of pacifying a foe:
“The US government has unveiled a ‘non-lethal’ laser rifle designed to dazzle enemy personnel without causing them permanent harm … The Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response (PHASR) rifle was developed at the Air Force Research Laboratory in New Mexico, US, and two prototypes have been delivered to military bases in Texas and Virginia for further testing.”
Tricorders
Looking set to measure up to the challenge of creating the portable medical diagnostician of the future, scanning through this excerpt, you’ll no doubt get a good fix on the many, many possibilities that will open up in the near future:
“Nanogen’s APEX scanner isn’t as flashy as Doctor McCoy’s medical tricorder – requiring direct contact with human tissue instead of a casual wave over the body – but Nova nevertheless predicts it will revolutionize diagnostic medicine. ‘We’re using electronics as the basis of our science,’ she says, adding that her technology could pose a competitive threat to conventional test tube laboratories, where results can be late and are occasionally wrong.”
Where to next?
There is no simple answer to this question. Threads that begun long before my time and the time of most of you reading this will extend onwards through our time and into some distant future. Some of those threads will merge and some will dwindle, fade into obscurity and some will – much like us – die.
However, some will find a second life and carry on renewed and afresh, while those that have persisted for centuries – and along the way, coalescing with others – will vanish and be replaced by something more permanent and appropriate for their time. But know this:
“At the present rate of progress, it is almost impossible to imagine any technical feat that cannot be achieved – if it can be achieved at all – within the next few hundred years.”
~ Arthur C. Clarke
« Sony Reader: The future of electronic books? — Could Apple exit the hardware business? Part 1 »OUCH! Ex-Robert Mueller Aide Says the Special Counsel is a Nasty Piece of Work
For months, The Gateway Pundit has been reporting on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s flaws exhibited in both the investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 presidential election and his personal track record as an attorney.
According to Los Angeles Times reporter David Willman, Mueller’s “tenacious yet linear approach to evaluating evidence led him to fumble the biggest U.S. terrorism investigation since 9/11.”
The case? Mueller personally managed the FBI investigation into who sent powdered anthrax to government officials, killing five people and injuring 17 others.
Los Angeles Times writes:
The FBI focused on Steven Hatfill, a virologist at the U.S. Army’s laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md. In January 2003, Mueller assured Congressional leaders in a closed-door briefing that bloodhounds had traced anthrax from the attacks to Hatfill. But Hatfill had no experience handling anthrax. Nor did he have access to anthrax stored at Ft. Detrick or elsewhere. Years later, the FBI would reject the bloodhound evidence as unreliable. […]Two months later, on Aug. 6, Mueller summoned senior investigators and prosecutors on the anthrax case to his seventh-floor office. The FBI would hold a news conference that afternoon, and he wanted to recap the case’s stunning denouement. Bruce E. Ivins, an Army microbiologist at Ft. Detrick who specialized in handling anthrax, had committed suicide after his lawyers informed him he was about to be charged with murder for the letter attacks. Evidence showed Ivins had created and held custody of a batch of anthrax traced by DNA to each of the killings. […]Mueller let others hold the news conference. Some aides who met Mueller that day think he was reluctant to publicly address the missteps with Hatfill, the bloodhounds and the long delay in focusing on Ivins.
Now this…
The Los Angeles Times published a piece on Saturday highlighting Mueller’s “surprising flaws.” However, it’s not so surprising if you have been following our coverage of the Special Counsel.
A former aide to Mueller believes his former boss is a nasty piece of work.
Newsweek reports:
Robert Mueller, special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, is a “gruff guy” who routinely undermined his subordinates and evaded responsibility as head of the FBI, according to several former aides and investigators who worked with Mueller interviewed by the Los Angeles Times. […] Those interviewed criticized Mueller’s handling of many high-profile cases stretching back to 1979, his temperament with government witnesses, and for directing his subordinates at the FBI to shield him from criticism. One former aide went so far as to say that Mueller is “someone that can’t accept the fact that he screwed up.” […] His success was marked by a disdain from some of his subordinates. As noted by the Times, Mueller sparked resentment “when he referred privately to reassigning career lawyers as ‘moving the furniture.’”
As The Gateway Pundit reported, Special Counsel Robert Mueller is under pressure to resign as his investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election drifts further and further away from its core purpose.
Many are asking if Mueller should resign after charging former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and business partner Rick Gates with alleged crimes that have nothing to do with President Trump’s 2016 campaign.
GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) introduced a resolution demanding Mueller resign immediately.
Republican Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) believes Mueller’s resignation is long over due. Even Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), who in the past has been bearish on backing the Special Counsel’s resignation, says he supports it if the evidence exists.A building in Tuktoyaktuk, NWT that had to be moved in the past year. Image: Chukita Gruben
In the past year, the Inuit community of Tuktoyaktuk in the Canadian Arctic, perched on the edge of the Beaufort Sea, has had to move five houses and a warehouse away from the shoreline because they were threatened by erosion, according to Mayor Darrel Nasogaluak.
"One was an emergency," Chukita Gruben, the community's 22-year-old former climate change coordinator, told me over the phone. "The other ones were about to fall."
Tuktoyaktuk, in the Northwest Territories—its population is around 900 people—is grappling with the effects of climate change. Permafrost melt is liquefying the ground under its buildings and roads. Sea levels are rising. The ice is melting earlier, and freezing later, meaning more open water and more storms. All this is contributing to the erosion that's eating away at the coast.
"Climate change is something the community's living with daily," Nasogaluak told me, and Tuk, as locals call it, is moving to adapt as quickly as it can.
Canadians, at least in the south, can sometimes feel smug about climate change. We read about places like the Maldives or even Miami being flooded by the rising seas, and it's scary—but for many of us, this feels far off from our own reality. Yet Canada is being reshaped by the same forces. In the next century, our coastline will look much different than it does today. The western Arctic, southeastern Atlantic Canada, and Vancouver are on the front lines.
Guoqi Han is a senior research scientist in physical oceanography with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He studies sea level rise and how it will impact Canada. I phoned him recently in Newfoundland, where he's based.
Sea levels are rising for two reasons, he explained: melting land ice, and the expansion of seawater as it warms up. But what many people don't realize, Han continued, is that water levels aren't rising in a uniform way—they impact different communities differently. "What really matters for local communities is the relative sea level," he said.
Halifax Harbour. Image: Anson Chappell/Flickr
Here's how the picture looks. By the year 2100, according to Han, Charlottetown and Halifax could see 50-70 cm sea level rise, on average. Vancouver can expect to see 40 cm, and Tuktoyaktuk will see a 50 cm sea level rise. "That's not the possible upper limit," he emphasized. The reality could be worse.
Meanwhile, in some places, like the eastern Arctic, which is close to the Greenland ice sheet, the sea level could actually drop a bit in years to come, according to Han.
How to explain the variation in sea level rise around the country?
Han traces it back to 20,000 years ago, when parts of Canada were covered in a massive glacier. The ice eventually retreated, but—in an effect known as post-glacial rebound—the land is still very, very slowly bouncing back where all this weight was once pressing it down. Parts of central Canada, around Churchill, Manitoba and the Hudson Bay coast, are rising by 10 mm per year, Han said. Areas around the Atlantic coast, including Halifax and Charlottetown, are sinking—about 1 or 2 mm per year. That makes them even more vulnerable to rising seas, as well as the increased hurricanes and storms brought by climate change.
Read More: Vancouver Considers Abandoning Parts of the Coast Because of Climate Change
Vancouver is a little bit different. It's in an active earthquake zone. There, tectonic movement plays a bigger role, Han explained—Vancouver Island is actually slowly rising, but if a major earthquake does hit, the picture could change dramatically.
Canada has recognized that adapting against the pressures of climate change will be important in years to come. As part of its federal budget earlier this year, it earmarked $2 billion for a climate disaster mitigation fund. Still, there's been plenty of criticism that various levels of government aren't adequately prepared for the challenges ahead.
People out in Stanley Park in Vancouver. Image: InSapphoWeTrust/Flickr
City planners in Atlantic Canada and on the West coast, as in Tuktoyaktuk, are working to buttress their cities against the effects of climate change. Vancouver is working under the assumption that it could see 50 cm of sea level rise by 2050, and 1 m by 2100, Angela Danyluk, a sustainability specialist with the city, told me. The city's adaptation strategy includes changes to building codes and a public education campaign, and officials haven't shied away from a discussion around whether infrastructure should even be removed from the coast.
It will change the way Vancouverites live day-to-day. "The lifestyle along the coast will change," Danyluk said. "It will be a new normal," one that includes annual preparations for winter storm surges and possible flooding, and maybe "reduced recreation opportunities" along the water, at least during some parts of the year. "The seawall will perhaps need to be shut down more often," she said. "Certain areas will have to be modified."
Tuktoyaktuk, of course, is already moving some of its buildings away from the coast. "We've lost a good month of the ice season," Nasogaluak told me. "Our oceans are freezing two weeks late, and breaking up two weeks earlier"—meaning there's an extra month of open water.
A home in Tuktoyaktuk that had to be moved this past year due to the threat of erosion. Image: Chukita Gruben
To protect its inhabitants, "we've put a line in the community where no one can build," he continued. "We can't protect them if they do build in that area." Nasogaluak said that imposing this restriction was very hard on people. But it just isn't safe anymore.
"We're a coastal community. We have coastal cabins and hunting areas," Nasogaluak continued. "People have had to relocate their camps where, for generations, they've hunted and fished." He said the community has applied for more government funding to help it withstand the pressures it's already facing—which are predicted to be more extreme in decades to come.
"We're a community of people who are very adaptive," he told me. "We're not panicking about climate change and sea level rise, but we need assistance. We're doing all we can."
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Police in San Jose released surveillance photos of a man who robbed a market earlier this year in hopes that someone will recognize him and turn him in. Police in San Jose released surveillance photos of a man who robbed a market earlier this year in hopes that someone will recognize him and turn him in. Photo: Courtesy / San Jose Police Department Photo: Courtesy / San Jose Police Department Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close San Jose gunpoint robbery caught on camera 1 / 3 Back to Gallery
San Jose police investigators are hoping surveillance images of a robbery suspect will help them identify the man who held up a store at gunpoint earlier this year, officials said Monday.
Just after 11 p.m. on March 29, a man and a woman entered Rose Market on East Santa Clara Street near 26th Street, police said.
The pair browsed briefly before leaving, but the man returned alone a few minutes later with a handgun and demanded money from the clerk, police said. Once he got the cash, he fled, getting into a black or gray 4-door sedan, officials said.
The man was described as 18 to 21 years old, weighing approximately 200 pounds with short brown hair. He was wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and a red hooded jacket. The woman was described as 18 to 21, with a heavy build and long brown hair. She was wearing a black jacket, officials said.
Police encouraged anyone who recognizes either of the suspects to call (408) 277-4166.
Kale Williams is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @sfkaleCLEMSON, S.C. — Tennessee basketball passed its last test of the preseason Sunday afternoon.
Sophomore forward Grant Williams led the way with 24 points and six rebounds and redshirt sophomore guard Lamonte Turner sparked the Vols early in the second half and hit late free throws to help his team hang on for a 71-67 win over Clemson at Littlejohn Arena.
Turner finished with 14 points and six boards, center Kyle Alexander had eight points and six rebounds and sophomore guard Jordan Bowden added another eight points. Junior wing/forward Admiral Schofield was quiet most of the day, finishing with six points.
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The exhibition game — approved late last month with an NCAA waiver allowing it to be played with proceeds going to hurricane relief — provided the Vols with a few different tests.
They built a double-digit lead with an early run, scoring 14 of the game's first 16 points. They had to withstand a Clemson run, then retake control of the game in the second half, too.
The Vols were able to do so in the opening minutes after halftime thanks to a pair of back-to-back 3-point field goals from Turner, building the lead to six. He later tipped in a missed Bowden 3-pointer, while Bowden and Williams added field goals to build the lead to 10 with just over seven minutes left.
There was a late run that had to be weathered, too.
Clemson scored 10 straight during a 16-7 run to cut a Tennessee lead that was 63-46 with 6:04 left down to 65-62 with 1:23 to go. Schofield answered with a bucket with 70 seconds left to build the lead back to five, at 67-62.
Schofield beat the Clemson press for a breakaway dunk with 3.5 seconds left, putting the Vols up 71-67.
Both teams traded runs after 10 minutes of sloppy basketball each way in the first half.
The Vols jumped out to a 14-2 lead over the first eight minutes, as it took Clemson until the 11:47 mark of the first half to make its first field goal.
The Tigers woke up with a 7-0 run and later in the half put together a 12-1 run to take the lead on two Shelton Mitchell free throws with 2:40 left in the first half.
Tennessee closed the first 20 minutes by scoring six of the half's final eight points, taking a 28-25 lead into the break when Lamonte Turner hit a midrange jumpshot to beat the expiring shot clock.
Williams, back in the starting line up after coming off the bench Thursday against Carson-Newman, carried the Vols in the first half with 12 of Tennessee's 28 points. The sophomore forward was a perfect 6-for-6 from the floor.
Williams started alongside point guard Jordan Bone, guard Jordan Bowden, wing/forward Admiral Schofield and center Kyle Alexander. Lamonte Turner, John Fulkerson, Derrick Walker and Yves Pons were the first four Vols off the bench, respectively.
Tennessee opens the regular-season schedule against Presbyterian Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern Time at Thompson-Boling Arena. The game will be available as an online-live stream through WatchESPN.com or the ESPN app for mobile devices.
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Contact Grant Ramey by email at [email protected] or on Twitter (@GrantRamey), or FOLLOW GOVOLS247 ON FACEBOOK.Just three days before LG is expected to unwrap the LG G3, a dummy model of the phone has been spotted and photographed. The dummy version of LG's next flagship handset was spotted inside a store in Korea, which you can see from the pictures, is pretty well stocked with LG devices. We can see the LG G Flex and the LG G Pro 2 among the other models on display.Earlier today, we showed you the wireless charger for the device, which leaked out in a photo revealing its second function as a stand for the phone. With a 3000mAh battery expected on the handset, you might be able to get through most of the day before needing a recharge.In the race to see which manufacturer will be the the first to deliver a phone to the U.S. sporting a 1440 x 2560 QHD resolution display, it would appear that LG has the edge over Samsung, which has yet to announce the Samsung Galaxy S5 Prime. The latter is expected to match the resolution of the LG G3 display.Check out the series of photos showing off the dummy model of the LG G3 by visiting the slideshow below.Thanks for the tip!source: Underkg.co.kr (translated)In the most polite, good-teammate way possible, Greg Jennings has explained the essential problem with Christian Ponder.
Christian Ponder is afraid to go down the field.
Jennings spoke to ESPN on a number of matters, including the quarterback situation in Minnesota. As we all saw with our own eyes (and the stats bore it out rather starkly), Jennings performed much better last season when Matt Cassel and not Ponder was under center. And that wasn’t an accident.
Jennings told ESPN the basic difference between Cassel and Ponder. He was nice about it, but you can tell he isn’t particularly high on Ponder’s approach.
Both quarterbacks had different ways they saw the game, which is why you saw Matt and I have success. Christian and I, not that we didn’t have success, but his safety net was more of the checkdown. Matt, being in an offense where he’s been able to move the ball and have success in New England and Kansas City, he understands that in order to win games, you’ve got to move the ball down the field.
Essentially, Jennings is saying that Ponder is gun shy. Ponder doesn’t want to cut it loose down the field unless the receiver is wide open. And sometimes, as we also saw last year, even when the receiver is open Ponder still won’t cut it loose.
Ponder’s take-no-chances approach is probably at least partly the fault of the now-departed coaching staff, who clearly babied the quarterback too much, and never got him to where he felt comfortable letting it fly.
But it’s not all on the coaches. A player invested with natural confidence doesn’t need to be coached into an aggressive mindset. He has that mindset to begin with, and sometimes may need to be coached out of it, for his own protection.
Ponder is not aggressive enough by nature and was pushed into an even more timid mindset by Bill Musgrave and Leslie Frazier. It probably took Greg Jennings all of five minutes to figure out what the deal was with Ponder. It’s no shock that he prefers playing with Matt Cassel, a quarterback who, even if he is only average or slightly above overall, at least isn’t afraid to go deep when the opportunity presents.
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Around 30,000 mentally ill people will spend Christmas waiting for a benefits appeal tribunal, campaigners said today.
Some will spend the festive period missing out on more than £100 a week, according to new analysis of Government figures by Rethink Mental Illness.
The majority of decisions taken to appeal tribunals are overturned.
The charity estimates more than 15,000 people with mental illness will be waiting for a tribunal hearing to claim Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).
Almost 14,000 will be waiting for a similar hearing over Personal Independence Payment (PIP), according to its analysis.
Around two thirds of appeals for ESA and PIP see the decision overturned in the claimant's favour in 2016/17, according to Ministry of Justice figures.
The Department for Work and Pensions says a small fraction of claims are appealed and most are overturned because claimants submit new evidence.
Brian Dow, director of external affairs at Rethink Mental Illness, said: "Christmas is a time to celebrate, but tens of thousands of people with mental illness will be spending it without the money that they should be entitled to, trapped in a long and stressful appeals process.
"The money from these benefits can be a lifeline. It keeps food in the fridge, bills paid, and allows people to leave the house and be part of their community.
"The fact that two thirds of these decisions will be successfully overturned reflects a system that cannot accurately assess and manage mental illness.
"Thousands of people go through a lengthy, stressful process that can wreak havoc with their mental health, only to come out with an incorrect decision that takes four months to appeal."
Rethink Mental Illness says many awaiting a tribunal on Christmas Day will have been waiting since the summer, with average waiting times for tribunal decisions reaching 18 weeks earlier this year.
The analysis coincides with a major new report from the charity, which found that 38% of claimants felt that delays in decisions led to a deterioration in their mental health.
Some 19% had to take higher doses of medication in order to cope with the increased stress.
One person told the charity they were left waiting nine months to get to the tribunal stage.
"We need a fundamental overhaul of how mental heath is assessed," Mr Dow said.
"The Government has let too many opportunities pass by and if it is really serious about creating a better society for people with mental health this has to be a priority."
The charity is calling for an overhaul of the assessment process for both PIP and ESA, and for those with the most severe mental health conditions to be exempt from face-to-face assessments.
It has also called for all assessors and DWP decision makers to be appropriately trained in mental health, with previous concern such conditions were being assessed by physiotherapists.
Some 524,000 people claiming PIP have a psychiatric disorder as their main condition - around a third of all claimants.
Around half those claiming ESA do so due to mental and behavioural disorder.
Last month Sir Ernest Ryder, senior president of tribunals, said the quality of evidence provided by the DWP in benefits cases was so poor it would be "wholly inadmissible" in any other court.
A DWP spokeswoman said: "Assessments are an important part of PIP and ESA to ensure that people get the right level of support.
"Only a small proportion of all decisions are overturned at appeal - just 4% of PIP and 4% of ESA.
"However, we continuously review our processes to ensure they're working in the best way possible, including ending ESA reassessments for people with the most severe conditions."
Ministers say that PIP looks specifically at how someone's life is affected by mental health, unlike the old system which did not sufficiently recognise mental health problems.
There are now more people with a mental health condition receiving the higher rates of both PIP components.Suspected Islamic militants struck in the heart of Nigeria on Monday with a massive rush-hour bomb blast at a bus station that killed at least 72 people and wounded 164 in the deadliest attack ever on the nation's capital.
Survivors screamed in anguish and the stench of burning fuel and flesh hung over the area, where billows of black smoke rose as firefighters worked to put out the fires. Rescue workers and police gathered body parts as ambulances rushed the wounded to hospitals.
A bystander reacts as she sees victims of a bomb blast arriving at the Asokoro General Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria, on Monday. A bomb at a crowded bus station on the outskirts of the city killed at least 35 people during rush hour on Monday morning, witnesses said, the first such attack near the Nigerian capital for two years. Body parts and blood were strewn across the station. (Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)
Visiting the blast scene, President Goodluck Jonathan blamed Boko Haram, the homegrown terrorist network that has targeted schools, churches, mosques, villages and government facilities, killing thousands in its five-year campaign to make Nigeria an Islamic state.
Authorities said at least 72 people were killed and 164 wounded, though the death toll was sure to climb because it did not include victims whose bodies were dismembered, the health ministry said. It was the deadliest attack yet in Abuja, the centrally located capital that is hundreds of miles from Boko Haram's stronghold in Nigeria's northeast.
"I can't count the number of people that died. They took them in open vehicles. People were running and there was confusion," said civil servant Ben Nwachukwu.
No claim of responsibility
A counter-terrorism expert said the bomb appeared to have been buried underground, while the emergency management agency said the explosives were apparently hidden in a vehicle.
Bus driver Tunji Adeniran said he was about to leave the bus terminal when the explosion struck. "The bomb shattered my vehicle," he said. "One vehicle was in front of me. As he started his car, I heard a loud noise. I thought it was his car that exploded."
Adeniran said his brother, bank worker Mohammed Ochai, was fatally injured in the blast and died on the way to the hospital.
The explosion, which struck at 6:45 a.m. in the poor satellite neighbourhood of Nyanya, left a 1.2-metre-deep crater and destroyed 16 luxury buses and 24 minibuses and cars, police spokesman Frank Mba said.
Security personnel battled to cordon off the area as a bomb detonation team combed it for secondary explosives amid fiery blasts from exploding car tanks ignited by the blaze. Thousands of bystanders gathered, ignoring warnings to stay away.
While Jonathan blamed Boko Haram, there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, though bus stations are a favoured Boko Haram target. In March 2013, the extremists drove a car bomb into the main bus station in Kano, Nigeria's second-biggest city, killing at least 25 people.
Baird slams 'cowardly' attack
Touring the blast site Monday, Jonathan tried to downplay the terrorist network's reach, saying, "the issue of Boko Haram is temporary. Surely, we will get over it."
Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird condemned what he called a "cowardly terrorist attack."
"Such brutal acts of terror cannot be allowed to go unpunished," he said in a statement. "Canada reaffirms its support to Nigeria as it combats terrorism."
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the Obama administration was "outraged by these senseless acts of violence against innocent civilians."
Canada issues Nigeria travel advisory Canada's foreign affairs department issued an advisory warning Canadians against 'non-essential' travel to Nigeria. The advisory said the country is at a'significant risk of terrorism, crime, inter-communal clashes, armed attacks and kidnappings.'
"We encourage the government of Nigeria to conduct a full investigation to identify and bring justice to the perpetrators of these attacks. We continue to stand with the Nigerian government and people as they grapple with violent extremism."
Interpol secretary general Ronald K. Noble offered to deploy a special response team to help investigate what he deplored as "this mass murder."
Boko Haram's campaign to make Nigeria an Islamic state poses the greatest threat to its cohesion and security and imperils nearby countries where its fighters have gone to train. Fighters from Chad, Cameroon and Niger have been found among extremists in Nigeria, whose 170 million people are divided almost equally between Muslims living mainly in the north and Christians in the south.
While the capital of Africa's most populous country had remained relatively peaceful even as Boko Haram attacks in northeast Nigeria have increased, there have been notable exceptions, including a 2011 car bombing of the local UN headquarters that killed 21 people and wounded 60.
Last week, Boko Haram suspects detained at the State Security Service headquarters in Abuja, next door to the presidential villa, staged a failed jailbreak in which it is suspected that they had outside help. The agency said 21 detainees were killed and two agents wounded in a shootout that lasted more than two hours.
In a warning emailed to U.S. citizens after Monday's blast, the U.S. State Department urged avoiding locations where large crowds gather such as churches, mosques and markets, as well as hotels and malls frequented by foreigners.Enterprises earn failing grades for their cyber security efforts, and small businesses should take watch
Some disturbing information coming from our friendly neighborhood anti-malware stalwarts Malwarebytes. It seems based on findings from a recent survey from the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) reveal that enterprise-class organizations (i.e. 1000+ employees) are still much too exposed to targeted attacks on their systems.
While there have been improvements to the general security level of most large organizations, the research has shown that businesses need to prioritize the addition of new layers to their endpoint security. The major reason for this is because currently employed protections are not enough to prevent advanced attacks such as highly sophisticated malware, zero-days, social engineering, and polymorphic threats.
In the past 24 months there has been a surge of these highly sophisticated attacks occurring globally, and even the most security-conscious organizations can fall victim to them. For example Apple is traditionally considered to be highly secure – yet the recent Apple Dev Center attack succeeded because of a phishing campaign, and even more recently Mac OS X devices have been targeted by a new FBI Ransomware.
Some other highlights of this study include:
49 percent of organizations reported a successful malware attack in the last 24 months.
29 percent of organizations believe that the increasing use of social networks was responsible for those attacks mentioned above.
67 percent of respondents claim that the malware landscape in 2013 is worse, or much worse that in 2011.
74 percent of enterprises have increased their security budget over the past 24 months in direct response to more sophisticated malware threats.
62 percent of respondents believe that their host-based security software is not effective for detecting zero day and / or polymorphic threats.
85 percent of IT security professionals (given everything they know about cyber security) are concerned about some type of massive cyber-attack that could impact critical infrastructure, the economy, and / or US national security
66 percent of US-based respondents do not believe the US Federal Government is doing enough to help the private sector cope with the current cyber security and threat landscape.
Also check out this infographic from the ESG:
Recommendations:
This particular advice is something that we have been saying to clients for years, so it is particularly gratifying to see some research supporting our claims.
To quote Marcin Kleczynski, CEO of Malwarebytes “As cyber-attacks become more sophisticated, IT security professionals are realizing that relying on only one layer of endpoint security isn’t enough. Each endpoint needs multiple layers of malware detection to ensure complete protection. The reality is, most anti-virus products will miss nine out of ten zero-day malware threats, and having a layered approach blocks advanced threats that traditional antivirus scanners may fail to detect.”
If you are a business owner (of any size, not just enterprises) – you simply need to start using multiple security layers in order to (better) ensure that your systems remain secure. For example there is a great deal of difference between a virus-based attack, malware-based attack, zero-day attacks, phishing attack etc. – and one security layer simply cannot account for / protect against all of these threat vectors.
Examples of adding multiple security layers that (even small) businesses can utilize:
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ologist has told him that without a miracle, he only has months to live," said Brenda Jones, Simon's mother.Simon took that news and came up with an idea - a two-week trip to cross things off his bucket list.So far, he and his family have gone rock climbing in Colorado and ziplining in Utah.He bungee-jumped off the Stratosphere in Las Vegas.And now he's flyboarding with Jetpack America in Newport Beach.Simon has been logging his experiences on his Facebook page : "Simon Says: Live a Better Life."He hopes to inspire others to persevere and rejoice even in suffering."He has continued to fight all the way through, he's never let cancer define who he is," said Brenda Jones.As Simon says: "There's no point in not being strong and no matter what life throws your way, you can always use it to make the world a better place."CORRUPT MEDIA Lies About Hillary’s OSU Rally to Make Her Appear Popular
Hillary held a rally at Ohio State on Monday night.
The media cheered the size of her rally – her largest rally to date.
Hillary Clinton at Ohio State. Crowd continues to the right of the frame and behind. pic.twitter.com/H8MXw2x31b — Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) October 10, 2016
The media said as many as 20,000 turned out to see Hillary.
Cleveland.com reported 18,500 attended the Hillary rally.
Politics USA says nearly 20,000 people showed up.
NOW HERE’S WHAT THEY DIDN’T TELL YOU—
** The media reported 13,500 watched from inside the fence. Another 5,000 watched from outside the fence. These inflated numbers were combined to make the headline that 18,500 attended the rally.
Donald Trump has overflow crowds EVERY DAY at his rallies across the country. The media NEVER includes the overflow crowd in his rally totals.
** The OSU rally featured celebrity DJ Samantha Ronson, who played music beforehand which drew in many Hillary “supporters” to the venue. The media buried this fact.
** 35,000 came out to see Obama in 2010 for an off year rally. So Hillary still does not have the star power of previous Democratic candidates.
Obviously, the media is working overtime at this point to prop up Crooked Hillary.Sen. Rand Paul Randal (Rand) Howard PaulThe Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump escalates fight with NY Times The 10 GOP senators who may break with Trump on emergency MORE (R-Ky.) is threatening to filibuster any “long-term extension” of a controversial intelligence program meant to allow the government to collect data on foreign targets without a warrant.
The program, which is set to expire at the end of this year if Congress doesn't act, has drawn ire from civil liberties advocates because of the incidental collection on U.S. citizens that occurs under the law.
“I will actively oppose and filibuster any long term extension of warrantless searches of American citizens,” Paul tweeted on Wednesday.
I will actively oppose and filibuster any long term extension of warrantless searches of American citizens — Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 20, 2017
The spy program, authorized by Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), allows the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct surveillance on non-American targets outside the United States without a warrant, even in cases when they communicate with Americans.
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Civil liberties advocates have argued for reform of the law, particularly to close the “backdoor search” loophole that lets federal investigators search through the data incidentally collected on Americans for investigations.
There have been competing proposals introduced by lawmakers in the House and Senate to reform and extend the program. Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have been pressing for a clean reauthorization of the program, characterizing it vital to national security. Proponents of the law say it provides adequate privacy protections for U.S. citizens.
The House Rules Committee on Tuesday released a draft bill that would reauthorize the program. Privacy-minded lawmakers have already criticized the bill as doing little to reform 702.
“This bill is an eleventh-hour attempt to sneak an unchecked warrantless surveillance program through Congress,” Sen. Ron Wyden Ronald (Ron) Lee WydenSenate reignites blue slip war over Trump court picks Overnight Health Care — Presented by National Taxpayers Union — Top Dems call for end to Medicaid work rules | Chamber launching ad blitz against Trump drug plan | Google offers help to dispose of opioids Top Dems call for end to Medicaid work rules after 18,000 lose coverage in Arkansas MORE (D-Ore.) said in a statement Wednesday morning.
“The legislation posted late yesterday is a clear step backward for Americans’ rights. It does nothing to check the warrantless backdoor searches of Americans’ communications,” Wyden added. “The bill also fails to codify the current prohibition on ‘abouts’ collection, in which communications entirely among innocent Americans can be swept up if they reference a target’s email address.”
There have been rumblings on Capitol Hill that lawmakers could try to include language in must-pass spending legislation to extend the controversial program. On Tuesday, Paul and Sen. Mike Lee Michael (Mike) Shumway LeePush to end U.S. support for Saudi war hits Senate setback The Hill's Morning Report — Emergency declaration to test GOP loyalty to Trump The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump escalates fight with NY Times MORE (R-Utah) said they would oppose any spending bill that included a permanent reauthorization of the provision, according to the Washington Examiner.
Paul, Lee and others have instead pushed for a short-term reauthorization of Section 702 so that lawmakers have more time to debate the law.
Congress faces a Dec. 22 deadline to fund the government.The former Newcastle United midfielder Jermaine Jenas says if he was a young player now, he wouldn't sign for the club.
Jenas joined Newcastle as a teenager in 2002 but says the club has different aspirations now to what it did when he signed.
"When you look at Newcastle now, I think they feel lost to an extent.
"I joined Newcastle because they were a club full of aspiration with world class players. Shearer was there, Bellamy, Dyer. Players all striving to get in the Champions League and we achieved that two years on the spin.
When asked whether he would join the club now if he was a young player, Jenas responded, "I wouldn't have gone there, it's as simple as that.
"As a teenager aspiring to achieve things in the Premier League is Newcastle one of those clubs anymore which make you go 'yeah I know I can go there and achieve a lot and develop into the player that I want?' I'm not so sure."
This clip is from 5 live sport, Sunday 5th April 2015.Looking for news you can trust?
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Speaking of poll aggregators and the Senate race, here’s an interesting infographic from Vox:
I actually haven’t been following the polling super closely, so I didn’t realize that basically no one is still projecting a Republican takeover except for Nate Silver—though things are still close enough that none of this probably means much yet. We’re still six weeks away from Election Day, and a lot can happen in six weeks.
Still, there’s a bottom line here for reporters: Republicans are no longer favored to take control of the Senate. At least, not by the folks who have had the best records for projecting election results over the past decade or so. This should no longer be the default assumption of campaign roundup stories.
There’s much more at the link, including forecasts for individual races.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption PM David Cameron: "We need to keep turning up the pressure until Russia decides to behave like any civilised country"
David Cameron has warned that sanctions against Russia will continue to be tightened unless Russian President Vladimir Putin "changes his approach".
The PM likened the situation in Ukraine to Belgium and Poland "being trampled on" to start two world wars in Europe.
"We are not looking for a military conflict," he told a PM Direct event.
But Russia needed Europe and the US more than they needed it, so sanctions would continue until it "decides to behave like any civilised country".
Details of the latest EU sanctions package will be announced later on Wednesday. It is likely to include a new list of Russian oligarchs who are to face asset freezes and travel bans.
There will also be measures aimed at the oil sector, defence equipment and sensitive technologies.
'Take a stand'
Russia has come under increased pressure after the downing of the Malaysia Airlines jet that killed 298 people in eastern Ukraine.
Western nations have said there is growing evidence the plane was hit by a Russian-supplied missile fired by rebels. Russia has denied supplying heavy weapons to the rebels, and Russia and the rebels blame Ukrainian government forces.
At one of his general question and answer sessions, Mr Cameron told water industry workers at United Utilities in Warrington: "We can't be 100% certain yet that it was separatists firing a Russian-built weapon, but that looks by far the most likely explanation."
After recalling the circumstances of the two world wars, he said Ukraine was an independent country and "there is no doubt in my mind that it is Russian money, it is Russian people, it is Russian weapons that are being sent in to that country to help the separatists".
Image copyright AFP Image caption President Putin has urged the Russian defence sector to rely less on foreign components
He added: "We're not about to launch a European war, we're not about to send the fleet to the Black Sea, we're not looking for a military confrontation. But what we should do is use the economic power that we have - the European Union and United States of America - to demonstrate to Russia that what Russia is doing is unacceptable."
"We need to keep turning up that pressure... it will be a tightening of the ratchet unless Mr Putin changes his approach - there's still time for him to do that, and he should."
Earlier, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said the aim was to put pressure on Russian banks and industrialists - the "cronies around Mr Putin, who will feel the pain personally" - to make them "think very hard about the impact this is having on Russia's economy", said the foreign secretary.
Sanctions are already having significant costs on Russia, with its central bank spending tens of billions of dollars in order to defend the rouble, a senior state department official has told the BBC.
'Unavoidable'
Mr Hammond told BBC Breakfast: "The sanctions package is designed to hurt Russia more than it hurts us, but it would be absurd to suggest that we can impose wide-ranging sanctions on the Russian economy without also having some impact on ourselves.
"So our discussions last week focused on a package which shares the burden fairly across the EU, making sure that the big economies share the pain.
"But if we are going to take a stand against Russian aggression, if we are going to insist on Russia behaving like a civilised nation in the modern world, then we have to be prepared to pay the price for doing that."
Image copyright AFP Image caption Buildings in rebel-controlled Donetsk have come under sustained artillery bombardment
He said the sanctions regime would "go on for as long as it needs to go on".
But he suggested if Russia began to cooperate with the international community over the downing of the Malaysia Airlines jet and ended support for Ukrainian rebels, then the EU could begin to "ratchet down" the sanctions.
He rejected suggestions Britain was likely to suffer most from sanctions, saying Russian banks only made up a small proportion of business in the City.
'Disappointed with the EU'
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's ambassador to EU: "The Russian economy.... will survive"
US President Barack Obama has announced new economic sanctions against Russia, including banning people in the US from banking with three Russian banks.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the latest EU measures as "unavoidable".
Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's ambassador to the EU, told the BBC: "I am disappointed because the EU is slipping along the tracks that lead nowhere."
Last weekend, the EU subjected a further 15 Russian individuals and 18 entities to asset freezes and visa bans for their alleged involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
The list of 87 targets of EU sanctions now includes the heads of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and foreign intelligence, the president of Chechnya, as well as two Crimean energy firms.
However, UK company BP, which owns nearly 20% of Russian state oil giant Rosneft, has warned that further sanctions against Russia could "adversely impact" its performance.This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We turn right now to Dan Ellsberg. I want to turn to President Obama, who was questioned by supporters of accused U.S. Army whistleblower Bradley Manning last week at a fundraiser in San Francisco. The President’s comments were recorded on a cell phone. He said that what Bradley Manning had done was different from what Dan Ellsberg had revealed a generation ago. Listen very carefully. This is a cell phone recording.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We’re a nation of laws. We don’t individually make our own decisions about how the laws operate. No, he’s doing fine, he’s doing fine; I mean, he’s being courteous, and he’s asking a question. He broke the law.
LOGAN PRICE: You can make it harder to break the law, even to tell the truth.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, what he did was he dumped —
LOGAN PRICE: Isn’t that just the same thing as what Daniel Ellsberg did?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: No, it wasn’t the same thing. What it was, Ellsberg’s material wasn’t classified in the same way.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama openly declaring that Bradley Manning — who has yet to stand trial — has broken the law. According to Obama, the cases are not similar because, quote, “Ellsberg’s material was not classified the same way.” Dan Ellsberg is on the phone with us right now, the world-renowned whistleblower who exposed the Pentagon Papers some 40 years ago.
Dan, he says don’t compare Bradley Manning with you.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: Well, nearly everything the President has said represents a confusion about the state of the law and his own responsibilities. Everyone is focused, I think, on the fact that his commander-in-chief has virtually given a directed verdict to his subsequent jurors, who will all be his subordinates in deciding the guilt in the trial of Bradley Manning. He’s told them already that their commander, on who their whole career depends, regards him as guilty and that they can disagree with that only at their peril. In career terms, it’s clearly enough grounds for a dismissal of the charges, just as my trial was dismissed eventually for governmental misconduct.
But what people haven’t really focused on, I think, is another problematic aspect of what he said. He not only was identifying Bradley Manning as the source of the crime, but he was assuming, without any question —
AMY GOODMAN: Dan, we have four seconds.
DANIEL ELLSBERG: — that a crime has been committed. Hello?
AMY GOODMAN: We have four seconds. And we’re going to have to leave it there, but we’re going to pick it up with you tomorrow. Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower, thanks for joining us.It’s easy to forget these days, but former President George W. Bush’s illegal warrantless surveillance program was never halted by Congress, nor by the Obama administration; it was merely legalized in a 2008 law called the FISA Amendments Act. That means the surveillance of Americans’ international phone calls and Internet use—complete with secret rooms in AT&T data centers around the country—is likely still ongoing.
On Monday, a federal appeals court reinstated a key legal challenge to that surveillance: a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and others within hours of the FISA Amendments Act (PDF) being signed into law. The lawsuit attacks the constitutionality of the legislation, which allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans without a probable-cause warrant, so long as one of the parties to the communication resides outside the US, and is suspected of a link to terrorism.
The decision by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals means the ACLU, and other rights groups involved in the suit, might get their day in court. “This is a really big victory,” said ACLU spokeswoman Rachel Myers. “The ruling is that you don’t have to prove you’ve been spied on to challenge an unlawful spy act.”
A lower court had ruled the ACLU, Amnesty International, Global Fund for Women, Global Rights, Human Rights Watch, International Criminal Defence Attorneys Association, The Nation magazine, PEN American Center, Service Employees International Union, and other plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case, because they could not demonstrate that they were subject to the eavesdropping.
The groups appealed, arguing that they often work with overseas dissidents who might be targets of the National Security Agency program. Instead of speaking with those people on the phone or via e-mails, the groups asserted that they have had to make expensive overseas trips in a bid to maintain attorney-client confidentiality. The plaintiffs, some of them journalists, also claim the 2008 legislation chills their speech, and violates their Fourth Amendment privacy rights.
Without ruling on the merits of the case, the appeals court on Monday agreed with the plaintiffs that they have ample reason to fear the surveillance program, and thus have legal standing to pursue their claim. From the ruling:
[The] plaintiffs have good reason to believe that their communications in particular, will fall within the scope of the broad surveillance that they can assume the government will conduct. The plaintiffs testify that in order to carry out their jobs they must regularly communicate by telephone and e-mail with precisely the sorts of individuals that the government will most likely seek to monitor—i.e., individuals “the US government believes or believed to be associated with terrorist organizations,” “political and human rights activists who oppose governments that are supported economically or militarily by the US government,” and “people located in geographical areas that are a special focus of the US government’s counterterrorism or diplomatic efforts.” The plaintiffs’ assessment that these individuals are likely targets of [FISA Amendments Act] surveillance is reasonable, and the government has not disputed that assertion.
The case will now return to the courtroom of US District Court Judge John G. Koeltl in New York, where, if past is prologue, the Obama administration will play its trump card: an assertion of the powerful State Secrets Privilege that lets the executive branch effectively kill lawsuits by claiming they threaten to expose national security secrets.
“State secrets could definitely come into it,” Myers said.
The courts tend to defer to such claims, but in a rare exception in 2008, a San Francisco federal judge refused to throw out a wiretapping lawsuit against AT&T under the State Secrets Privilege. The AT&T lawsuit was later killed anyway, because the same FISA Amendments Act also granted the phone companies retroactive legal immunity for their participation in the NSA program. That immunity does not apply to the government.
The FISA Amendments Act—which passed with the support of then-senator Obama—generally requires the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court to rubber stamp terror-related electronic surveillance requests. The government does not have to identify the target or facility to be monitored. It can begin surveillance a week before making the request, and the surveillance can continue during the appellate process in a rare instance of rejection by the secret FISA court.Loading... Loading...
It is already legal for the mainstream media to broadcast “fake news” propaganda for the US government—how will that increase with advancements in artificial intelligence technology?
(TFTP) Advancements in artificial intelligence and computer-generated imagery are creating new concerns about what the definition of “fake news” could become once mainstream media outlets get ahold of the latest technology—and it is all completely “legal,” thanks to programs such as Operation Mockingbird.
Although trust in the mainstream media has reached an all-time low, there is typically the general belief that—no matter how political pundits try to spin the soundbites—a video of President Trump talking, is in fact a video of Trump talking.
However, as Business Insider noted, recently released demos showing the power of CGI technology are serving as “a sign of what is to come.” This month, researchers from the University of Washington released a video titled “Synthesizing Obama: Learning Lip Sync from Audio,” in which they used AI to create a fake video of former President Obama speaking.
A similar study, titled “Face2Face: Real-time Face Capture and Reenactment of RGB Videos,” was published in March 2016 following a collaboration between researchers from Germany’s University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, the Max-Planck Institute for Informatics and Stanford University in California.
The researchers developed technology that “animates the facial expressions of the target video by a source actor and re-renders the manipulated output video in a photo-realistic fashion.” As a result, it gave them the ability to transfer the facial expressions on one individual onto the faces of figures such as Obama, Trump, and even Russian President Putin.
As the development of this technology continues, and its use becomes more mainstream, concerns grow over how it will make an impact, if and when it is used by the media. The lack of trust in the mainstream media is not unwarranted—especially when the media’s transgressions include things such as selling the American public the lies that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq before the Iraq War, and that the Syrian government attacked its own people using chemical weapons.
As you may have noticed, many of the lies the mainstream media relays to the public are based on narratives that seem to go hand-in-hand with the desired policy initiatives sought by the United States government—and that link is not by coincidence.
As The Free Thought Project reported in October 2015, Operation Mockingbird—a CIA program that recruited journalists to gather information and to influence public opinion on behalf of the agency during the Cold War—is still alive and well in the U.S.
While the program officially lasted for about 30 years, its influence was evident in 2011 when a State Department official “planted” several “questions and concerns” with CBS News for a 60 Minutes interview with WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange. When the exchange was revealed to the public, CBS insisted that it asked the State Department for its input as a way to add “balance” to the program.
While Operation Mockingbird may have started out as one of the CIA’s many questionable programs, it received official approval from the U.S. government when it was legalized in September 2016. The Department of Justice Office of Inspector General published a document titled, “A Review of the FBI’s Impersonation of a Journalist in a Criminal Investigation,” which showed the government’s approval for FBI agents impersonating journalists when conducting undercover investigations.
The fact is that no matter what the official title may be, the principles behind Operation Mockingbird are alive and well, and the continuing advancement of artificial intelligence technology raises new questions about how the manipulation of political figures will be used by the media to spread the government’s agenda.
Help Us Be The Change We Wish To See In The World.JERUSALEM -- An Israeli soldier who was indicted two years ago in the fatal shooting of two Gaza Strip women during the 22-day military offensive Operation Cast Lead has agreed to a plea bargain in which he will serve 45 days in jail for illegal use of a weapon, Israeli Army Radio reported Sunday.
The soldier, who was not identified, could have faced up to 20 years in prison on the manslaughter charge.
His case was one of a handful of criminal prosecutions -- and one of the most serious -- to arise from Israel's conduct during the 2008-2009 offensive against Hamas-controlled Gaza, an operation aimed at stopping militants from firing rockets into southern Israel.
The incident was among those mentioned in the United Nations' Goldstone Report, which accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians during the conflict.
Majda Abu Hajaj, 35, and her mother, Raya Salama Abu Hajaj, 64, were killed as they fled fighting with a group of civilians carrying a white flag, witnesses at the time reported.
Israeli human rights groups viewed the case against the soldier as an acknowledgment by the military that at least one of its soldiers deliberately fired at civilians.
The soldier admitted during a preliminary investigation that he fired his weapon into the group without permission, hitting one of the people, according to Israel media. He said he first fired warning shots and feared militants hiding among the group.
His attorneys later argued that there was no conclusive proof that his client killed either of the women.
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-- Edmund SandersA father has been found guilty of murdering his 13-day-old son after shaking him so violently he suffered 'catastrophic and irreversible' brain damage – and some of the worst injuries medics had ever seen.
Daniel Sanzone, 23, inflicted fatal injuries on Joshua Millinson after shaking him at the family home in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, on October 24 last year.
After the attack, Sanzone immediately lied about what had happened, telling the child's mother, Zoe Howell, that a thud she had heard while out of the room had been caused when he 'dropped the remote'.
Throughout the three-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court, Sanzone sat in the dock with his head down and declined to give evidence.
During the trial the jury heard the horrifying 999 call made by Howell during which Sanzone told an audibly worried and frustrated call-handler to wait 'two minutes' when he was instructed to start CPR.
Scroll down for video
Daniel Sanzone, 23, (left) inflicted fatal injuries on his baby son Joshua Millinson (right) after shaking him at the family home in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, on October 24 last year
Miss Howell, who had denied causing or allowing the death of her only child, was cleared of any wrongdoing.
She told police after the attack: 'I can't believe the dad has done it.'
The 19-year-old, who had clutched a teddy as she sat in the dock throughout the trial, often in tears, had told the court her partner could'sometimes be a bit rough', but that she had never seen him hurt the boy.
Jurors heard, during the opening of the case by the Crown's QC Sally Howes, that medical experts had concluded Joshua'sustained catastrophic and irreversible damage to the brain and brain stem'.
Ms Howes added: 'It appears that there is little challenge to the medical, pathological and expert evidence that Joshua died as a result of deliberately inflicted injuries, causing a catastrophic collapse on October 24 and his death on November 21.'
Post-mortem examinations also revealed a catalogue of older fractures to the baby's lower legs and rib cage, which doctors said were consistent with 'twisting','squeezing' and 'being gripped forcibly'.
Jurors were told that Joshua was a normal healthy baby when he was born on October 11, 2015 at 39 weeks.
During a routine medical exam four days later, a doctor described the infant as 'active and alert'.
He was taken to hospital after being shaken vigorously by his father but died in hospital four weeks later.
A recording of the 999 call was played to the jury in which a panicked Howell can be heard repeating over and over again that Joshua was 'not breathing'.
Daniel Sanzone, 23 (pictured with Zoe Howell), inflicted fatal injuries on Joshua Millinson after shaking him at the family home in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, on October 24 last year
The living room of Sanzone's property in Wolverhampton where he shook Joshua to death
She also told the call-handler she 'did not want to go over' to the baby when she was asked to check if he was 'definitely' not breathing.
The clearly frustrated handler then said: 'You have a two-week-old that is not breathing; go next to the patient now!
'If the patient is not breathing, you need to start doing CPR'.
At this point, Sanzone can be heard taking over, saying 'two minutes' to the clearly shocked call-taker.
The operator added: 'You need to do this now. You have not got time for 'two minutes'.'
Earlier in the trial, consultant neuropathologist Daniel Du Plessis, from Salford Royal Hospital, told the court the entirety of the baby's brain had suffered injury.
He described the brain damage as being 'at the most extreme end of the spectrum in his experience'.
Dr Du Plessis told the court: 'No part of his brain was spared injury.
'These were devastating, severe and irreversible injuries incompatible with survival due to some episode where the brain was deprived of blood and oxygen supply.
'It was the period where there was insufficient or no supply to his brain that led to this damage.
'If you look at the whole picture he stopped breathing and his heart stopped because of a traumatic injury on the brain and spine which led to a cardiac arrest which led to brain damage.'
Zoe Howell, 19, (pictured outside court) was cleared of allowing the death of her baby Joshua
Miss Howell appears under her hood clutching a teddy bear outside Birmingham Crown Court
Sanzone, who was also found guilty of child cruelty, will be sentenced on Thursday.
Adjourning the case, Mr Justice Jay told the court: 'I am not proceeding immediately to sentence. In a case of this sort I need to reflect coolly and dispassionately.'
Jurors deliberated over three days before acquitting Miss Howell of causing or allowing death, and unanimously convicting Sanzone of both counts which he had denied.
The trial heard Sanzone and Howell had been in a relationship for 18 months at the time of Joshua's assault, but had been 'taking a break' although they were still living together.
Detective Inspector Jim Munro said: 'This is a tragic case. Joshua was a totally vulnerable newborn child requiring complete love and care.
'It is horrifying to think of the violence and suffering he must have endured in his short life by a father who was supposed to look after and protect him.A container ship is loaded at the Aomi Container Terminal in Tokyo, Japan, in May. File Photo by Franck Robichon/European Pressphoto Agency
TOKYO, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Japanese police are investigating a Singapore-based shell company because of its possible ties to North Korea.
According to the Sankei Shimbun on Wednesday, a North Korean national established the corporation in order to export Japan-made goods to the relatively isolated country.
A Japanese police official told the Sankei there is "suspicion that the North Korean male operative is sending procured supplies to North Korea after setting up a shell company in Singapore."
The police also said "Korean residents in Japan who operate firms that procure environmental monitoring equipment are cooperating in delivering Japan-manufactured food and clothing, and shipping them" to North Korea.
Tokyo recently enforced tougher sanctions, including against ships flying under the Japanese flag, if they had made stopovers in North Korea.
The country is also expanding on existing sanctions against foreign nationals with nuclear and missile technology know-how who visit North Korea.
Japan's strict sanctions mean all export activity with North Korea is banned, according to the report.
Police cracked down on several locations found in violation of Japan's foreign exchange law on Dec. 19, including businesses that were engaging in "illegal exports" as well as operating "pachinko parlors," or recreational arcades popular in the country.
Authorities are investigating one company for exporting nearly $60,000 worth of food to North Korea in 2014.
The Japanese food items are being sold at specialty stores in Pyongyang, according to the report.National Post, April 23, 2009
By Araminta Wordsworth
A photo from the video A photo from the video
Held down by men in police uniform, the half-naked victim screams in pain as another man wearing a white dishdasha brandishes a plank with a nail sticking out the end.
“Get closer, get closer,” he instructs the camera operator as he sets to beating again.
“Let his suffering show.”
But this grisly nighttime scene in the desert is not something comfortably fictional from a movie such as Lawrence of Arabia.
The man directing the action is said to be Sheik Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, a member of the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates. His victim is Mohammed Shah Poor, an Afghan grain dealer, suspected of shortchanging the Emirati royal in a delivery.
The shocking 45-minute tape (watch it here — WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC CONTENT) also shows the victim being assaulted with a cattle prod, sand being pushed into his mouth and salt rubbed into his wounds. In another “sequence,” the assailant fires an automatic weapon at the man, seemingly without hitting him but causing sand to billow around.
Finally, in what the torturer hopes will be the literal coup de grâce, he drives over the body in his silver SUV Mercedes.
It appears the sheik was proud of his performance — which explains why he had the tape made; he also liked to watch the torture sessions later in his palace.
The 45-minute video was smuggled out of the country by Bassam Nabulsi, a former business associate of Sheik Issa and brother of the man behind the camera.
Portions of it were broadcast on Wednesday night on the ABC program Nightline.
The television program did not air other parts of the tape, which it said showed the sheik attacking the victim’s genitals with the cattle prod and inserting it in his anus.
He also pours lighter fuel on the prisoner’s testicles and sets it alight.
The program says the torture, which took place at the sheik’s “ranch” in the desert near Abu Dhabi, was over the theft of a load of grain worth about US$5,000.
Mr. Nabulsi, a Texas businessman, told ABC that Sheik Issa became increasingly violent and sadistic after his father, Sheik Sayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the UAE’s first president, died in 2004.
“It’s like you flipped a switch and the man took a wrong turn in his life, and started getting violent,” he said.
The video is included as part of evidence in a lawsuit Mr. Nabulsi launched in federal court in Houston last fall. He is suing Sheik Issa for money owed as a result of their business dealings and for false imprisonment.
He claims he was held in jail in Abu Dhabi for three months and tortured by police after he refused to hand over the videotape, which he had been given for safekeeping.
“They were my security, really, to make my case that this man is capable of doing what I say he can do,” Mr. Nabulsi said on Nightline.
Tony Buzbee, Mr. Nabulsi’s lawyer in Houston, told ABC, “They would keep him from sleeping, deny him his medications, tell him they were going to rape his wife, kill his child. They made him pose naked while they took pictures.”
Mr. Nabulsi says he was originally accused of drug trafficking, but the charges were reduced to illegal possession of medication — which turned out to be prescribed by his doctor in the United States.
The UAE government concedes that Sheik Issa is the man shown in the video but says he did nothing wrong. “The incidents depicted in the videotapes were not part of a pattern of behaviour,” the Ministry of the Interior said in a statement, according to ABC.
“All rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly.”
The Interior Minister is Sheik Issa’s half-brother. They are among the country’s 22 royal sheiks.
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said of the UAE response, “If this is their complete reply, then sadly it’s a scam and it’s a sham.”
One of the most alarming aspects of the tape was the involvement of the police, she added. “It is the state that is torturing them if the government does not investigate and prosecute these officers.”
In its 2008 human rights survey, the U.S. State Department referred to the incident. Amazingly, Mr. Poor survived, although he still had to spend months in hospital with broken bones and internal injuries. The UAE says the case is closed as the sheik and the grain dealer settled the matter privately, “by agreeing not to bring formal charges against each other, i.e., theft on the one hand and assault on the other.”
For their part, Sheik Issa’s U.S. lawyers say the ABC story is “grossly misleading,” “demonstrably untrue” and “defamatory.” They want the case transferred to Abu Dhabi.In Chicago, teenagers can subscribe to Sex-Ed Loop, a program endorsed by the district that includes weekly automated texts about contraception, relationships and disease prevention. Through Hookup, California teenagers can text their ZIP codes to a number and receive locations for health clinics.
Many services, like Sexetc.org, a national site run by and for teenagers, offer both privacy and communities where adolescents can learn about sexuality and relationships, particularly on mobile devices, eluding parental scrutiny. Services offer links to blogs, interactive games, moderated forums, and Facebook and Twitter pages.
Photo
The messages, rendered in teenspeak, can be funny and blunt: for Real Talk, a technology-driven H.I.V. prevention program run by the AIDS Council of Northeastern New York, teenagers made a YouTube video, shouting a refrain from a rap song, “Sport Dat Raincoat,” during which a girl carrying an umbrella is pelted with condoms.
“When we ask young people what is the No. 1 way they learn about sex, they say, ‘We Google it,’ ” said Deb Levine, executive director of ISIS Inc., an Oakland, Calif.,-based nonprofit organization that administers texting services and checks content for medical accuracy. “But most of the time, the best information is not coming up in those searches.”
Quantifying services is difficult. But Ms. Levine, who hosts Sex::Tech, a conference about sexual health programs for youth, said that requests to make presentations about online or mobile services had soared. Typically, she receives between 40 and 50 applications. This year, she received about 120.
Unlike classroom lessons, which are supposed to follow local, state or federal guidelines, Internet programs have no independent standards. And proponents of abstinence-based sexual education argue that these digital services presume that sexual activity among teenagers is the norm, and do not spend enough time on alternatives.
“They are only focusing on the risk-reduction model,” said Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Association, which hopes to kick off its online service for teenagers next year.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Those who run digital programs say they simply want teens to have accurate information, to help them make good decisions. Even though popular culture is saturated with sex, facts and advice can be hard to find.
Few disagree
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in that exclusive club are Ralph Sampson, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Alonzo Mourning and Shaquille O'Neal.
Now four games into his second NBA campaign, the former No. 3 overall pick is averaging 20.0 points, 10.5 boards, 2.3 assists and 1.3 blocks while shooting 50.8 percent from the field.
However, Embiid and the Philadelphia faithful would undoubtedly like to pile up a few more wins after starting the year 1-4.
The Sixers will attempt to get back on track Saturday evening when they square off against the Mavericks at American Airlines Center."It was necessary to specify critical areas for our armed forces to hang on to," Assad said, referencing territory lost to insurgents. "Concern for our soldiers forces us to let go of some areas."
Assad addressed a room full of dignitaries in Damascus, who often interrupted him with applause. The Syrian leader addressed how the army was fighting in multiple areas, and had retreated along some fronts. Major sections of the country have fallen under IS control, including the city of Idlib and the historic city of Palmyra.
"We are not collapsing. We are steadfast and will achieve victory," Assad said, according to the Associated Press. "Defeat does not exist in the dictionary of the Syrian Arab army."
In a televised speech on Sunday morning, Assad admitted to a "shortage of manpower" as his government fights on multiple fronts with both Islamic State (IS) militants and other rebel groups that have seized control of several key areas of the country.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed in his first public speech in a year that his forces would eventually prevail in the bloody conflict that has gripped the country for five years, even as the regime seeks more troops to help fight.
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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed in his first public speech in a year that his forces would eventually prevail in the bloody conflict that has gripped the country for five years, even as the regime seeks more troops to help fight.
In a televised speech on Sunday morning, Assad admitted to a "shortage of manpower" as his government fights on multiple fronts with both Islamic State (IS) militants and other rebel groups that have seized control of several key areas of the country.
"We are not collapsing. We are steadfast and will achieve victory," Assad said, according to the Associated Press. "Defeat does not exist in the dictionary of the Syrian Arab army."
Assad addressed a room full of dignitaries in Damascus, who often interrupted him with applause. The Syrian leader addressed how the army was fighting in multiple areas, and had retreated along some fronts. Major sections of the country have fallen under IS control, including the city of Idlib and the historic city of Palmyra.
"It was necessary to specify critical areas for our armed forces to hang on to," Assad said, referencing territory lost to insurgents. "Concern for our soldiers forces us to let go of some areas."
Related: The Islamic State Vs. Assad: Syria's Future Darkens Further
He acknowledged the losses have led to "frustration" among Syrian residents, adding "every inch of Syria is precious."
"When we concentrate our forces in an important area, what happens is that we bring reinforcements but this is usually at the expense of other areas," Assad said. "Sometimes we have to abandon some areas in order to transfer these forces to the area that we want to hold."
Assad also said recruiting and retaining troops had been an issue as the country's conflict stretches into its fifth year, but he accused the international media of overstating the situation. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, at least 70,000 men have avoided military service throughout the country.
"There is a shortage of manpower," Assad said. He added that, "I don't want to give a dark image that hostile media will use to say that the president is saying that people are not joining the army."
Related: Syrian President Assad's Government Has 'Revised' the Holy Quran
Assad's government also announced amnesty for those who have dodged being drafted into the army, or who have deserted from the military during fighting. The regime has also claimed that there has been an increase in men signing up for the military in recent months.
According to SOHR, approximately 80,000 soldiers and pro-government militiamen have died since the beginning of the conflict in Syria.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Watch the VICE News documentary, Ghosts of Aleppo:Former President Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaChicago's next mayor will be a black woman Obama portraits brought more than 1 million visitors to National Portrait Gallery in first year With low birth rate, America needs future migrants MORE thought his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails County GOP in Minnesota shares image comparing Sanders to Hitler Holder: 'Time to make the Electoral College a vestige of the past' MORE’s handling of the scandal surrounding her use of a private email server was "political malpractice," a new book reveals.
The Hill’s Amie Parnes and Sidewire’s Jonathan Allen report in “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign” that while Obama campaigned for Clinton for president in public, he kept his concerns over the scandal private.
“He couldn’t understand what possessed Hillary to set up the private e-mail server, and her handling of the scandal — obfuscate, deny, and evade — amounted to political malpractice,” the authors wrote.
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Clinton's actions, according to Parnes and Allen, reminded Obama of some of the “qualities” that helped him win the Democratic primary in 2008.
The book also includes an anecdote from July 2016 when Clinton and Obama traveled aboard Air Force One to their first joint campaign rally. FBI Director James Comey said on the same day as the event that he would not recommend charges against Clinton over her use of the private server.
Obama, during the ride to Charlotte, acted as a “pep-talking coach” to Clinton, whose campaign saw Comey's announcement as dominating a news cycle meant to be focused on Obama and Clinton campaigning together.
“It’s a four-month sprint to the end, and it will go quickly,” Obama reportedly told Clinton. “It’s hard and it’s tiring. But this is a different stage than the primary.”Get the latest news and videos for this game daily, no spam, no fuss.
True Crime: Hong Kong has been granted a reprieve. According to Gamasutra, Activision's cancelled open-world crime game has been sold to Square Enix, and it is ramping up development at United Front Games.
A True Crime by any other name would smell less cancelled.
While Square Enix has picked up the game itself, it has not picked up the True Crime franchise. As a result, the publisher will be rebranding the game before its eventual release. Square Enix is not yet saying when that release window will come, nor has it indicated a final name or even platforms for the release.
When the game's cancellation was announced in February, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg told investors the game "just wasn't going to be good enough." However, Hirshberg provided a different statement to Gamasutra regarding the Square Enix deal, saying, "Our team has worked very hard to find a solution where everybody wins. Square Enix gets the benefit of the tremendous investment we've made in the game thus far. UFG gets to stay together and complete their vision. And gamers get to play a great game. We couldn't be more thrilled."
For more on True Crime: Hong Kong, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.The number of Americans supporting sanctions against Israel over its settlement policy grew by 9 percent over the past year and now stands at 46%, according to a new poll released by the Brookings Institution on Friday.
According to twin surveys conducted by the think tank’s Shibley Telhami before and after the November 8 presidential elections, support for punitive measures against Israel has increased among members of both major parties: 60% of Democrats and 31% of Republicans back economic sanctions and more serious action, compared to 49% and 26% in November 2015.
The surveys also showed that 46% of Americans would support action by President Barack Obama at the UN designed to pressure Israel over stalled peace negotiations with the Palestinians. Only 27% would oppose such a move, while 25% were neither for or against such a measure.
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On Thursday US officials said Obama has nearly ruled out any such last-ditch effort, which would have been perceived as constraining Israel’s negotiating hand while strengthening the Palestinians’ argument on the world stage.
Meanwhile the gap between Democrats and Republicans continues to widen on the question of American support for a potential UN resolution endorsing Palestinian statehood. Democratic support for such action stands at 51% (up from 39% last year) while Republican opposition has increased to 51% (up from 43% last year). Overall 31% of respondents said the US should oppose such a UN resolution while 34% would support it, and 32% backed abstention.
A clear majority of Americans (76%) said Israel was an important ally to the US. Meanwhile 55% of Democrats and 24% of Republicans feel that Israel is a burden.
While a majority of Americans (57%) said they would like President-elect Donald Trump to be an impartial mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, 57% also said they believed Trump would lean towards Israel in any negotiations.
The polls were conducted between October 5-14 and November 18-23, 2016. They involved 2,570 panelists and had margins of error of 2.5%-3.04%.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Oct. 8, 2016, 1:16 PM GMT / Updated Oct. 8, 2016, 1:16 PM GMT By Josh Meyer
The Russian government’s cyber-espionage campaign against the American political system began more than a year ago and has been far more extensive than publicly disclosed, targeting hundreds of key people –- Republicans and Democrats alike -- whose work is considered strategically important to the Putin regime, official sources told NBC News.
The targets over the past two years have included a Who's Who of Hillary Clinton associates from her State Department tenure, the Clinton Foundation and her presidential campaign, as well as top Republicans and staffers for Republican candidates for president.
Starting in earnest in 2015, Russian hackers used sophisticated “spearphishing” techniques to steal emails and other data from Capitol Hill staffers, operatives of political campaigns and party organizations, and other people involved in the election and foreign policy. That’s according to NBC News interviews with more than two dozen current and former U.S. officials, private sector cybersecurity experts and others familiar with the FBI-led investigation into the hacks.
“For the past two years, there has been a massive increase in hacking by the Russians,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, a cybersecurity expert whose CrowdStrike firm was retained to investigate the hack of the Democratic National Committee.
“Not all of it is politics. It is across the board,” added Alperovitch, who is involved in the investigation. “But it got more intense this year with the election.”
The Obama administration finally blamed Russia publicly for the hacks on Friday, prompting another round of denials by Russia. But behind the scenes, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security have provided numerous classified briefings in recent months to Capitol Hill staffs about the hacks. The briefings described targeting of both parties, primarily by accessing the private email accounts of operatives, one senior Capitol Hill staffer who attended the briefings told NBC News on Thursday.
The staffer said that many victims were notified by investigators that they had been hacked, and told to conduct damage assessments, but said the victims were not put under obligation to make the hacks public.
Orders From the Kremlin
U.S. authorities believe the hacking campaign originated with direct orders from the Kremlin and is an attempt to influence the presidential election and advance the broader strategic objectives of the Putin regime.
The hack has especially targeted individuals around Democratic nominee Clinton, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation. Friday's release of campaign chair John Podesta's hacked emails and apparent excerpts of Clinton's Goldman Sachs speeches was the latest in the series of email dumps, including the release of data stolen from DNC and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee staffers. Democrats are bracing for the potential release of still more emails hacked from Democratic sources. Sources said emails from individuals associated with the Clinton Foundation were hacked, and may be part of upcoming data dumps from WikiLeaks or DCLeaks.com.
But the hackers –- some of whom are believed to be Russian government employees working regular hours just like other bureaucrats –- have also quietly targeted a broad array of Republicans too as part of the same cyberespionage campaign, say sources.
One cybersecurity expert involved in the investigations said “hundreds of people” have been targeted. “High-profile former officials, political figures, current officials.”
“I can’t tell you who the Russians are going to leak information about next,” he told NBC News. “The only thing I can tell you is that there are going to be more leaks.”
Some Republicans contacted by NBC News were aware of attempted hacks, but none reported recent breaches. In June, DCLeaks.com, believed by U.S intelligence to be linked to the Russian government, released hacked emails dating from 2015 of some Republican targets, including staffers for the campaigns of John McCain and Lindsey Graham -- both Putin critics -- and staffers from state parties.
Senator Lindsey Graham speaks during a press conference, in Cairo, Egypt on April 3, 2016. STR / EPA
Russia has long used hacking and other high-tech tools to gather intelligence, just like the United States, China and other nations eager to gain strategic advantage over rivals and even allies.
But U.S. officials have gone on red alert out of fear that the current hacking effort is part of a broader “active measures” campaign to influence the upcoming U.S. election, and hurt Clinton while boosting the chances of her Republican rival, Donald Trump.
Why Republicans Too?
U.S. officials and cybersecurity experts say Russian government hacking of Republicans serves several purposes in this election cycle.
One is that it provides Moscow with a deep understanding of the internal workings of the campaigns, their plans and objectives and the key players who wield power and influence in Washington even if the GOP doesn’t take the White House.
A more ominous concern is that the information hacked from Republican operatives could be “weaponized” through the strategic leaking of information, either before or after the election.
In an interview with NBC News, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he could not discuss any specific victims identified by U.S. investigators, Republican or Democratic.
But, Schiff told NBC News, “The Russians are interested in both political parties.”
“They would certainly target Republicans if there is a chance of a Republican becoming president, which obviously there is,” Schiff said. “They would also target Republicans that would influence the next president, and they would also target people with the interest in disrupting [the election] or sowing discord.”
One prominent Republican, former Bush administration Secretary of State Colin Powell, had his personal emails hacked and released last month via DCLeaks.com. Those emails contained biting comments by Powell about both Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and Trump.
Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell tells an audience in the Capitol Rotunda on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 23, 2008, about the importance of racial integration in the military that was brought about by President Truman's executive order 60 years ago. J. Scott Applewhite / AP
Schiff said the leaks of Powell’s emails already “have sown additional discord into our political process. So there’s obviously a reason for foreign hackers to hack members of both parties.”
Schiff said he believes the Russians have an interest in Trump winning the presidency. “Whether they will go so far as to interfere in a way that makes it more likely, I think they are limited in their ability to affect the outcome. But they can certainly cause a lot of discord and confusion.”
Richard Andres, a cybersecurity and national security strategy expert with the U.S. military’s National War College, said Russia has been perfecting its ability to use digital means to manipulate the internal politics –- and elections –- of other countries for more than a decade, especially in Eastern Europe.
“These guys have made hacking political parties and their supporters a science,” Andres told NBC News. “I’m not sure the U.S. has built up any defenses against this type of thing.”
“What we’ve been seeing here in the U.S. so far is mild by comparison to what they do in their own backyard,” Andres said. “If they continue to escalate, we should expect to increasingly see false flag operations designed implicate various political actors, falsified leaks, blackmail, false calls to their opponents’ political supporters and more.”
Top Republican: Not Aware of Any Hacks
Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said he was not aware of any Republican operatives who had been hacked, and that the RNC cybersecurity staff was in close contact with the FBI and probably would have heard about it.
A representative of Sen. McCain said his senate reelection campaign was not aware of any staffers being hacked.
Kevin Bishop, spokesman for Sen. Graham, said, “We have not disputed that Senator Graham’s campaign was hacked, that some campaign related email accounts were hacked.” He described the victims as low-level staffers. “We haven’t said anything about it and don’t expect to.” Graham was a contender for the GOP presidential nomination.
Interviews with Republican campaign and party officials indicated they have been on guard for hacking.
Trump himself has previously said he has no idea who is hacking of Democrats. But an advisor to the Trump campaign said the campaign’s cybersecurity specialists have been warning since last spring that hackers, likely from Russia, “are being very aggressive and trying to find out whatever they can about both campaigns.”
“They are aware that the Russians and others are very eager to see our communications, that there are people out there from other countries that would like to hack into our systems,” the advisor told NBC News. “So we are paying close attention to it.”
Trump campaign hires are given a briefing in which they are warned about such breaches, and told not to use campaign email for personal communications, the advisor said.
In 2015, at least one Trump campaign staff member’s email account was infected with malware and then sent malicious emails to colleagues, according to the advisor, who said that and other concerns prompted the campaign to upgrade its security.
Another senior Republican official confirmed that they were aware of widespread targeting of GOP operatives in the current campaign, both at the campaigns and on Capitol Hill.
Officials noted that both the McCain and Romney campaigns were hacked in 2008 and 2012 respectively, as was Obama’s –- though authorities attributed at least some of those to the Chinese.
“It’s entirely possible that they did it and we just never knew,” said one GOP veteran who worked on a Republican presidential primary campaign. “And I remember many times where the campaign server was running slowly and we’d just switch to Gmail or G-chat. Maybe it was naïve on my part but I never attributed it to hacking.”
Last month, House Homeland Committee Chairman Mike McCaul (R.-Texas) told CNN that the Republican National Committee had been hacked. Spicer, the RNC spokesman, was quick to tweet that there had been no known breach “of @gop networks" and McCaul issued a quick retraction.
McCaul, however, didn’t retract his broader assertion that he had been told in classified briefings that the Russian hacking campaign targeted Republicans as well as Democrats.
“They are not discriminating one party against the other,” McCaul said, adding that the Russians “have hacked into both parties at the national level” and targeted "Republican political operatives."
“What they intend to do with that information,” he said, “I don’t know.”
In Through the Front Door
The two Russian hacking groups blamed for the current cyberespionage campaign, dubbed Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear, also have been blamed for breaching other U.S. targets over the past year or two, including the unclassified systems at the White House, State Department and the military’s offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In the current hacking of the political system, they have focused on an indirect approach, according to numerous officials and cybersecurity experts familiar with the hacks.
Those sources said Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear –- each tied to a different Russian intelligence agency –- have been specifically targeting the personal emails of individuals through very sophisticated “spearphishing” campaigns where they get someone to click on an email, link or photo purportedly from a trusted source.
That introduces malware onto whatever computer, cellphone or other device they’re using, and in many cases, it allows the hackers to breach work email accounts and even work files and databases that contain sensitive information, officials and experts say.
After vacuuming up everything from that victim, the hackers “move laterally” through their network of friends and business associates and steal all their information too.
“Essentially people are opening their front door and letting them in,” said Toni Gidwani, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official whose ThreatConnect cybersecurity firm has investigated many of the hacks. She said these particular spearphishing techniques are a hallmark of the two Russian hacker groups. “It’s something they keep coming back to because it works.”
Like others, Gidwani said the size and scope of the hacking campaign isn’t known publicly because investigators mostly know about the cases in which information has been leaked.
“It’s perfectly possible that … people and organizations are being targeted and breached but that if the adversary doesn’t see the value in leaking it, and holding on to it, we wouldn’t know,” Gidwani said. “They could just be waiting for the right time to release it.”Attention! This news was published on the old version of the website. There may be some problems with news display in specific browser versions.
Korean War Machinima by Fabulous shepArd
Welcome to the Community Corner!
We here at War Thunder are proud and happy to have such an active and creative community to support and enjoy the game with us. With our Community Corner feature, we want to highlight some of the amazing masterpieces that the players of War Thunder are creating, uploading and sharing with fellow pilots and tankers every day.
In this community video feature, we present to you an excellent cinematic called "Warthunder | Korean War", in which you can see Fabulous shepArd's vision of this conflict. If you enjoyed the video, give it a thumbs up and leave a comment! Also, don't forget to subscribe to his youtube channel!
See you in War Thunder!
The War Thunder TeamMinitest has grown its popularity by keeping things simple. Out-of-the-box, it provides a lean and mean 19 assertions, and a lot of programmers find that to be more than sufficient for testing a wide range of code. (I mean really, when was the last time you typed assert_predicate in a test?) Sometimes though, you wouldn’t mind writing in a language that maps more closely to your problem domain - whether it’s to be more expressive in your tests or to check a number of conditions in one domain-specific assertion. Rails provides some nice examples of this sort of thing in the way they extend Minitest::Test for some of the more common testing operations needed for web applications and templates, and you can do the same by building your own custom assertions or expectations (in case you’re using Minitest Spec) that let you write tests more like you like them. Remember: Minitest is just Ruby.
Write a custom assertion
As an example, it’s not uncommon to want to check that two collections have the same elements without respect to sort order. As a definition, we might say that this requires three conditions to be met:
Both the expected and actual values must be Enumerable. The two must have the same number of entries. Each entry in the tested result must be present in the expected result.
We can add our custom assertion to Minitest::Assertions by reopening the module and adding an assertion and a refutation for the conditions we’re interested in testing. Generally, these will involve calls to the assert and refute methods.
test/custom_assertions.rb 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 require'minitest/assertions' module Minitest::Assertions # # Fails unless +expected and +actual have the same items. # def assert_same_items ( expected, actual ) assert same_items ( expected, actual ), "Expected #{ expected. inspect } and #{ actual. inspect } to have the same items" end # # Fails if +expected and +actual have the same items. # def refute_same_items ( expected, actual ) refute same_items ( expected, actual ), "Expected #{ expected. inspect } and #{ actual. inspect } would not have the same items" end private def same_items ( expected, actual ) actual. is_a? ( Enumerable ) && expected. is_a? ( Enumerable ) && expected. count == actual. count && actual. all? { | e | expected. include? ( e ) } end end end
For the sake of manageability, I’ve written my assertions into a separate file which I can then include into my test/test_helper file.
From assertion to expectation
If your particular brand of poison falls more to the spec-style syntax like mine does, don’t worry. Now that we’ve got our new assertions written, it’s stupid simple to carry our customizations over to Minitest::Spec-land.
test/custom_assertions.rb 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 require'minitest/spec' module Minitest::Expectations # # Fails unless the subject and parameter have the same items # Enumerable. infect_an_assertion :assert_same_items, :must_have_same_items_as # # Fails if the subject and parameter have the same items # Enumerable. infect_an_assertion :refute_same_items, :wont_have_same_items_as end
All this power is brought to you courtesy of first method declaration in minitest/spec which is probably the most “magical” thing you’ll find in all of the source code.
minitest/spec.rb link 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 class Module # :nodoc: def infect_an_assertion meth, new_name, dont_flip = false # :nodoc: # warn "%-22p -> %p %p" % [meth, new_name, dont_flip] self. class_eval <<- EOM def #{new_name} *args case when #{!!dont_flip} then Minitest::Spec.current.#{meth}(self, *args) when Proc === self then Minitest::Spec.current.#{meth}(*args, &self) else Minitest::Spec.current.#{meth}(args.first, self, *args[1..-1]) end end EOM end end
This code does a couple of nice things for us:
First, it extends Module, so it can effectively be called on anything. That’s how I used it above when I called it on Enumerable, but you could also do what zenspider does when he defines all the standard Minitest expectations which is to call infect_an_assertion without any explicit target. This implicitly calls the method on Kernel which is included by the Object class, thus making the expectation callable on any Object.
Next, It uses a class_eval block called on the target to define a new method with the name selected for the new expectation and a variable number of parameters. The new method just delegates to the assertion method that was passed to it.
Between the case statement and the way that the new method’s arguments are passed to the underlying assertion, there are four common cases that are handled.
Binary expectations
This is what we’ve utilized with our example code above thanks to: Minitest::Spec.current.#{meth}(args.first, self, *args[1..-1])
As you can see, the target object maps to the actual value, the first parameter to the expectation maps to the expected value, and the rest of the arguments if there are any are simply passed along as extras.
This option is the most conventional and probably covers the large majority of custom expectations you’ll want to write.
Block/proc expectations
Sometimes you want to execute a block or Proc and check on the effects that it produces. In this case, the equivalent to your actual parameter will be a block argument passed to the assertion, not anything that’s part of the args array, so when doing the mapping for from the new expectation to the assertion, you’ll pass the whole list of parameters to the expectation untouched and pass the callable thing to be executed – in this case self – as a block argument to the assertion as: Minitest::Spec.current.#{meth}(*args, &self).
This is how Minitest all its assertions with block arguments into expectations: must_raise, must_output, etc.
Reverse expectations
In certain cases, the relationship between the arguments to the assertion is not actual and expected, but something else entirely. Take assert_respond_to as an example: the first argument should be the actual value being tested, while the second should be a symbol or String representing the method that it responds to or not. In this case, you’re calling respond_to? on the first parameter instead of the second as is more traditional, so we’re looking to pass self to the assertion as the first argument and the remaining parameters passed to the expectation method as the rest. To reverse direction like this, infect_an_assertion gives us a third parameter which, if we pass anything truthy, will give us the desired effect.
Unary expectationsMei Qun Huang stood near her former Johnny Court apartment, which she believes is now a short-term rental.
It wasn’t long after the Chinatown row house where Mei Qun Huang lived was sold for more than $1 million that she started noticing a steady stream of travelers using the first-floor unit. The family who previously lived there had moved out after the new owner raised their rent.
Earlier this year, Huang also moved out of the Johnny Court unit she had shared with her husband and three children for nearly five years — after her rent went up by 40 percent. Soon afterward, Huang heard the apartment was being used as a short-term rental.
Similar scenarios are playing out with increasing frequency in Chinatown and other Boston neighborhoods, according to housing advocates. They contend that the popularity of short-term rentals, such as those listed on the website Airbnb, has encouraged investors to buy apartment buildings and shun monthly leases in favor of more profitable weekly rentals.
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Armed with a new study, Chinatown housing advocates are stepping up pressure on the city to regulate the rapidly growing industry, which they argue is contributing to the city’s housing crisis by removing long-term rental apartments from the market.
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Advocacy groups, including the nonprofit Chinese Progressive Association and the Chinatown Community Land Trust, organized a march from Chinatown to the State House Thursday afternoon to bring attention to the issue.
“The issues of displacement and affordability and gentrification, we’re pointing to an industry that’s exacerbating that problem,” said Darlene Lombos, executive director of Community Labor United, an advocacy group that released a study Thursday outlining the rise in Boston of what it calls commercial short-term rental operations. “If we don’t get a handle on this now, it’s going to get away from us.”
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe staff Dierong Lin held a protest sign in Chinatown on Thursday.
According to the study by CLU, which is part of a national coalition with Partnership for Working Families, commercial Airbnb rentals are rapidly increasing in Boston. Sarah Jimenez, the study’s author, said she analyzed Airbnb Boston listings from December 2015 through November 2016 and found that hosts with multiple units made up 12 percent of all operators in the city but controlled more than 28 percent of the listings.
Some of the listings came through corporate entities that control anywhere from a handful of units to more than 100, according to the study.
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“There’s a lot of evidence that speaks to the financial incentive to convert rentals to short-term rental units,” Jimenez said. “Boston is one of those cities where short-term rental revenue is greater than the [annual lease] rental cost.”
A spokeswoman said Airbnb welcomes regulation of the short-term rental industry but disputes the claim that the platform is hurting Boston’s long-term rental market.
Last year, 42 percent of all of Airbnb’s listings for entire homes in Boston were for homes that were rented out for a total of less than 30 days, and 68 percent were rented for less than 90 days total, according to a company report in March. About 6 percent of the listings were rented out for more than 270 nights during the year.
“As income inequality continues to be an issue for cities like Boston, we hope that rules around home sharing protect neighborhoods and allow residents to continue making supplemental income to make ends meet,” the company said in a statement.
Some cities, including New York and Portland, Ore., have instituted a “one host, one home” Airbnb policy, but such an arrangement has not been negotiated in Boston, according to the company. Cambridge officials in August adopted short-term rental regulations mandating that a host may rent only their own home and one other unit in the same building, provided that it has fewer than five units.
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Lydia Lowe, director of the Chinatown Community Land Trust, argued that investors with multiple Airbnb listings in the neighborhood are essentially operating hotels in areas that are not zoned for that. She called on city officials to shut them down.
“We’re not trying to stop the [short-term rental] industry, but we should not be taking housing away from long-term residents when we’re in the middle of such a displacement crisis,” Lowe said.
Housing advocates have recently detected an increase in Airbnb listings on Johnny Court and Hudson Street, as well as in a strip of row houses on Oak Street, she said.
“They can rent them from $800 [a week], where before [units] like that would be rented for $800 a month,” Lowe said. “That’s what’s driving speculation — a dilapidated little building will sell for $3 million.”
The housing advocates who organized Thursday’s march said they want state legislators to pass a bill filed by Representative Aaron Michlewitz, a Democrat whose district includes Chinatown. Under the legislation, individuals who rent their homes would be taxed at a lower rate than commercial hosts, who would be assessed at a higher rate than hotels, Michlewitz said.
“We feel [commercial] hosts are directly impacting the housing market,” he said.
Suzanne Kreiter/Globe staff A family strolled along Oak Street, where protesters marked the sidewalk in front of a building largely being used for Airbnb rentals.
Katheleen Conti can be reached at [email protected] worldwide are celebrating a whopping $14 billion tax bill slapped on Apple, Inc., by the EU for the multinational's evasive tax practices in Ireland—so why is the Irish government up in arms about the windfall?
The European Commission on Tuesday issued a sweeping ruling against Apple demanding that the company pay Ireland $14 billion in back-taxes. The commission found Ireland's tax levy on the multinational company a "sweetheart deal" that amounted to illegal state aid under European policy.
"These sweetheart deals that let multinationals minimize their tax cannot be tolerated. If people's trust in the tax system is to be restored, European governments must act immediately to end these special deals."
—Aurore Chardonnet, Oxfam
Consumer advocates and corporate watchdogs cheered the ruling, arguing that absurdly lenient corporate taxes amount to nothing less than fraud on middle-class taxpayers who are not granted such allowances and must pay their fair share.
Yet both Apple and Ireland are appealing the decision, and the U.S. Treasury Department has been warning Europe since last week to avoid levying a massive tax bill on Apple or to be prepared to face unspecified "potential responses" from the United States.
Apple paid a corporate tax rate in Ireland that amounted to only 0.005 percent of its European profits in 2014, the Daily Beast noted, while Ireland's official corporate tax rate is 12.5 percent.
"Apple paid the negligible rate of tax due to two special tax 'opinions' given to the company in 1991 and 2007 by Irish authorities," the Daily Beast reported. "These opinions are at the core of the argument—the EU claims they were available only to Apple, Ireland argues that they applied to all Irish registered companies."
"These sweetheart deals that let multinationals minimize their tax cannot be tolerated," Oxfam EU's policy advisor on tax policy and inequality Aurore Chardonnet said.
"The EU should not give into American pressure just to spare U.S.-based multinational corporations adequate taxation."
—Fabio De Masi, European United Left
"If people's trust in the tax system is to be restored, European governments must act immediately to end these special deals otherwise people’s trust in the tax system will continue to evaporate," Chardonnet added.
"The decision by the EU Commission against Apple is overdue. The EU should not give into American pressure just to spare U.S.-based multinational corporations adequate taxation on their profits made in the EU," said Fabio De Masi, a European United Left member of the European Parliament.
The Irish establishment is furious about the EU decision, the Daily Beast observed:
One might have thought that this extraordinary windfall would be a shot in the arm to a state beleaguered by years of austerity, cuts, and the world's biggest bank bail-out on a per capita basis, but the Irish government is furious. SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT Help Keep Common Dreams Alive Our progressive news model only survives if those informed and inspired by this work support our efforts
The country's political elite perceive the ruling to be a retaliatory strike on the country for its cherished 12.5 percent corporate tax rate, which has long infuriated fellow European nations, who have far higher business tax rates and see Dublin’s tax policy as lacking European solidarity. Dublin views the low corporate tax rate as key to its strengthening recovery from a crippling recession caused by a collapse in the property market in 2007 that resulted in the $71 billion bank bail out.
Irish progressive groups applauded Tuesday's ruling and condemned their government's response to it.
Outrageous that govt paying vast sums of of public money to appeal decision that says billions of #AppleTax owed to Ireland! @IrishTimes — Richard Boyd Barrett (@RBoydBarrett) August 30, 2016
European countries' special tax rulings have come under public scrutiny since a
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that song pops up in any TV show or movie, the creators are sure to get a hefty bill. The makers of the critically acclaimed 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams had to pay $5,000 for a scene of one of the protagonists' families singing the song. By 1996, Warner/Chappell was pulling in more than $2 million per year from licensing.
Now there's a new documentary about the song, and of course, the filmmakers had to pay the fee for a "synchronization license"—it was $1,500.
But it sure didn't sit well with them. Yesterday, Good Morning To You, the company that made the documentary, filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to prove once and for all that the copyright on "Happy Birthday" is long dead. The lyrics are extremely similar to an 1893 song called "Good Morning to All," published in a book called Song Stories for the Kindergarten. The lawsuit contains numerous other early examples that predate the official claimed "Happy Birthday" copyright registration date of 1935.
The idea that the "Happy Birthday" copyright is bogus isn't new. A heavily researched 2010 legal paper out of George Washington University found that the song "is almost certainly no longer under copyright, due to a lack of evidence about who wrote the words; defective copyright notice; and a failure to file a proper renewal application." In his dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer cited the song when he denounced endless copyright extensions, noting that it is based on an 1893 melody.
The lawsuit seeks class-action status; the filmmakers are hoping that everyone who has paid illegitimate license fees for singing "Happy Birthday" from June 13, 2009 until present will get a check from Time Warner.
“Before I began my filmmaking career, I never thought the song was owned by anyone," Jennifer Nelson, the filmmaker who made the movie, told The New York Times. "I thought it belonged to everyone.” Nelson is featured in this morning's edition of the NYT, holding a 1924 songbook called "Harvest Hymns," which includes the Happy Birthday song.
Advocates for copyright reform have resented the Happy Birthday copyright for some time now and are looking forward to its being challenged. "This is gonna be great," writes Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing. The full lawsuit is available at Techdirt.If you know two things about the deep web (perhaps based on new knowledge from House of Cards), then you know that it’s full of (A) shady characters and (B) illegal stuff for sale. You can browse the online aisles for drugs, child porn or the services of hitmen, or even tool up to do the task yourself by buying guns from a darknet arms dealer.
In the past, hunters, survivalists and criminals had to source guns from legitimate dealers, obtain them through gun conventions, or seek out a connection of some kind on the street if they wanted to remain outside the legal system. Now the middleman has been almost entirely removed for that last group, who can avail of click-to-buy convenience for untraceable firearms.
Transactions take place at varying levels of anonymity. Facebook is unindexed but remains largely in the open; it boasts more than 1,500 pages, groups and networks by which traders can make firearm transactions. Facebook’s own rules do not allow sponsored ads to promote the sale of firearms or ammo, but that does not prevent the sale or advertising of guns from taking place on the platform. HOW WE KNOW We've been keeping an eye on gun sales via social media ever since we uncovered in April 2013 the practice of assault rifle giveaways on Facebook, a practice that Facebook subsequently clamped down on. Individual inter-personal transactions are nearly impossible to track and block at scale, but competitions and promotions like this were flagrantly in contravention of Facebook's T&Cs. Click the pic below to read that story.
Whole networks of gun enthusiasts have sprung up where people can easily post their contact and arsenal details and come to an agreement on who gets what and for how much.
While this sounds inherently illegal, it really isn’t; Allison Price, a spokesperson for the U.S. Justice Department, clarified to the Daily Beast: “There is no federal law prohibiting sales of firearms over the Internet, and the ready availability of firearms through social applications presents yet another avenue for unlicensed sellers to transfer guns anonymously and without background checks. This loophole underscores the need for a universal background check requirement, so we can keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and other persons prohibited from having them.”
As such, even Instagram is being used to sell guns. At any one time, thousands of posts are tagged with #GunsForSale.
But if you’re looking to stay way under the radar, the dark web is your place. We found chatter on a subreddit for dark web deals discussing the best place to buy guns. The links led us to The Armory, an online storefront for real-world weapons depot.
WHAT DOES.ONION MEAN? You won't be able to view The Armory on a regular web browser. If you look at the URL, you'll see that it ends with.onion (instead of.com or.org, say). The Armory is a site accessible via TOR, a secure browser designed for maximum anonymity, which routes your connection through three shifting locations on the web, making it all but impossible to track the user at either end of the web transaction. TOR is free to download, but unaccustomed users should exercise extreme caution when navigating deep websites—malware and other security risks are widespread.
We approached The Armory with questions to see how they can possibly get away with it. Below is the complete, unedited and startlingly frank Q&A. The dealer describes how they hide guns inside power tools for shipment, and how Ireland is a surprisingly active seasonal market for firearms.
Nothing like scoring 20 percent off a retro-styled AK-47.
What’s business like?
Interesting, to say the least. It’s a better option for most of us than regular civilian life, as we know the trade and were “raised” with it, if you will, for enough time that we never really wanted to leave the Arms Trade once we got into it.
We don’t do much business face-to-face, so the unscrupulous characters you may expect from Hollywood are far and few in between. Most communicate via email or personal contacts. However we do have a few trusted contacts that border on “friendship” that we do trust and occasionally enjoy a face-to-face meeting for business. NOW READ THIS
Most of us don’t see much outside of work, although that is not to say we are withdrawn. This is simply a very busy business, and usually it’s a 50-plus-hour workweek for each member. We have eight people working in our shop, for reference. More working with transportation and acquisitions.
How has the dark web changed in the 13 years you have been in business?
Well, we only got into selling online around 2010 with an attempt at a website, but that failed. We used TOR for some time for emails and communication, but no sales until around 2011. We started on Black Market Reloaded (BMR) and Silkroad (SR) when they allowed weapons, using our site (RogueArms at the time, same name as our “Company”) for sales and using BMR/SR as escrow.
2011 to 2013 were somewhat stable, although our BTC banks did net us some very good profit—around a 2,500 percent increase—over the two years, and late 2013 saw the market fiasco. That’s when we started making our name more public, prior [to that] we never even advertised our site—current site, which has been up since some time in July 2013—or services.
To be honest, the last six months have brought more change than the entirety of our time on the darknet.
Is there a lot of competition in your line of business? Who are your competitors?
Yes and no. We are the only ones that deal nearly all products online. Sure, there are other onion services but most are either scams that won’t use escrow or [providers of] subpar weapons. There is Sterling Cooperate Services which has a TOR site, RUVA which has a TOR and a nonfunctional I2P site, but other than those two we don’t have any public competition.
As for outside the Internet, then yes we do. However we do not wage war, that’s for our clients to do. While it can become competitive when you have a client looking to two or more suppliers for bulk orders, it’s nothing we’d ever lose sleep over.
Not good for business if you are known for being violent towards competition.
Here's just a small selection of the hardware available online.
Do only operate on the dark web? Do you have any related businesses on the surface web or brick and mortar?
The darknet is only around 10 percent of our sales. Most of our sales still comes from the Middle East, although we have had a large increase in Russian exports.
Generally sales are private contacts that have done prior business. Most range from $7,000 to $30,000. However we had several requests for darknet operations when we started a forum on SR1 (we think) for online sales so we gave it a try. The first time it failed miserably, the second time it was a huge success.
We have had a few customers use bitcoins outside of the darknet, although this was a small order with a close contact that asked if he could “get rid” of the bitcoins for a additional firearm, in which we were all too happy to accept.
What is your best-selling item?
Pistol: Glock 17.
Rifle: Soviet AK47 Gen3 for unique sales, Colt M4 series for bulk.
Shotgun: Remington Super Shorty. Out of two shotguns bought in the past three months, both have been the Super Shorty.
How do you ship these items? Are there restrictions to where you will ship?
Our favorite is power tools. Take the tool apart, mill out space for the firearm component and seal it back up. If done carefully, the item can even continue to operate.
We’ve used Drills, saws, other power tools, tanks, engines, computers, furniture, and even some items costing well over several thousand dollars. The key is to find a item that has a similar density to the metal as to skew the X-ray taken in customs. Not a complete preventative measure, but helps.
All firearms are 100 percent free of gun oil for chemical detection systems (for explosive material), so the customer has to oil the firearm when received.
We’ve had reports that clients have “scratched” their guns getting them out of the decoy items, but to be honest we’d rather have a client with a scratched gun than a client without a gun at all.
We have a few locations we cannot ship, although the major locations are covered (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, South Korea, Australia, Ukraine temporarily).
Where are most of your customers from?
Our top locations are USA, Australia, United Kingdom, Ireland. Only the USA is easy to ship to, the others cost well over $200 to have a single item mailed. Our largest non-shipping country (a country we don’t have a shipping location in) would be Norway.
Do you have any idea what kind of customers you have? Hunters? Guerrillas? Militias? Survivalists?
It could all be lies, but we assume our clients are telling the truth. Not much we can do, just like normal gun shop owners we can’t really tell the murderers from the customers. Based on the shipping locations, personal details, and some stories we assume most are for self-defense with Private Security Forces being the largest for bulk.
Are there ebbs and flows of business depending on the time of the year? World conflicts?
Absolutely. Right now we’ve seen a large increase in Russian Arms trades. However, Ireland is the most interesting. It seems that there has been a steady rise and fall of activity. We never get any orders during the summer months for Ireland, but around 10 to 15 during the winter each year.
We assume it’s due to actions of the IRA but that region’s conflicts doesn’t really effect our sales. Generally the Summer (South of the Equator) seems to be busier, although recently we’ve had a large increase of sales online although that could be due to advertising.
How many sales do you do in an average month?
Online: 30 to 70 sales per month in the past, but now that most of the markets got shut down and many online customers scared away, we’ve been down to 10 to 40 sales per month.
Real world: 70 to 120 sales per month.
How has the fluctuation in bitcoin value affected business?
For the best. We just use cold storage for bitcoin profits made, and since we’ve been doing that for two years it has greatly increased our past profit.
Is there anyone you won’t sell to?
Quite a few. Here’s a list:
Abdullah Azzam Brigades
Abu Nidal Organization
Abu Sayyaf
Aden-Abyan Islamic Army
Akhil Bharat Nepali Ekta Samaj
Al Aqsa Foundation
Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades
Al Badr
Al Gama’a al-Islamiyya
Al Ghurabaa
Al Haramain Foundation
Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya
Al Qaeda
Al Qaeda in Iraq
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
Al Shabaab
Takfir wal-Hijra
Al-Umar-Mujahideen
All Tripura Tiger Force
Ansar al-Sharia (Tunisia)
Ansar al-Islam
Jamaat Ansar al-Sunna
Ansar Bait al-Maqdis
Ansar Dine
Ansaru
Armed Islamic Group of Algeria
Army of Islam
Osbat al-Ansar
Aum Shinrikyo
Babbar Khalsa International
Balochistan Liberation Army
Boko Haram
Caucasus Emirate
Communist Party of India (Maoist)
Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist)
Communist Party of the Philippines/
New People’s Army
Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist–Leninist
Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei
Continuity Irish Republican Army
Cumann na mBan
Deendar Anjuman
Dukhtaran-e-Millat
East Turkestan Information Center
East Turkestan Islamic Movement
East Turkestan Liberation Organization
Egyptian Islamic Jihad
El Kaide Terör Örgütü Türkiye Yapılanması
ETA
Fianna Éireann
Great Eastern Islamic Raiders’ Front
Hamas
Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades
Haqqani Network
Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami
Harkat-al-Jihad al-Islami in Bangladesh
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
Harakat-Ul-Mujahideen/Alami
Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin
Hezbollah
Hezbollah Military Wing
Hezbollah External Security Organisation
Hilafet Devleti
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Hizbul Mujahideen
Hofstad Network
Holy Land Foundation
for Relief and Development
Indian Mujahideen
International Sikh Youth Federation
Irish National Liberation Army
Irish People’s Liberation Organisation
Islamic Jihad – Jamaat Mujahideen
Islamic Jihad Union
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
Jabhat al-Nusra
Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jamaat Ul-Furquan
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
Jamiat al-Islah al-Idzhtimai
Jamiat ul-Ansar
Jamiat-e Islami
Jemaah Islamiyah
Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid
Jund al-Sham
Jundallah
Kach and Kahane Chai
Kangleipak Communist Party
Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup
Kata’ib Hezbollah
Khalistan Commando Force
Khalistan Zindabad Force
Khuddam ul-Islam
Komalah
Kurdistan Democratic Party/North
Kurdistan Freedom Falcons
Kurdistan Workers’ Party
Lashkar-e-Taiba
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group
Loyalist Volunteer Force
Manipur People’s Liberation Front
Maoist Communist Centre of India
Marxist–Leninist Communist Party
Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group
Muslim Brotherhood
National Democratic Front of Bodoland
National Liberation Army
National Liberation Front of Tripura
Orange Volunteers
Palestine Liberation Front
Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine
Party of Free Life of Kurdistan
People’s Congress of Ichkeria and Dagestan
People’s Liberation Army of Manipur
People’s Mujahedin of Iran
People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command
Provisional Irish Republican Army
Real Irish Republican Army
Red Hand Commando
Red Hand Defenders
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Revolutionary Organization 17 November
Revolutionary Party of Kurdistan
Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party–Front
Revolutionary Struggle
Saor Éire
The Saved Sect
Tevhid-Selam (Kudüs Ordusu)
Shining Path
Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan
Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage
Stichting Al Aqsa
Students Islamic Movement of India
Supreme Military Majlis ul-Shura of the United Mujahideen Forces of Caucasus
Taliban
Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan
Tamil Nadu Liberation Army
Tamil National Retrieval Troops
Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Volunteer Force
United Liberation Front of Assam
United National Liberation Front
United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
Vanguards of Conquest
World Tamil Movement
World Uygur Youth Congress
This list is maintained by the list of U.S.-designated terrorist groups/cells.One of the most voiced criticisms we hear of multi-core mobile processors, in addition to “why do you even need that much processing power on a smartphone, anyway,” is that all the cores in the world aren’t going to do much for performance when software isn’t taking full advantage of them.
Intel, a relative newbie to the Android scene with its first-such phones out this year, has recently been speaking out along those lines, accusing Android of not doing a very good job at efficiently making use of multi-core processors, and fingering SoC manufacturers as the ones who should be making the effort to make things work better.
According to Intel, Android’s thread scheduler just isn’t up to the task of getting the best performance out of the new quad-core (and to a lesser extent, dual-core) chips we’re seeing. Since the manufacturers of those components should be the ones capable of getting the highest performance out of them, Intel thinks the companies behind these chips should be the ones contributing the necessary improvements to the Android source tree, but “they just haven’t bothered to do it.”
Sure, some of this might just be a backhanded way for Intel to congratulate itself on its own work at improving thread performance, but we agree that someone needs to be taking a closer look at Android multi-core support. According to the company, some of the phones from other manufacturers end up performing worse when multiple cores are enabled. It doesn’t name names, but if that’s true at all, it seems like a damning assessment of Android’s current relationship with multi-core chips.
Source: The Inquirer
Via: Android Guys
This article originally published at Pocketnow hereIllegal immigrants: can't live with them, can't put them on leashes, like human chattel. But at least one Republican candidate for the 3rd District Congressional primary in Iowa, birthplace of presidential primaries, wants to do something about this dilemma. By which I mean to say he wants to implant microchip tracking devices inside illegal aliens, because why not, right? Then we can all keep tabs on them with our android phones!
While speaking at a Tama County Republican forum, [GOP Primary contender Pat] Bertroche made it clear that he wasn't joking when he suggested treating undocumented immigrants like pets.
"I think we should catch 'em, we should document 'em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going," said Pat Bertroche, an Urbandale physician. "I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can't I microchip an illegal?
I don't know! Why can't you? Why can't you train your Pomeranian to pick seasonal fruits and vegetables, and staff Mitt Romney's Sanctuary Mansions?
Bertroche went on, "That's not a popular thing to say, but it's a lot cheaper than building a fence they can tunnel under." Oh, sure. Catching and chipping hundreds of thousands of people sounds unbelievably cost-effective, and not at all that sort of thing that a big, intrusive goverment would do.Cattle that are grass-fed, antibiotic and growth hormone free gather at Kookoolan Farm in Yamhill, Ore., Thursday, April 23, 2015. Oregon legislators are debating whether to curtail the practice over concern that repeated use of the antibiotics could make germs more resistant to the drugs and result in infections being passed on to humans who consume the meat. If the legislation passes, Oregon would be the first in the nation to mandate stricter rules on livestock antibiotics.(AP Photo/Don Ryan)
Here in California, the record-breaking, headline-making drought is always on our minds. A NASA scientist warns that we may have just one year's worth of water left, and Governor Jerry Brown has urged us all to cut our showers short and let our lawns go brown.
But the governor's plea won't solve California's water woes -- nor will it address the underlying cause of the crisis. When the commercial and residential sectors are responsible for a mere 20 percent of the state's water use, shorter showers will offer barely more than a drop in the near-empty bucket. The real culprit is not the water wastage in our bathtubs and fountains, or even on our golf courses -- it's on our plates.
Agriculture accounts for 80 percent of California's water consumption, and animal agriculture and feed crop production comprise the vast majority of that use, making them by far the biggest water guzzlers in the state. This is true nationally as well; agriculture accounts for between 80 and 90 percent of the fresh water used in the United States, and at least half of that goes to raising and feeding farmed animals.
That's because the real "water cost" of producing a single pound of meat can be as much as 1,800 gallons. That means producing just one hamburger requires the same amount of water as two months' worth of showers. By contrast, the water cost of a pound of potatoes is only 34 gallons.
Media coverage of the California drought often points the finger at almonds, which are indeed a very thirsty crop. By some estimates, they require up to a gallon of water per nut. But forage and alfalfa, commodities grown almost exclusively to feed beef and dairy cattle, use about four times more water than almonds. The state's millions of cows eat much of this hay, but California also exports about 100 billion gallons of water per year in the form of alfalfa to Asia, where meat- and dairy-heavy Western diets are taking hold. That's 1,400 times more water than the California fracking industry -- another subject of media scrutiny -- uses in an entire year.
Despite these telling figures, the California meat, dairy, egg and feed grain industries like to paint themselves as victims of the drought. This has earned them the good graces of Governor Brown, who imposed a mandatory 25 percent water restriction on all California residents but left factory farmers untouched. That's like addressing a dire air pollution problem by banning a few small cars from the road while encouraging giant factories, trucks and other smog-belchers to continue with business as usual.
Far from a victim, animal agriculture is largely to blame, not only for the dangerous depletion of the state's water supply, but also for the drought's greatest underlying cause: climate change. According to the United Nations, the livestock industry contributes more to this global crisis than the entire transportation sector.It needs to be said that Neil deGrasse Tyson is someone I have an immense respect for. He has taken the reigns once held by the legend Carl Sagan and infected so many with his passion for science and learning and truth. I have no doubt that this man has inspired many young people to pursue further education and careers in science, and that he has changed and touched the lives of so many people who needed it.
When I heard him on Sam Harris’ podcast, though, I was fairly disappointed. While most of the time spent talking with Sam was focused on Tyson’s career and accomplishments, they did touch on the one topic many of Sam’s listeners were eager to understand: why doesn’t Neil own the title atheist? When Sam posed this question, Neil responded with,
If you require that I give myself a label then the closest word I can come up with is agnostic, not atheist, but I would rather have no label at all. The only ‘ist’ I am is a scientist. Beyond that, a label is an intellectually lazy way to assert you know more about a person than you actually do and therefore don’t have to engage them in conversation. “Oh, you’re an atheist?” Bam! In comes a whole portfolio of expectations of what you’ll say, what your behaviour is, what your attitudes are. Hold aside dictionary definition of atheist, because that’s actually irrelevant to me. It’s irrelevant because the dictionary does not define words, the dictionary describes words as they have come into meaning. Words are living things, and I have seen the conduct of outspoken atheists and there is conduct they exhibit that I do not. If there is an emergent sense of what an atheist is, and that sense is being defined by those who are most visible, then I have to say there’s gotta be some other word for me, but not that word. For example,
Tyson says that a label is an intellectually lazy way to assert you know more about a person than you actually do, but I fully disagree. Labels are ways to help us understand one another. When my next door neighbour tells me she’s a mom, I understand that she has a family. When my best friend tells me she is gay, I understand she is attracted to women, and that she’s probably going through a pretty scary time in coming out. When my new friend tells me he’s a German, I know where in the world he originated from. Labels are helpful constructs of language. They help us to organize things, and understand them clearer. If labels are “intellectually lazy”, then the animal classification system is intellectually lazy, as are car brands and models, names of the different climates and different styles of clothing. We use labels for everything. Literally every noun is a label that we attach to someone or something. You’re suggesting that in order to not be intellectually lazy, we must attempt to communicate without labels? I can’t tell someone I am a mom anymore, because the less intellectually lazy way of doing so would be to say I have kids, instead?
I have found that more often than not, my admission to being an atheist has provoked further conversation, not less. Sure, some people use labels to think they understand someone without engaging them in conversation, but that’s not all that often. Not in the real world, anyway. Labels can and often do provoke more conversation:
“Oh, you’re a mom? How many kids do you have?”
“You’re Aussie? Whereabouts in Australia are you from?”
“You’re a scientist? In which field?”
What’s intellectually lazy, even intellectually dishonest, is not admitting that there’s only one label you don’t like.
Tyson then tells the story of the time he said godspeed to departing astronauts on his Facebook page, and people responded with, “Godspeed? but I thought you were an atheist!”
The very fact that I get that phrase often, and people responding to something I say or do, tells me that I’m not behaving in the way they expect an atheist to behave.
Yeah, you and me both, there, Doc. The funny thing is, I get the same thing because I am a Canadian, or a woman, or a mom, or a socialist, or a writer, or a blogger. I get judgments from everyone regarding how they assume I ought to be behaving based on labels that apply to me. But you know what? I don’t fucking care. I am who I am and I chose to put myself out there. To expect people not to judge is to be desperately naive. They always will. Whether you admit to being an atheist or not, they’re always going to have expectations of your behaviour that are incorrect.
You wanna know how you change that, though, Neil? By openly using the label and defying those expectations associated with it. That’s how we change the negative connotations that come with the word atheist. That’s how we overcame the negative connotations associated with being homosexual, or black or female: you fucking own it, and prove their assumptions wrong.
Neil also mentions that he uses AD and BC when referring to years, as though atheists do not. Sure, there are a handful of anal secularists who are being nitpicky about it, but overall, most of us don’t give a shit. He goes on to suggest that we should be able to give credit where credit is due, that religion was a factor in establishing the Gregorian calendar. He says this, and I’m completely dumbfounded as to why, as though atheists don’t want to remember history accurately; as though we want to rid the history books of any mention of religion and its triumphs and shortfalls. Where has he gotten this from? I’ve not encountered a single atheist who is offended by the use of AD and BC; I don’t know any who would deny the origins of the Gregorian calendar, nor any that would deny its effectiveness in timekeeping. Who told him atheists are against these things? Who told him this is our “expected behaviour”? Where, the fuck, is he getting this horseshit?
There’s got to be a word that applies to me, that doesn’t then have people saying, “I thought you were an atheist”. I’m happy to have no label at all. That’s what’s at the bottom of this.
The saddest thing about this statement, is that it’s coming from a scientist, who likely thoroughly understands the human being’s predisposition to want to classify and order things to better understand them. A scientist who has probably made much use of the classification system for animals, the periodic table of elements, the names and classifications we apply to celestial objects. We are unable to function without labels. Labels are how we communicate, and how we understand the world around us. Each one of us has countless labels that apply to us, such as our nationality, our race, our gender; are we short or tall? Thin or round? Are you O negative or B+? Are you an introvert, bisexual or a socialist? Double-jointed, cancer patient, dog lover? Are you a driver, a rider or a swimmer? A vegetarian, a virgin or a registered voter? You can’t get rid of labels, because it’s how we function.
Just to show you how ridiculous what Tyson is saying is, let’s switch out some of the words in his rant :
If you require that I give myself a label then the closest word I can come up with is Earthling, not American, but I would rather have no label at all. The only home I know is Earth. Beyond that, a label is an intellectually lazy way to assert you know more about a person than you actually do and therefore don’t have to engage them in conversation. “Oh, you’re an American?” Bam! In comes a whole portfolio of expectations of what you’ll say, what your behaviour is, what your attitudes are. Hold aside dictionary definition of American, because that’s actually irrelevant to me. It’s irrelevant because the dictionary does not define words, the dictionary describes words as they have come into meaning. Words are living things, and I have seen the conduct of outspoken Americans and there is conduct they exhibit that I do not. If there is an emergent sense of what an American is, and that sense is being defined by those who are most visible, then I have to say there’s gotta be some other word for me, but not that word.
While Neil would have every right to say this if he wanted to, none of it would erase the indisputable fact that he’s American, and will remain so until he renounces his citizenship. Just like, no matter how many times he refuses to acknowledge his atheism, he’s still an atheist until the day be begins to believe in a creator god. The word atheist has a meaning that cannot be abandoned, just as the word American does. Sure, there can be a lot of debate about what it means to be an atheist or an American, but the word itself describes something specific. If you choose not to identify as an American, that’s fine, but it doesn’t erase the fact that you are.
That’s why I don’t even use the word agnostic. I said, if you had to pick a word then pick that word, but I don’t know that a word exists in this context. All told, I just don’t think it fits the model. Like, my favourite musical of all time is Jesus Christ Superstar.
I fail to see your point, Neil. My favourite holiday of all time is Christmas. I also enjoy Jesus Christ Superstar, as does my godless husband. You wanna know something weird? I love deep southern music, all twangy and riddled with banjos, and that haunting voice wailing about their Lord and Saviour. I fuckin’ love it. I can’t explain it. New Orleans got under my skin, I suppose, but the point is, I can hear the name of Jesus and still enjoy myself. I can sit in a pew and watch my son sing Christmas carols and have my heart fill with pride. I can lay back on a tropical beach in Thailand and swell with awe as the call to prayer rings out at sunset. Being an atheist doesn’t make me reject everything that’s ever been associated with religion in any way. My musical taste does not determine my stance on religion. The fact I don’t believe in a creator god does.
I can and do enjoy many things that religion has given us, I’ve even written about it. I am an outspoken atheist, Neil. How do you explain my behaviour, then? I think you have a deep misunderstanding of what being an atheist is, and the irony is that it’s the attitude you exhibit that makes it so necessary for men like you to own the label, atheist. We need to change this image of atheists. As you said yourself, Doc, If there is an emergent sense of what an atheist is, and that sense is being defined by those who are most visible… so, be one of the most visible and change the goddamned definition, then!
I bet that neither you, nor Dawkins, nor Dennett has ever had uttered to them, the phrase, “I thought you were an atheist”.
They have:
@RichardDawkins I thought you were an atheist. In any case, you have convinced me of the existence of God. — Bren Graham (@brengraham8) January 21, 2016
@RichardDawkins No it isn't. The discharges are atmospheric. I thought you were an atheist. — Geoff (@ModusPwnensWGS) June 6, 2015
@RichardDawkins I thought you were an atheist, and yet you distinctly quote a piece of literature from the Tanakh / Bible… Hypocrisy? — Raziel2404 (@raziel2404) February 22, 2014
@RichardDawkins on the crisis to our wildlife caused by climate change / And I thought you were an atheist… — Alma Madero Benítez (@AlmaMaderoB) May 9, 2013
@cenkuygur Miracles don't exist! I thought you were an Atheist? — Jared Neeser (@ImAskepticRu) February 28, 2016
@rickygervais I thought you were an atheist? Someone who is so loving & caring for God's creatures such as you has to believe in HIM!!! — Penni Weston (@astoryweaver) March 3, 2016
@billmaher there's one difference between isreal and Europe. Isreal are the aggressors in the middle east..and I thought you were an atheist — gtm (@1Gtmag) March 26, 2016
@ArianFoster @jrneri619 Jesus? I thought you were an atheist — Ramon Leal (@ramonleal08) April 16, 2016
Should I go on, Doc?
I get it myself, constantly, especially around Christmas time.
“Christmas? I thought you were an atheist!”
“You let your kid take karate in a church? I thought you were an atheist!”
“You quoted a religious person? I thought you were an atheist!”.
I see this, at minimum, once per week. You don’t get it because you’re afraid to admit you’re an atheist, you get it because people are idiots, and no matter what you do or how you describe yourself, you’re going to continue to get it. Heck, I’ve seen religious people be on the receiving end of that bullshit!
I get it maybe two or three times a month.
Ahh, so you’re an amateur 😉
People are not even allowing me to be me.
Hey, Dr. Tyson? Welcome to the internet. We all get that. No matter how we label ourselves, we all get it. You’re not special. I mean, to me you are, but as far as online idiocy goes, we’re all exposed.
You know, you said something closer to the beginning of the podcast, Neil, that caught my attention,
I’m an educator and the moment you start choosing sides against things that are political, which is people’s right to do in a free, pluralistic society… the moment you start doing that then anyone who is not in that political leaning is not going to listen to you. You’ll be an asshole to them and you just shut out half the people you could be educating.
If this had been the reason you’d offered for why you don’t use the term atheist to describe yourself, I could have respected it. Not wanting to alienate those
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allegations about untouchability relates to a public water tank, which has two taps. The tank was erected two months ago in the wake of a severe drought.
“There is an unwritten law that we should take water from only one tap,” says Sarasu, a woman of the Chakkliyan caste. “If we use the other tap, women from other communities will empty their pots and fill them afresh. This was exposed but now everyone is saying there is no such discrimination.” Another allegation is that a small tea stall has two kinds of cups — steel cups for customers from the Chakkliyan community, glass cups for everyone else. Thankamma, the Gounder woman who runs the stall, denies any such discrimination. “We do have steel and glass cups,” she says, “but we use the steel cups to serve tea or coffee to children, as they might break a glass cup.” Kannappan, a Chakkliyan, alleges that Thankamma is lying. “No, the steel cup is not meant for children. Little children don’t go to that stall for tea. We have a video of a Chakkliyan man being served tea in a steel cup,” he says.
A trader on the Tamil Nadu side of the border, T Jagadesan, who belongs to Chettiar community, says not all people discriminate against Chakkliyans. “I have had good relations with them for years. However, there is a section of people who still avoid them. Since the issue has come out, let us hope things will improve,” Jagadesan says. Muthalamada panchayat vice-president M Radhakrishnan, a local CPI(M) leader, says untouchability is an allegation that is raised only by Chakkliyans. Clashes between Chakkliyan and upper-caste Hindus had taken place even before the marriage, he says. “Now, they are raising the allegation only to get better facilities at their settlement,” alleges Radhakrishnan, a Gounder.
The Chakkliyan community, who had migrated to this village from Tamil Nadu three generations ago, are living in poverty. Most of their houses are dilapidated — the 133 houses have 210 families living there. The ration cards of villagers, however, mark the Chakkliyans as above poverty level, while others in the settlement have BPL cards. Only a few of the Chakkliyans’ houses have a toilet and drinking water facilities. The community has no one working in the government or private sector. D Chilambarasan has an Master of Social Work degree, but is making a living out of rearing a cow. His friend D Shiva, an M Com graduate, plucks coconuts for a living. Veeramuthu and Veeramal live in a small two-room house, with three daughters and two grandchildren. “Our house can cave in anytime. Since 2009, I have been submitting applications for a new house, but the local panchayat has not considered it. Look, my school-going grandchildren have to squat on the floor to do their homework,” says Veeramuthu.
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This week, the district police and revenue department conducted an adalat at the settlement to address the issues of Chakkliyans. Palakkad SP Prateesh Kumar says there is “no untouchability per se” at the settlement. “But Chakkliyans are facing social discrimination, which has stemmed from the sharp difference in economic status between the communities. We have already registered a case under the SC/ST Atrocities Prevention Act against a member of the Gounder community,” Kumar says. The SP says police will place surveillance cameras in the settlement and appoint a squad round the clock. He says a coaching class will be introduced to help colony residents attempt competitive examinations. District collector P Marykutty says the government got 325 petitions from the community during the adalat. “Most of them relate to access to basic infrastructure and housing. We have asked all departments to speed up developmental activities at the Chakkliyan colony.’’ Chakkliyans are not ready to give up their agitation yet. “We want this discrimination to end. We want to live with dignity,’’ says villager S Sivarajan.ISLAMABAD: A nuclear expert from Moscow says despite heavy investments in developing anti-ballistic missile systems, India may not be able to fully defend itself in a conflict from strikes by Pakistani missiles.
“Even in 10 years and with the huge budgets that India plans to spend on the development of nuclear weapons and capabilities, it is difficult to imagine it will be able to defend its territory from possible strikes from Pakistan in case of conflict,” said Petr Topychkanov, a senior researcher at the Carnegie Moscow Centre’s Non-Proliferation Programme.
Talking about ‘Non-Proliferation and Strategic Stability in South Asia: A Russian Perspective’ at the Strategic Vision Institute (SIV) which is an Islamabad-based think tank specialising in nuclear issues, Mr Topychkanov said that despite largescale cooperation between India and Israel for the development of a ballistic missile defence system and Indian efforts for acquiring S-400 defence systems from Russia, “India is very far from developing any system that could effectively defend itself from a Pakistani missile”.
Last Sunday India tested an Advanced Air Defence (AAD) interceptor missile and is working on developing a multi-layer ballistic missile defence system and Pakistan has expressed concerns over the test.
It is feared that the development of anti-ballistic missile systems may give Indian strategists a false sense of security when contemplating military action against Pakistan with the belief that they can take care of an incoming missile.
The possession of such a system could also increase pre-emption tendencies among Indian military planners. Pakistan experts also feel that with the short missile flight time between India and Pakistan, it will be impossible for intercepting incoming missiles.
Talking about India’s candidature for the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) Mr Topychkanov said the world will be cautious about India.
“The nuclear waiver given to Indian became a very important part of the lesson for the international community because Delhi did not give a lot in exchange, it didn’t change policies and approaches,” he said.
When it was getting the waiver from NSG following an India-US Civilian Nuclear Agreement, India had committed that it will separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities in a phased manner, place civil nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, sign and adhere to IAEA’s additional protocol, continue its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing, work with the US for the conclusion of the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), refrain from the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing technology to states that do not have them and support international efforts to limit their spread, introduce comprehensive export control legislation to secure nuclear material and adhere to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and NSG guidelines.
Mr Topychkanov said it would not be the same this time because India will have to show “serious progress in relations with IAEA, UN and the international nuclear community”.
Meanwhile, also claiming to have sound credentials for becoming an NSG member, Pakistan won rare acknowledgement from the US for its “significant efforts to harmonise its strategic trade controls with those of the NSG and other multilateral export control regimes” on Tuesday at a meeting of the Pak-US Security, Strategic Stability, and Nonproliferation (SSS&NP) Working Group.
Talking about Russia’s policy for strategic stability in South Asia, the Mr Topychkanov said Moscow is interested in regional strategic stability and is working on avoiding crisis in the area.
He said despite longstanding strategic partnership with India, Russia was developing relations with both Islamabad and Delhi.
SVI President Dr Zafar Iqbal Cheema expressed concern about the deteriorating strategic balance in the region because of India’s acquisition of conventional and nuclear weapons and said such developments seriously impact Pakistan’s interests.
Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2016Space sims are commonly regarded as being "a mile wide but an inch deep". Elite: Dangerous has fought to rid itself of this label for more than two years as it's successfully recreated the feeling of flying around in the wide vastness of space, but struggled to demonstrate the gameplay depth that most gamers prioritize when shopping for games.
Although a common concern, no game has battled with this label more than No Man's Sky, a game sold as having an "infinite procedurally generated galaxy". While on paper it was alluring, its gameplay repetition and harsh reliance on random planet geography has made it unfulfilling for many fans of the space sim genre.
It isn't impossible to make a space sim compelling, though. A shining—literally—example of how to create a sense of depth through intrigue was demonstrated yesterday in Elite: Dangerous' first ever alien encounter.
For years players have discovered subtle clues that hint at the existence of an alien species in Elite: Dangerous. More recently, ancient relics and crashed ships have been discovered, piquing the curiosity of spacefarers. Rumors and discussion have been rampant on the game's official forum as players have inquired to learn more about the secrets of Elite: Dangerous' fictional Milky Way galaxy.
Relics and crashed spaceships have been encountered by Elite: Dangerous players over the past year.
That climaxed yesterday when a player by the name of CMDR Sayre encountered the first ever alien spaceship in the game's more than two years of history. The discussion-invoking event occurred a few moments after the player entered hyperspace, a mode used to quickly travel between star systems. Traditionally, hyperspace is a safe means of long-distance transportation, but in this instance it left the player vulnerable.
The player's hyperspace hop to Aries Dark Region XU-O B6-3 was interdicted, sending the player tumbling through space at high velocity. Bizarre noises could be heard as spaceship modules began to malfunction in a way similar to when Matthew McConaughey entered a black hole in Interstellar. Something wasn't right.
Following 12 seconds of violent turbulence the spaceship came to a halt. Without any power available to guide the spaceship to safety, the player had no choice but to stare out into the abyss. Soon, a massive star-like structure approached the player. Once it was only a few hundred meters away it became clear that it was a massive spaceship of extraordinary proportions, from which a powerful burst of yellow energy was projected outward. Disturbing noises could be heard echoing through the vacuum of space.
The alien spaceship was large and intimidating.
It was at this moment that CMDR Sayre knew that what he was experiencing wasn't ordinary. In-fact, it was the first time any player in the world had engaged in such an encounter.
The alien spaceship demonstrated awareness and advanced technology. Whatever it was doing was foreign and creepy, but also beautiful in a way. Its yellow lights and ear-piercing noises would soon subside before it would turn leftward and float away like a butterfly, revealing its strange arrangement of flower petal shaped structures and dark red energy trailing behind. And in an instant it vanished through hyperspace.
Thanks to the Xbox One's DVR capabilities, the event was recorded for the world to see. Three videos circulating the internet have accumulated more than 350,000 views within 24 hours, and a wealth of comments. You can see a compilation of CMDR Sayre's two videos below.
Although reports of the event naturally caused skepticism, Elite: Dangerous developer Frontier Developments effectively confirmed it as official via a tweet, which read, "A report just coming through that a CMDR has experienced something… strange". This was no fake.
A Wiki entry for the event describes it as a first encounter with an alien ship on the game's fictional date of January 5th, 3303. The flashing yellow lights were apparently a scan, and the "Unknown Ship" bore a striking resemblance to wreckage found at "Alien Crash Sites". The most important detail is the reference to Thargoids. Introduced in Frontier: First Encounters back in 1995, this mysterious insectoid alien race is said to possess great intelligence, "perhaps existing in a parallel universe". However, it is also described as a hostile species with dangerous technological capabilities.
If this is the case, why did the ship decide to leave the player alone? Something it observed during its scan appeared to have direct it away from confrontation, but why?
This, along with the sheer creepiness of the encounter itself, is the sort of thing that makes exploration-focused titles like Elite: Dangerous most interesting. Discovering unknowns fueled mankind's quest to map the Earth in the same way gamers are encouraged to venture out into virtual worlds. They might not be "real", but how else are you going to experience what it's like to fly to Polaris and land on a planet? And with a virtual reality headset on it might as well be real.
Elite: Dangerous stunningly represents the Milky Way, but has struggled to incentivize exploration.
Frontier Developments did a particularly great job of designing the alien encounter, from the visual presentation to the audio. But every instance of discovery doesn't have to be of this magnitude. Content styled in a simple but surprising way goes a long way to making a space sim feel like it's something more than what's visible on the surface.
Elite: Dangerous is now in the headlines and being talked about by tens of thousands of people who likely knew little to nothing about the game prior to this week, and that's a great sign of success.
No Man's Sky could benefit greatly from something like this. Reaching the center of the galaxy was considered the original mystery that drove curiosity, one that failed to deliver in one of the most disappointing ways imaginable. But that doesn't mean it always has to be this way. Hello Games has something to build upon, and in time its procedural generation could become the conduit for a big news story just like Elite: Dangerous'.
And really, just about any game can learn from this. Randomness and peculiarity are great assets that create wonder within a game, a quality that is sadly uncommon in today's game design. Given the positive reception of the alien encounter, it appears that a large number of gamers are drawn toward wonder. Developers take note.MIAMI (AP) – The NAACP passed a resolution Saturday endorsing same-sex marriage as a civil right and opposing any efforts "to codify discrimination or hatred into the law."
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's board voted at a leadership retreat in Miami to back a resolution supporting marriage equality, calling the position consistent with the equal protection provision of the U.S. Constitution.
"The mission of the NAACP has always been to ensure political, social and economic equality of all people," Board Chairwoman Roslyn M. Brock said in a statement. "We have and will oppose efforts to codify discrimination into law."
Same-sex marriage is legal in six states and the District of Columbia, but 31 states have passed amendments to ban it.
"Civil marriage is a civil right and a matter of civil law. The NAACP's support for marriage equality is deeply rooted in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and equal protection of all people" said NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous, a strong backer of gay rights.
Gay marriage has divided the black community, with many religious leaders opposing it. In California, exit polls showed about 70% of blacks opposed same-sex marriage in 2008. In Maryland, black religious leaders helped derail a gay marriage bill last year. But state lawmakers passed a gay marriage bill this year.
Pew Research Center polls have found that African Americans have become more supportive of same-sex marriage in recent years, but remain less supportive than other groups. A poll conducted in April showed 39% of African-Americans favor gay marriage, compared with 47% of whites. The poll showed 49% of blacks and 43% of whites are opposed.
The Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay rights advocacy group, applauded the step by the Baltimore-based civil rights organization.
"We could not be more pleased with the NAACP's history-making vote today — which is yet another example of the traction marriage equality continues to gain in every community," HRC President Joe Solmonese said in a statement.Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (Photo11: Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP)
WASHINGTON—Two billionaire brothers who made a fortune in the fracking business have donated $15 million to a super PAC supporting Sen. Ted Cruz's presidential bid, according to CNN.
Citing unnamed sources, CNN reported that Farris and Dan Wilks are by far the biggest donors to Keep the Promise, a pro-Cruz PAC. The brothers founded Frac Tech, a hydraulic fracturing and oil field services business in 2002, and then sold it in 2011 for $3.5 billion, according to Forbes.
Farris Wilks, who is also pastor of the Assembly of Yahweh 7th Day Church near Cisco, said he and his brother support Cruz because the country needs "a principled conservative leader."
"Our country was founded on the idea that our rights come from the Creator, not the government. I'm afraid we're losing that," Wilks said in a statement to CNN. "Unless we elect a principled conservative leader ready to stand up for our values, we'll look back on what once was the land of opportunity and pass on a less prosperous nation to our children and grandchildren."
The Wilks' contributions — along with other funds raised by the PAC — will become public in filings due to the Federal Election Commission at the end of this month.
Cruz's allies have created several PACs to boost his presidential ambitions, all with similar names: Keep the Promise PAC, Keep the Promise II and Keep the Promise III.
Super PACs can raise unlimited sums but are required to operate independently of the candidates they support.
Contributing: Fredreka Schouten, USA TODAY
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1MOTOShIn this episode, Loaf and Janet discuss the upcoming Big Game, the merits of travel over putting down roots, how to deal with the aftermath of a time loop, and what to do when you have a disturbing lack of faith in your boss. Plus: the return of Frankie!
Loaf: Greetings listeners! It is good to be back in the studio with all of you. Not literally with all of you, of course, because I still have not shed these damned antlers.
Janet: Will shedding the antlers make you omnipresent?
Loaf: Ha ha ha probably not. It will just free up some much needed space. Not enough space for our entire listener base, you are correct, Janet. Anyway, it’s good to be figuratively back with all of you. As always, I am Loaf, this is my cohost Janet, and this is Solutions to Problems, where we pontificate upon the obstacles facing you. You can submit your own letters via e-mail at [email protected] or by carving morse code into a prominent landmark visible by satellite imaging. So Janet - are you excited for the big game?
Janet: Oh, I love a good game! On Earth, many of our social events are centered around similar sports to the big game, albeit with less lasers involved. In high school, I was on the Varsity Curling Team. I was pretty dangerous with a broom! Do you like sports, Loaf?
Loaf: I enjoy watching sporting events! If I were on my home planet, we would all go to light the mushroom pits then stand at the edges and smell them.
Janet: What’s the competitive part?
Loaf: Oh, no that’s just what we like to do before we watch other species’ sporting rituals. My people actually don’t believe in competitive rituals. We just find them wildly entertaining.
Janet: It’s… not really a ritual. It’s just a thing, you do, to teach children that life is unfair and that you constantly have to struggle for resources and skills just to survive in the world. It’s fun!
Loaf: Well on that we can agree.
Janet: What’s on our docket for today?
Loaf: Our first letter comes from a plant-based lifeform from Moxillius A.
Dear Eeeheeheeheehee and Janet,
I have been offered a job as chief science officer on a long-range survey ship. Yay! This is what I’ve been working towards my entire career. The problem is the grove elders. You see, my species is only ambulatory as juveniles. At some point, usually around a century, sometimes younger, we take root and began the transformation into grove elders. As sessile, tree-like beings, we can advise our descendents and ponder the meaning of the universe. There isn’t a lot of warning, so most of us tend to stay close to the homeworld after a certain age. The elders are concerned I’m too old to go on such a long term assignment, and if I begin to root on the ship, I could die, and my knowledge would be lost to the grove. I am willing to take that risk, and I think it should be my decision. Besides, I’m not even seventy, and it’s only a ten year mission. I think the grove is being unreasonable, but if I go against their wishes, I risk alienating my entire species. What should I do?
Sincerely,
A Forlorn Floraform
Janet: What a doozy! Well, I think it’s your plant-based life, and you should feel free to explore if you want to! Do you have any thoughts, Loaf?
Loaf: You know, this one is tricky for me. I know how hard it can be to be away from your people - it’s something I’m especially thinking about today, what with the big game and all. My people really value exploration. I think yours probably do too - I mean, you’ll need something to contemplate once you become a tree.
Janet: You know, I wonder if they could accommodate the tree-ness? Like, uh, put a planter on wheels for them if they start rooting early. We have a lot of great mobility aid technology in the greater galaxy. A back up plan might help ease any early-rooting worries.
Loaf: That’s a good idea, but it might not be that simple. Moxillian root systems get very large, very fast. Much like these [bleep]ing antlers which should have fallen off days ago.
Janet: Wow, Loaf, I didn’t know you understood how to swear in Human Standard Language. You can’t just peel them off?
Loaf: Well, it would be very unpleasant but we may be getting to that point.
Janet: It’ll be nice to have them out of the way before the Big Game. We could go to a sports bar once you stop being toxic. As for our plant friend, I wonder if you could look into short missions? Things that will only last a few years. You won’t get to go as far, but you can still get the experiences you’re looking for without the anxiety of being ten light-years from home.
Loaf: I wish I knew what the grove elders were actually threatening to do to them. Do you think they would actually keep you from rooting if you did go and come back after they told you not to? Because it seems to me like they’re bluffing. I think if you’re willing to risk it, you should go. Most likely, they’ll welcome you back with open branches. But only you know that for sure.
Janet: …. Not to be, you know, ignorant, but what can they really do if they can’t.. move?
Loaf: That is an excellent question. It is possible we don’t know enough about your species to really adequately resolve this.
Janet: *shouting away from the mic* Can someone get the intern? Frankie? Someone? Nowish It’s so handy having someone around to help!
Frankie: Umm, hello? Were you asking for me?
Janet: Intern, yes, hello, sit down with us. But watch out for those. Yeah, don’t. Don’t touch that. You know the rules. Did you bring an infopad?
Frankie: I’m not an intern - *sigh* Um, yeah. Moxillians are the tree ones? Right?
Janet: Yeah, tree-like though. Obviously, trees aren’t people. That would be horrifying. Anyway, do the Moxillians have like, a thing? A thing other than basically being trees?
Frankie: You know, they are an entire species. They have millions of years of history. They have numerous, diverse, cultures. What exactly do you mean by “a thing”?
Janet: You know, a thing, like, um, the Grapnofalians are angry all the time, and Loaf’s species is just really weird. Like good weird, but you know, anyway, a thing?
Frankie: That’s offensive and really reductive. How did you even get hired here?
Janet: ANYWAY. More specifically: if you’re a young Moxillian, and you anger your Moxillian Elders or whatever, what happens to you? Do they have psychic powers? Is it a bad talking to?
Frankie: Hang on a second, I’m looking. Uh, let’s see here, Grove elders, grove elders, ummmmmmmm. Huh. Interesting.
Janet: What! What’s interesting?!
Frankie: Sorry I got distracted reading about their sexual practices. They are into some freaky [bleep], for a bunch of plants.
Loaf: Oh, I remember that. Those were some good times.
Janet: Okaaay. Um, right, but the question was about punishment? And elders? You’re not doing great.
Frankie: Look, I’m in charge of cross cultural sensitivity for the whole station. I wrote my dissertation on coming-of-age rituals in vegetable life and I have a PhD in xenofloral anthropology-
Janet: I had a question about elders.
Frankie: Ok, Ok. They don’t have psychic powers, but they can crowd out his root system and block his sun light so he shrivels up and dies. But this is extremely rare, only for actual criminals, and it still takes like 30 years to actually kill him. I highly doubt they’d do that over this small an offense.
Janet: Thank you for that really thorough response!
Frankie: Oh, well, I-
Janet: You can go now. *door slams shut* So Loaf, what’s this week’s sponsor message?
Loaf: I’m glad you asked, Janet. This week’s sponsor is Nutritional Supplement 48C! Getting ready to have all your friends over to watch the big game? Are all your friends humans between the ages of 35 and 42 and 1.5 and 1.7 meters of height? If so, consider serving a healthy platter of Nutritional Supplement 48C! Nutritional Supplement 48C is organic and gluten-free, and specially calibrated for a highly specific subset of humans! Other humans can still enjoy the great taste though, so if some of your guests are under 30 or over 1.7 meters, don’t worry - it probably won’t kill them. Nutritional Supplement 48C - for a highly specific slice of the populous, it’s what’s for dinner.
Janet: And breakfast, and lunch! And, for the still hungry, now available in pre-portioned snack pouches! Personally, my favorite Supplement is 48A, but only because I’m not yet in the optimal range for 48C, and therefore am afraid of the organ damage caused by overconsumption. Supplements: Perfect for the Big Game, and the small game, and almost all possible situations in which sustenance is required.
Loaf: Personally I prefer snails and other small grubs. But then, I’m not a human.
Janet: I mean I could plug their non-human supplements line, but that’s not in our contract, so I don’t care. Shall we move to our next letter?
Loaf: Yes, let’s do that.
Dear Loaf and Janet,
Last week, a traumatic event almost occurred. Well, it did occur. But only for my wife. She was trapped in a time loop, constantly replaying the day leading up to the event in question until she could figure out how to break the causality and return to our universe with its illusion of free will. She claims to have spent many years trapped in this limbo of pre-determined tragedy! Lately, she’s been afraid to leave the house. It’s been so long since she’s lived without knowing exactly what’s going to happen next, and she’s now afraid of being trapped in another time loop should something else occur. She won’t tell me what the original event was that triggered it, but I assume it has something to do with my work in quantum field generator engines. I know I shouldn’t work on them at the house, but my commute to work can be really annoying and I like using the work-from-home benefit. What should I do?
Sincerely,
Grounded on Groundhog Day
Loaf: This is the worst. I was stuck in a time loop for a week once. Of course, the loop was only 12 minutes long. Still, I was a mess afterwards.
Janet: Wow, I’m pretty pro- time loop! I used to purposefully trigger them during exam week in college. Easiest way to keep a 4.0 with a packed schedule, let me tell you. Anyway, I could see it being kind of distressing if you aren’t practiced in breaking time loops. It’s easy, but you really have to know the technique. It’s like stop, drop, and roll, but for those accidental breakages in our traditional understanding of space-time.
Loaf: Okay, but what our letter writer is asking is how to help her wife through the emotional aftermath of what sounds like a very traumatic experience, experienced over and over again every day for years.
Janet: Oh, psh. That’s so easy. Therapy. She should definitely just go to therapy. And um maybe you know there’s some helpful drugs that could help? But mostly therapy.
Loaf: What about Blank Slate Memory Wipes?
Janet: Oh, what a great idea! Getting in on those sponsor dollars. I mean, they sell them in bulk at Costco now. It’s a great deal.
Loaf: If our letter-writer doesn’t want -
*Extremely loud crack, followed by an extended clattering sound.*
*Janet makes an undignified noise/scream*
Loaf: Finally! I thought they’d never come off. Oh I feel ten pounds lighter.
Janet: Only ten?
Loaf: I feel like I could float away. I feel like I just went from 3 gs to 0. Ok, back to work. What were we talking about?
Janet: Time loop safety!
Loaf: Yes! It is important, if you are working on a quantum field generator engine in a home, that everyone in the home be trained in the basics of time loop safety. Make sure your wife takes the course after you wipe her memory though. Otherwise you’re just wasting money!
Janet: For our listeners at home, remember: EGGPLANT.
E - evaluate
G - get your bearings
G - get equipped
P- prepare
L- languish
A- ameliorate
N- iNterrupt the time loop
T - time to go!
Loaf: Such a useful acronym! You almost don’t need anything else. You know Janet, I wouldn’t mind getting stuck in a time loop tonight. It looks like it’s going to be such an exciting game.
Janet: Well, I don’t know if um, I mean it’s a little dangerous to trigger a time loop just to watch some lasers. You can just record it for later.
Loaf: Who wants to watch a recorded laser-ball game? Where’s the fun in that?
Janet: How is that any different than watching it on a livestream? It’s not like I ever want to go in person. I value my eyebrows too much for that. Do you know how often I have to get them threaded? It’s exhausting.
Loaf: I don’t know that. In fact I’m not even one hundred percent sure what an eyebrow is. But I’ll take your word for it.
Janet: Oh, it's the little pieces of fur over my eyes, these things here. They’re a little flammable.
Loaf: Those are your eyes? That makes so much more sense.
Janet: What did you think- … You know what, it doesn’t matter. Shall we move on to our next letter?
Loaf: Sure. This letter is coming all the way from the Galactic Murder Sphere.
Dear Janet and Loaf,
I recently started a new job. I’m great at it and I really love my coworkers, but my boss is an absolute nightmare. He’s constantly talking about his religion, which is super weird and unprofessional. Also he has some serious anger issues. In fact, I actually only got this job because he got so angry with my previous boss that he crushed his windpipe with his mind. Anyway, I feel like I should go to SR, but 1. SR is terrified of him, and 2. I kind of feel bad for him, he was in some kind of accident when he was younger and he lost all four of his limbs and now he has a lot of trouble breathing. But oh my god, his breathing is so annoying. He’s all *heavy breathing* all day long. Also I’m scared he’s going to literally kill me if I mess up. What should I do?
Sincerely, Admiral Screwed
Janet: Psychic powers. I just like, had a Feeling it was going to come up today. A PSYCHIC feeling. No, just kidding, I’m not psychic.
Loaf: There’s a lot to unpack in this letter. Where should we start?
Janet: Well, I suppose we should start with the actual issue, which is that he’s afraid of his boss. It sounds like SR isn’t going to be any help here, and confronting his boss might not solve the problem. Maybe he could request a transfer to a different Murder Sphere, one where the leadership is more amenable.
Loaf: This guy sounds downright abusive. Normally I would say there would be a case for legal action here, but this is the Galactic Imperium we’re talking about, so that’s probably not going to happen. Still it sounds like a very unhealthy working environment. Then we get into the religion issue.
Janet: I’m honestly not surprised that this is happening in the Galactic Imperium, which is such a conservative dictatorial empire state. A lot of those dudes are weirdly religious, and into talking about like, I don’t know, physics or something? Lots of forces invloved? I don’t know. It sounds like a lot of the problems our letter writer has are more about the culture of the company that’s letting this guy stay in a position of authority, honestly. The organization isn’t going to back up his complaints, so what can he really do?
Loaf: It’s possible that they’re afraid if they fire him, they’ll be accused of discriminating against a person with a disability.
Janet: Um, maybe, but it sounds like he’s perfectly capable of performing his duties, and also he has psychic powers? Doesn’t really sound like not having limbs is hindering his career at all.
Loaf: It’s true. And even if it was, it’s no excuse to treat someone like that. Admiral, I’d request a transfer, I’d do it very quietly, and if they don’t accept I’d think seriously about resigning.
Janet: Also, don’t comment on his breathing being annoying. It’s not his fault he’s on a respirator, and besides, your co-workers are always going to make weird noises, weird respirator thing or not. Better to get used to it now.
Loaf: Not to mention weird smells.
Janet: Oh, I mean, I just wear a mask some days. I don’t really notice it anymore.
Loaf: I wasn’t talking about me. Do you know how many noses I have, Janet?
Janet: I didn’t realize you had noses, so no.
Loaf: All of these are noses.
Janet: OH, I mean, oh, of course, I should’ve realized. Should I stop wearing my perfume?
Loaf: Let’s discuss this off the air. Anything else to say to our letter-writer before we sign off?
Janet: Hmmmmm, no. I mean, he works on a Murder Sphere. I’m not sure why we care anyway. I mean, we care about all of our listeners, of course! Especially ones who support our advertisers! Nutritional supplements, uh, you know I’m going to stop talking.
Loaf: Alright, Well, then it’s time we leave once more. Have fun watching the game, and go Spider Monkeys! I really think this is their year.
Janet: Wait, you’re supporting the Spider Monkeys? I don’t know if I can go anywhere with you today. PURPLE SPACEFLIGHT FOR THE WIN.
Loaf: I should have guessed from the outfit! Of course you’d be a PS fan. Uggghhhhhh. We’re done here.
Janet: What does tHAT mean - I mean, good night gentle listeners. We’ll be back soon with another episode of Solutions to Problems! Enjoy the game! Support the only team that matters! Go Purple Spaceflight!
Loaf: [over her] Spider monkeys!
Solutions to Problems is written by and features the voices of Austin Hendricks and Nathan Comstock. It is produced and musically scored by Michael F. Gill. Our theme is by Thomas Dwyer. The voice of Frankie is Valerie Loveland. This episode’s letters were read by Dave Comstock, Aryn Orwig, and Ben Halls. Find out more information about us at www.stppodcast.com. Also if you liked this show, please rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, because it helps us know we exist. Last week’s cryptic question was: What do all of these have in common: the wailing of less than half, the reception of a cinquain, abbattoir abbattoir abbattoir abbattoir abbattoir, and the temperature that ends with the state of Puerto Rico.
The common factor is that, when translated, each clue is a reference to an American novel with a number in the title. The wailing of less than half is The crying of lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. A cinquain is a poem with 22 syllables, so a reception of one would be Catch 22, the novel by Joseph Heller. 5 abattoirs is a reference to slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut, and the temperature that ends in the state of
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urge reduces the cast times to ( 1.4s, 0.7s, and 0.35s.)Increases Armor Pierce to 50%.Can cast True Shot an additional time and it is instant.(Any) True Shot tends to be a relatively unpopular ability in PvP due to its thin telegraph and seemingly underwhelming damage. Charged Shot takes the same amount of time to fully build up as the first cast of True Shot but hits much harder at tier 8. However, True Shot has a fair amount of armor penetration and can be fired off multiple times in a relatively tight time window giving it a lot of potential. If your enemy deflects your Charged Shot, your damage is gutted, but if you can keep a target locked down for 2-3 seconds, you can fire off 3 or 4 True shots that can quickly shred a health bar. Figure out which ability works the best for you and your team, and go with it.(Tier 8} A mobile cast that deals solid damage, and penetrates armor. Its relatively long cooldown benefits greatly from the Trigger Fingers AMP, letting you build up spell power while the ability is on cooldown to quickly fire off 4 back-to-back True Shots. This ability is a great candidate for primary spellsurge dump due to its high damage and long cooldown making sure you don’t starve yourself of spellsurges or waste them on marginal damage increases. Time is money, friends, so keep those casts short and painful!A 1.8 second channeled ability that ticks 3 times, firing Magic Missiles at the darkness at the nearest 3 foes dealing moderate damage that is split up between each target. Additionally, applies a debuff that reduces magic resistance by 5% per stack, and stacks 3 times. Spellsurging the ability causes it to deal roughly 67% more damage per tick.Can now be cast while moving.Apply full damage to all foes while Spell Surged.(N/A) An awkward ability with a long channel and a damage splitting component that makes it less effective for bursting people down. Additionally, it requires heavy trier investment to make it a mobile cast and counter-act the damage reduction on multiple targets, so you’re better off spending your resources on other abilities. The Magic Resistance debuff is nice, and will increase your damage as well as that of any Espers with you, but doesn’t merit a spot on the bar. Move along!(Any) The magic resistance debuff becomes more and more potent as you tier it up, and can greatly improve the damage output from your raid’s Spellslingers and Espers. The damage itself is mediocre but scales decently with Assault Power as you tier it up. Unfortunately the major tier bonuses are nearly worthless in PvE, and resistance debuffing can be left to Espers using Haunt. IF your group needs magic damage increase, or you have a very magic-heavy damage rotation, Arcane Missiles is a decent pickup, but otherwise leave it behind.A combination movement and CC ability, Gate is a 17m forward facing teleport that stuns up to 5 foes in its trajectory for several seconds. Cannot be spellsurged.Destroys 2 Interrupt Armor instead of 1.If a foe is interrupted, cooldown is reduced by 5s.(Tier 0, Tier 4) This ability can be used to escape quickly or to stun enemies. It can be slightly awkward to use on targets who are not pursuing you, as you give up your ranged position to stun them, but it’s great against melee targets as you open a gap between you and CC them simultaneously. The stun has a very long duration at base tier, and increases well as you tier it up. Tier 4 causes the ability to pierce 1 IA which can be valuable, but the tier 8 bonus is an expensive way of situationally reducing the cooldown. Bring this ability along for its practicality, but don’t invest heavily into it unless you have points to spare.(Tier 0, Tier 4) A pseudo leap skill that can be used to reposition yourself quickly or break interrupt armor for your group. Generally it’s preferable to bring along your other interrupt abilities for breaking IA stacks so that you don’t give up your position, but this is still an option.Deals light damage and roots up to 5 targets in a large cone in front of you. Cannot be spellsurged.Cooldown reduced by 3s.When the root ends, foes are snared by 45% for 3s.(Tier 0) The base duration of this root is stupidly long, making it a fantastic pickup with no tier point investment, The tier 4 bonus reduces the cooldown slightly, and the tier 8 bonus applies a snare after the root ends, but neither is very appealing in PvP. Most roots won’t last their full duration as players will use abilities to remove them or healers will dispel them, so dropping tier points in this ability to improve the CC duration is inadvisable. Bring it, but don’t tier it up.(N/A) Roots are generally useless in PvE unless you need to kite your foes. In general, you won’t bring this ability along, favoring your other interrupt skills, but if you need to keep multiple trash mobs in check, the root is very strong.Void Slip is an instant-cast ability that removes all CC effects, dumps your threat to all nearby creatures, and transports you to the Void for several seconds. While in the void, spells can be cast and you are able to move around, but are invisible and untargetable to other creatures and players. You may activate the ability again to exit the Void early. Cannot be spellsurged.Removes all dispellable debuffsRestore 2% Health every 1s for 4 seconds.(Tier 0) Your only true CC break, this ability will keep you alive when poop hits the fan. When you first pop it, you will cleanse any and all CC effects and teleport to an extra-dimensional plane called the Void. While in the Void you can cast spells to heal yourself, run around to reposition, and begin charging out abilities such as Charged Shot to give your foes a nasty surprise upon your return. The ability can be activated a second time to return you to the corporeal plane in case you only need an instant stun break and don’t feel like lounging about in the Void. Its cooldown is pretty steep, but the ability has a lot of options for escaping death and surprising your enemies.(Tier 0) A CC break, threat dump, pseudo-invulnerability skill can be very handy for when things get out of hand. In general, you should be managing your threat relative to your tank’s so you don’t draw aggro, but sometimes crap happens and you need to dump threat quickly to avoid getting eaten. Void Slip makes a great “oh crap!” button while leveling or playing in groups, but is generally unnecessary.Arcane Shock is a powerful CC ability that deals moderate damage, breaks an interrupt armor, and interrupts any casts that the affected target attempts to perform.Cooldown reduced to 15s.Purges 2 buffs on cast.(Tier 0) This ability is amazing on paper until you see that very few abilities can be interrupted in PvP. Most players use a host of instant-cast or charge-based abilities which will not trigger Arcane Shock’s interrupt component. As such, this ability doesn’t truly silence your enemies or dissuade them from using most of their abilities. IT has potential against Espers and Medics who have the most common casted abilities, but against other classes its relevance is questionable. Either way, a low-cooldown method of breaking IA from range has a lot of potential and in certain matchups, the Arcane Shock debuff can be brutal. The tier 4 bonus is a quality of life change, while the tier 8 bonus offers some interesting options for dispelling your enemies.(Tier 0) A low-cooldown ranged CC ability to help you break interrupt armor. In PvE mobs cast a lot of abilities, so the interrupt component can actually let you double dip on breaking IA stacks or invoking moments of opportunity, making this ability very strong. A few encounters require you to dispel buffs on your targets so you may want to tier this up to t8 on occasion, but in general you can bring it along to help interrupt enemies without any investment in tiering it up. IT is important to note, however, that the interrupt will not apply to spells that have already begun casting when you apply Arcane Shock… so be sure to cast it early on to get full use out of the spell.A light heal that removes up to 2 debuffs on you and up to 4 nearby allies.Breaks root and snare CC effects.Cleanses 3 debuffs.(Tier 0, Tier 4) A low-cooldown method of removing roots, snares, and nasty DoTs is a welcome tool in the arsenal of a squishy Spellslinger. At base tier it can be used for a small heal and a way of clearing unwanted debuffs, while at tier 4 it will always remove root and snare components in addition to any debuffs that are still lingering around. Since you don’t need focus for your damage-dealing abilities, you can bring along Purify to cleanse yourself and your teammates to keep everyone mobile and ready to kick ass.(Tier 0) Most PvE encounters are pretty straightforward in terms of damage where you either take a hit or you don’t. Some have very scary debuffs that deal damage or reduce armor and invite you to die much more easily, though, so it’s always nice to have a cleanse along. Generally healers will take care of this, but sometimes they need some extra help dispelling friendlies, so be ready to jump in and save your team!An instant-cast combination teleport and CC skill that causes you to swap locations with your target and disorient them for several seconds, randomizing their movement keys.Maximum range increased to 25m.On a successful Spatial Shift, grant yourself CC immunity for 2.25s(Any) A unique CC ability that can be used to force your enemies into an unfavorable position then remap their movement keys making their escape challenging. Spellslingers are the only class with access to the disorient CC, meaning you will have no problems with overlapping CC and hitting the diminishing return timer. The tier 4 and tier 8 bonuses are both expensive and underwhelming, but the duration of the disorient scales extremely well with ability tier points, so you may want to jack this ability up a bit. At tier 8, the duration is a whopping 8.4 seconds which is sure to infuriate other players. Whether you use this ability to break IA from a range, teleport the enemy healer into the waiting arms of your teammates, juke out your enemies, or simply annoy other players with the disorient mechanic, Spatial Shift is an excellent pick up for PvP.(Tier 0) Despite its long cooldown, this ability has a place for breaking IA stacks without giving up your position. The disorient effect doesn’t matter in PvE, and moving your party’s target is sure to annoy some people, but if you hit Interrupt Armor, neither of these effects occur. If you’re standing back and don’t want to use gate to help interrupt a cast, Spatial Shit can be popped to break through IA… just make sure you cast it early so that it isn’t the last ability used on a mob.A powerful defensive ability that grants you 1 interrupt armor, and increases your deflect chance dramatically for several seconds. Phase shift can be used while CC’d, but cannot be spellsurged.On your next deflect, reduce the cooldown of Phase Shift by 5 seconds. Can only trigger one time.On your next deflect, restore (78.66% AP + SP) health to yourself.(Any) Phase Shift is incredible. A low cooldown ability that can be used while CC’d to absorb any incoming damage is in some ways better than a stun break. As you tier it up, the duration of the deflect bonus scales very well, and the major tier bonuses are quite attractive. With cooldown AMPs and the tier 4 bonus, you can maintain almost 100% deflect on your Spellslinger for 4 seconds every 12 seconds. Throw in the fact that it grants an interrupt armor and this ability is perfect. Pop it early when an enemy is about to open on you and negate their burst damage, or pop it as soon as you get rooted or stunned to mitigate the incoming damage spike. The tier 8 bonus will heal you for roughly 2000 health when you deflect an attack, but only procs once per cast making it only so-so. No matter how you tier it, never leave home without Phase Shift if you’re going against other players!(N/A) Interrupt armor generally doesn’t matter in PvE, and you don’t want to be taking hits to begin with. Void Slip is generally a better “oh crap!” button, so you can leave this skill at home when doing PvE content. When soloing or leveling it’s a strong way of mitigating damage (since you’re the only target) but even then this isn’t particularly necessary.In PVP, you’ll want to stay at range as much as possible and lay into your opponents from afar. Using Charged Shot, Assassinate, and Flame Burst, you have some of the most potent burst damage in the game, able to tear through any class’ health bar in a matter of seconds. By bringing strong defensive abilities to protect you when things get hairy and tiering up your heavy-hitters, you’ll want to poke at enemies with Quick draw until you can line up a CC combo to spell surge a damage combo of Charged Shot followed by Assassinates to destroy your helpless victims.1.– Your basic spammer that will be used to apply small amounts of pressure on your opponents while you try and set up burst combos. Spam this ability like crazy to reduce the cooldowns of your other abilities through the Trigger Fingers AMP.2.– Some extra burst damage whenever you crit. Ideally you’ll use this on cooldown to keep up some sustained damage on your targets, but have it ready when you stun or root your target in preparation for a Charged Shot combo.3.– Your major damage dealer. Spellsurging this ability causes it to cast extremely quickly, dealing massive burst damage. Begin casting it while in the void, or once you’ve got a target CC’d, and let it go once it maxes out at C4 to annihilate your opponent’s health.4.– Your instant cast, high damage ability that can be spellsurged for a much more potent damage spike. Spam al l3 charges on your target after a Charged Shot to ensure their death, or surge them on cooldown to apply excellent sustained damage.5.– A mobility/CC ability which can be used to quickly escape from the jaws of death, peel for your teammates, and setup Charged Shots. Use this ability regularly to line up burst combos and protect yourself and teammates.6.– A very potent root with great range. Use this ability regularly to lock down targets for burst combos or to relieve pressure on your team.7.– Your defensive cooldown that should be used regularly but wisely to offset incoming damage and CC abilities. You can pop it early to prevent incoming damage and CC abilities, or as soon as you get CC’d to counteract the incoming damage spike.8.– Your “oh crap!” button that will break all CC and give you a few seconds to escape or reposition to keep the fight going. If you’re in no danger of dying, you can pop this ability as a temporary invisibility to begin casting Charged Shot on the sly.The Assault Tree is used to boost your damage output and make your burst more frequent and flexible. In tier 1, we improve our Assault Power to maximize damage potential. In tier 2, the Critical Surge AMP is taken to help generate more Spell Power, the Trigger Finger AMP is taken to let us significantly reduce the cooldown on other abilities, and the Deadly Chain AMP is used to provide a stacking damage buff. In tier 3, we unlock the assassinate ability, boost our critical hit chance through the Gunslinger AMP, and our burst damage through the Surge Damage AMP.The Hybrid A/S tree is used to boost our critical hits and burst damage. In tier 1, Critical hit and critical severity stats are boosted for higher damage spikes. In tier 2, the Power Surge AMP is taken to boost your spell surge abilities by a fair amount.Extra points are dumped into the Utility tree to boost CC resilience and reduce ability cooldowns.In PvE, you’ll want to maximize your damage output while standing at a range. You can generally choose a strong DPS rotation focusing on their physical damage or magic damage, which each use a different system of priorities. I recommend trying the physical rotation as you can make fantastic use of the Trigger Fingers AMP and armor penetration component of True Shot to deal great damage and manage your spellpower efficiently without finding yourself starved. Bring along several core damage abilities, keep your offensive buffs rolling, and interrupt enemies to invoke MoOs or stop dangerous casts and you’ll be in great shape.1.– This ability represents a large portion of your damage and boosts your Assault Power by 10%. Additionally it will reduce the cooldown of all of your other abilities thanks to the Trigger Fingers AMP. Spam this whenever you don’t have something better to do.2.– A strong ability that should always be cast on cooldown and spellsurged to put out excellent damage.3.– “Free” damage every time you crit. Use this ability on cooldown.4.– An instant cast ability used as a filler damage-dealer when waiting on True Shots. Does extra damage to low-health enemies, boosting your DPS for free once the boss gets low. Use this ability on cooldown, but do not spellsurge it.5.– Your primary damage dealer and Spell Power dump. Spellsurge the cast and empty all 4 shots as quickly as possible, then return to spamming Quick Draw to quickly wear down the cooldown on this skill.6. Arcane Shock – A ranged interrupt used to break IA and invoke MoOs.7.– A mobility skill used to reposition quickly or interrupt enemies on occasion if you can give up your ranged position with minimal consequences.8.– A ranged CC ability that can be used to break IA stacks if you need more interrupts in your group. Cast it early, however, as you do *not* want the position swap to go through or you’ll have a lot of upset party members.The Assault Tree is used to boost your damage output and make DPS rotation tighter. In tier 1, we improve our Assault Power to maximize damage potential and Strikethrough to help move us towards the 12% deflect cap in PvE. In tier 2, the Critical Surge AMP is taken to help generate more Spell Power, the Trigger Finger AMP is taken to let us significantly reduce the cooldown on other abilities (like True Shot), and the Deadly Chain AMP is used to provide a stacking damage buff. In tier 3, we unlock the Assassinate ability, boost our critical hit chance through the Gunslinger AMP, and our overall damage through the Surge Damage AMP.The Hybrid A/S tree is used to boost our critical hits and burst damage. In tier 1, Critical hit and critical severity stats are boosted for higher damage spikes. In tier 2, the Power Surge AMP is taken to boost your spell surge abilities by a fair amount.Extra points are dumped into the Utility tree to reduce ability cooldowns to make your DPS rotation tighter.Mark Wilson / Getty Images on August 20, 2013 in Fort Meade, Maryland.
Bradley Manning’s decision to live as a woman highlights how complex gender identity is.
Sentenced to 35 years in prison for the largest leak of classified information in American history, Bradley Manning wants to serve that term as a woman. “As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me,” she wrote to NBC’s Today Show, “I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible.”
The army has said it will not provide such treatment in prison, but research is beginning to suggest there is a biological basis for gender dysphoria, or distress over a perceived mismatch between one’s visible gender and actual identity. As a private, Manning struggled with gender-identity issues, and this experience factored in the soldier’s defense in explaining the leaks. The latest science also shows that gender and sexuality are far from clear cut and that gender may really be a spectrum of grays, not the black and white we tend to see.
MORE: Manning Biographer: Media Should Respect The Trans Experience
Like Manning, most transgendered people know that they are different very early in life. “The research that I’ve done suggests that it’s on average between [age] four and five, which has been supported by other studies,” says Genny Beemyn, the director of the Stonewall Center at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, who is transgendered and does not identify as either male or female. Beemyn adds, “Some say from their earliest memories, they recognize that there’s something different about their gender, as compared to their playmates.”
That perception may derive from biological differences in their brains, says Dr. Dick Veltman, professor of neuroscience at VU Medical Center in Amsterdam, who has published research on children with gender identity issues. In his work, he and his colleagues examined whether the brains of these children look more “male” or “female” when performing visual or verbal tasks that are designed to identify gender differences.
“Our results indicate that for both spatial and verbal [skills], transgenders will perform and show regional brain activity similar to their desired rather than their biological sex,” he says. “Importantly, these findings were obtained in children prior to the onset of puberty, so that these differences appear to be present at an early age, and are not necessarily due to hormonal changes associated with puberty.”
MORE: A 6-Year-Old Boy Becomes a Girl: Do Schools Need New Rules for Transgender Students?
But research on the brains of transgendered people is still in its infancy. A few studies, such as Veltmann’s, have found some differences, while others have not. “The results from different studies show different findings depending on whether the study group is male to female, or female to male, and depending on which technique was used,” says Ivanka Savic Berglund of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, who studies gender and the brain.
She published a study in 2007, which examined how heterosexual female to male transgendered people responded to the smell of sex hormones, compared to heterosexual men and women. Their response was more like a female response, but not quite like that of a heterosexual male. “We found a pattern of brain activation which was more congruent with the perceived sex than with the chromosomal sex,” she says.
And despite many people’s assumptions that transgendered people identify as homosexuals, sexual orientation and gender identity are separate issues— transgendered people can be straight or gay, just as occurs with those whose genders match their physical appearance.
MORE: Study: Why Some Transgendered People Have Higher Levels of Autistic Traits
Complicating matters even further for transgendered individuals is the fact that during childhood, many who grow up to be gay or lesbian identify themselves with behaviors associated with the opposite sex from which they are raised. There are also some children who feel uncomfortable with their biological gender whose feelings change with puberty or who ultimately decide to resolve them without surgery or hormones. “There are differences between someone who feels that they want to express masculinity as a female-bodied child [and those who want to do the reverse],” says Beemyn, “ We have [the idea of the] ‘tomboy.’ For male-assigned children, there is not that cultural space to express themselves.”
Beemyn adds, however, “There’s a big difference between a boy who wants to wear feminine clothing or pink and a boy who says, ‘I want my penis cut off because I don’t feel like I am a boy.’” Until recently, such children had little choice but to act in gender-conforming ways. But now, Beemyn says, gender therapists can help parents and kids find their way through these issues.
It’s a challenging journey, and not surprisingly, the approach must be highly individualized. What is right for one child in terms of dress, hormones and surgery may be wrong for another. Some children may take hormones to delay puberty so that development can be altered later to produce an appropriately-gendered body; others may just want to dress in clothes that reflect their sense of gender and never take hormones or have surgery. But because these perspectives can change over the course of a child’s development, parents and therapists should take care not to make irreversible decisions without adequate consideration.
MORE: Identity Crisis: Changing Legal Documents No Easy Task for Transgender Individuals
Given how complicated the biology is— not to mention the cultural, social and parental contributors to sexual identity—it’s not surprising that some people, like Manning, fall somewhere between neat categories of male and female. Beemyn has chosen to use the pronoun “ze” rather than “he” or “she” when self-identifying, to reflect this fact.
Manning’s desire to change genders was clearly a long time in the making, and driven by biological and cultural factors that interact in ways that scientists still can’t unravel. For Chelsea Manning, the next hurdle will be to fight for the treatment that she wants. Manning’s attorney, David Coombs, said on Today that if the therapy Manning desires is not provided at Fort Leavenworth, where Manning will likely be sentenced, “I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure they are forced to do so.” The National Journal reports that two ongoing cases may make that possible, and it’s likely that the military will be facing increasing questions about how to best help transgender soldiers to be all they can be.Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week.
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Veterans in college are six times more likely to attempt suicide than the typical student and more than a fifth have planned to kill themselves, a new study presented at the American Psychological Association’s annual meeting shows. Ad Policy
Universities are largely unprepared to meet the educational, and mental health needs, of the more than one million veterans expected to enter institutions of higher education in the next decade according to the report.
“If we don’t think [this] through, it’s going to be a significant and very difficult problem,” the study’s author, M.David Rudd said. “These [mental health] numbers were far higher than anticipated” and veterans are “having dramatically more difficulty than the typical student.”
The study shows that about half of veterans have contemplated killing themselves and that 82 percent of those who attempted suicide also struggled with significant post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Researchers say veterans often feel disconnected from their fellow students. This social separation, coupled with a “warrior mentality” can make seeking emotional help especially difficult.
Since the passage of the post-9/11 GI Bill, the number of veterans attending college has surged. While many universities have worked to welcome and support veterans on to their campuses, the transition has not always been smooth. In Maryland, Charles Whittington, an Iraq war veteran, was suspended from the Community College of Baltimore County after he wrote a paper about his addiction to killing that college administrators found “disturbing.” Other veterans have complained that fellow students are immature or constantly ask, “Did you kill anyone over there?”
Rudd says that colleges and universities need to take a number of steps to support veterans.
His report suggests creating veteran support centers on campuses, setting up special veterans orientation and training college counselors to recognize combat-related trauma. States like Maryland have already tried to enhance veterans experience by fostering greater cooperation between Veterans Affairs office and university administrators. The University of Wyomig will introduce a special transition course for veterans this fall and UMass Amherest already has a “drop-in” center for veterans.
Yet these reccomendations may fall on deaf ears. As Claire Potter argues at The Chronicle of Higher Education, state governments are unlikely to fund the report’s recommendations. In the past two years states have already slashed the budgets that would have provided services for student veterans “from 10 to 20 percent across the nation”:
California, where we can imagine large numbers of vets matriculating because they have deployed from and will return there, is cutting between $1.3 and 1.4 billion dollars from a system that took massive cuts in the last fiscal year. North Carolina, a state that should see similar pressure because of its military bases, is cutting 15% from its state system alone. Private schools have also cut, and cut and cut. Texas? South Carolina? It’s the same story everywhere. Furthermore, as military budgets are reduced over the next several years, do we think that veterans benefits or weapons systems will be eliminated?Fans were somewhat disappointed when General Zod was revealed as a new character in NetherRealm’s Injustice: Gods Among Us and wouldn’t look as he appears in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. Now it seems we’re getting what we wanted.
A user at TRMK.org (via CBM) discovered some interesting information hidden in a new patch to the game that includes textures and a character model featuring the likeness of Zod from the film, though there isn’t a new voice over for the character from Michael Shannon. NetherRealm has yet to announce this skin publicly so it could be some time before it is made available to fans, but check back here in the future for an official announcement from the developer.
Injustice: Gods Among Us is available now for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U.London (CNN) US President Donald Trump appeared to misconstrue a statement while launching an attack on Twitter of London Mayor Sadiq Khan in the wake of the terror attacks which killed at least seven people.
Trump, writing on Twitter Sunday, said: "At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is "no reason to be alarmed!"
We must stop being politically correct and get down to the business of security for our people. If we don't get smart it will only get worse
But when Khan said in a statement that there was no cause for alarm, he was referring specifically to a visible increase in police activity on the streets of London in the wake of the attack.
"Londoners will see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. There's no reason to be alarmed," he said.
Khan told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that the attack was "evil and cowardly" while also emphasizing that more police would be on the streets of London in the coming days.
A spokesman for Khan responded, calling Trump's tweet "ill-informed."
"The Mayor is busy working with the police, emergency services, and the government to coordinate the response to this horrific and cowardly terrorist attack and provide leadership and reassurance to Londoners and visitors to our city," the spokesman said. "He has more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump's ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks urging Londoners not to be alarmed when they saw more police - including armed officers - on the streets."
The acting US ambassador to the UK, Lewis Lukens, issued a statement on Twitter singling out Khan for praise.
"I commend the strong leadership of the @MayorofLondon as he leads the city forward after this heinous attack," read a tweet from the US' London embassy attributed to Lukens.
I commend the strong leadership of the @MayorofLondon as he leads the city forward after this heinous attack. -- LLukens 3/3 https://t.co/p4dDZuCpyO — U.S. Embassy London (@USAinUK) June 4, 2017
Lukens is serving as ambassador until Trump gets a permanent pick confirmed. Trump has yet to formally nominate his choice for the job, although he said prior to his inauguratio n that he would choose New York Jets owner Woody Johnson.
Trump's tweets have been heavily criticized by a number of British politicians, who are currently preparing for the country's general election which is scheduled to take place on Thursday.
Here's what @SadiqKhan actually said. He is right to provide reassurance. I'm standing with resilient London & him. pic.twitter.com/FlsP3n41cZ — Penny Mordaunt (@PennyMordaunt) June 4, 2017
Conservative politician Penny Mordaunt tweeted the transcript of Khan's interview and said: "I'm standing with resilient London and him."
Cheap nasty & unbecoming of a national leader. Sort of thing that makes me want to quit politics on a day like this. Evil everywhere we look https://t.co/ubkQ3CMrJ4 — David Lammy (@DavidLammy) June 4, 2017
Labour politician David Lammy said Trump's tweet was "cheap, nasty and unbecoming of a national leader."
Having already undermined police response to Manchester, this so-called ally makes cheap attack on London's Mayor. Cancel the state visit. https://t.co/qgFi3NlzX0 — Wes Streeting (@wesstreeting) June 4, 2017
Wes Streeting, another Labour politician, called for Trump's state visit to Britain to be canceled.
At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is "no reason to be alarmed!" — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2017
Trump was also fiercely criticized by Brendon Cox, the husband of former British lawmaker Jo Cox, who was murdered by a right-wing fanatic in November 2016.
"You represent the worst of your country, @SadiqKhan represents some of the best of ours," Cox wrote on Twitter.
You represent the worst of your country, @SadiqKhan represents some of the best of ours. — Brendan Cox (@MrBrendanCox) June 4, 2017
In the US, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said on CNN's "State of the Union" that he had also been troubled by Trump's tweets.
"I believe in many ways the Muslim-American community is better integrated into our society. I think that's always been our secret sauce here," Warner said. "That's why it troubles me so much to see the type of tweets the President has put out in the last 12 hours or so."
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the criticism of Trump's tweets. But the President resumed his attack Monday morning.
"Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his 'no reason to be alarmed' statement. MSM is working hard to sell it!" he tweeted
Ongoing feud
Khan, London's first Muslim mayor, has long had a frosty relationship with Trump.
JUST WATCHED Mayor: 'Appalled and furious' at attackers Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Mayor: 'Appalled and furious' at attackers 00:10
In 2015, Khan criticized Trump, saying he "doesn't have a clue about London" after the American claimed that certain areas of London were no-go zones.
Khan also lambasted Trump last year, claiming he held "ignorant views." Trump responded by labeling Khan "ignorant" and suggested the two should compete in an IQ test.
Then in January of this year, Khan insisted that Trump's state visit to Britain be canceled after the US President attempted to impose a travel ban on Muslim nations -- a policy which he labeled "cruel and shameful."
Travel ban
Trump's tweets came the day after he touted his so-called travel ban in the wake of the London terror attacks, while also pledging assistance to Britain.
Without referring explicitly to London, Trump wrote on his personal account: "We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!"
Eight minutes later, he tweeted, "Whatever the United States can do to help out in London and the U. K., we will be there - WE ARE WITH YOU. GOD BLESS!"
We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2017
Whatever the United States can do to help out in London and the U. K., we will be there - WE ARE WITH YOU. GOD BLESS! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 3, 2017
Cecillia Wang, the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, quickly accused Trump of exploiting the situation.
"We need to be outraged when the president exploits a terrible violent crime to push his discriminatory and illegal policy," she tweeted
And Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Grimes, a Democrat, said Trump was stoking "fear and hate" with his response.
"Our Commander in Chief should be directing support to a vital US ally, not using horrendous attack to stoke fear & hate," she tweeted
Earlier, Trump retweeted the Drudge Report when it referred to "fears of a new terror attack," although the nature of the incidents had not yet been confirmed by authorities. Shortly after Trump tweeted, British Prime Minister Theresa May said the incident was being treated as a "potential act of terrorism" and London police later tweeted that they were "declared as terrorist incidents."
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump had been briefed on the situation by his national security team. A spokesman for Vice President Mike Pence said he also has been briefed and spoke with Trump from Air Force Two.
Pence also tweeted, "Our thoughts & prayers are w/ the victims, courageous first responders & all the people of London. As President Trump said: WE ARE WITH YOU."
Our thoughts & prayers are w/ the victims,
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ringleader. The other was believed to be Youssef Aallaa.
A third - Mohamed Houli Chemlal - was injured, and is among the arrested. He is being held by Spanish authorities on suspicion of terrorism-related offences.
The blast destroyed the house. Police found 120 gas canisters in the wreckage and now believe the house was being used as a bomb factory and headquarters by the jihadists.
Image copyright EPA Image caption Butane and propane gas canisters were found at the scene of an explosion in Alcanar
Catalan police reckoned that the jihadists had been preparing bigger attacks, and that the accidental blast forced them to adopt a more rudimentary plan - the van rampage.
Houli Chemlal confirmed that that was the case, judicial sources said. He told the Madrid court on 22 August that Barcelona's iconic Sagrada Familia church was among the targets, the sources said.
All four suspects have reportedly said the ringleader of the group was the imam, Abdelbaki Es Satty. He and most of the suspects lived in Ripoll, a picturesque small town north of Barcelona.
Barcelona carjacker
CCTV footage showed suspected Las Ramblas attacker Younes Abouyaaqoub leaving the scene of the van murders and walking through La Boqueria market.
Image copyright El Pais Image caption CCTV footage appears to show Abouyaaqoub fleeing the attack on foot
Reports suggest he then headed to the city's university area where he hijacked a white Ford Focus car at knifepoint and killed the driver, Pau Pérez. He then crashed through a police checkpoint, breaking a policewoman's leg, as he tried to leave Barcelona.
The car was found abandoned a few kilometres to the south, at Sant Just Desvern, with the body of Mr Pérez on the back seat. He had been stabbed - the 15th victim of the Barcelona and Cambrils attacks.
Abouyaaqoub went on the run. On 21 August, police were tipped off by members of the public who had seen a man of his description in the rural Subirats area, 40km west of Barcelona. Police were on the scene and within minutes the suspect, wearing a fake explosives belt, had been shot dead.
Who are the main suspects?
Younes Abouyaaqoub, the suspected van driver, born in Morocco. He was among the jihadists who lived in Ripoll, 100km north of Barcelona.
Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Abouyaaqoub, 22, was on the run for four days until police shot him
Imam Abdelbaki Es Satty, 45, died in the Alcanar blast. He lived in a modest flat in Ripoll. Belgian officials say he spent three months living in Machelen, a suburb of Brussels, before the March 2016 suicide bombings that killed 32 people in the Belgian capital.
In 2010-2014 he was in jail in eastern Spain for drug trafficking, police said.
Satty was described by locals in Ripoll as a reclusive, devout Muslim who was close to the Moroccan youths. The father of two of the Cambrils attackers has accused him of radicalising them.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Inside the pretty town hiding terror suspects
Driss Oukabir, 28, is among the men charged in relation to the attack. He denied being in the jihadist cell but admitted having hired two vans, one of which was used in the Barcelona attack. He said he hired them thinking his friends would use them for a house move.
Police found his passport in the Barcelona van - he claimed that his brother Moussa Oukabir, 17, had stolen his ID. The younger brother was among the five killed by police in Cambrils. The other van was later found in the town of Vic and believed to be a getaway vehicle.
Image caption An image of Moussa Oukabir, circulated in Spanish press and taken from social media
Driss turned himself in in Ripoll on 17 August, with a judge ordering him detained on suspicion of terrorism-related offences on 22 August. The Oukabir brothers had Moroccan as well as Spanish nationality.
The other four attackers killed at Cambrils were Said Aallaa, 18; Mohamed Hychami, 24; Omar Hychami and Houssaine Abouyaaqoub. Said Aallaa is said to have left a note in his room apologising for the harm he was about to cause.
Who else has been arrested?
Two other men were detained in Ripoll - Salah el-Karib, 34, and Mohammed Aallaa, 27. The latter is believed to be the owner of Audi car used by the jihadists in Cambrils. He has been released on conditional bail as there is not enough evidence to hold him, court papers revealed.
A judge ordered el-Karib to be held for a further 72 hours to allow investigators more time.
French police say the Audi was driven to Paris by Younes Abouyaaqoub and another jihadist on a short weekend trip before the Barcelona attack. Their motive for that is not clear, but they are known to have gone shopping.
More details of the Barcelona suspects
Who are the victims?
They come from all over the world, with at least 34 nationalities represented.
People from Ireland, the UK, France, Australia, Pakistan, Venezuela, Algeria, Peru, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Ecuador, the US, Argentina, Romania, Cuba, Austria and the Philippines are all reported to be among those hurt.
Read more about the victims
Barcelona attack: What the trees say
These names of the dead have so far been released:
American Jared Tucker, 43
Belgian Elke Vanbockrijck, 44
Spanish-Argentine Silvina Alejandra Pereyra, 40
Argentine Carmen Lopardo, 80
Spaniard Pepita Codina, 75
Canadian Ian Moore Wilson
Spaniard Francisco López Rodríguez, 57. A three-year-old relative with him also died
Italian Bruno Gulotta, 35
Italian Luca Russo, 25
British-Australian national Julian Cadman, 7
Spaniard Ana María Suárez. Died in the Cambrils attack
Pau Pérez, 34, found fatally stabbed in car at Sant Just Desvern
Two Portuguese nationals are also confirmed dead, a woman aged 74 and her 20-year-old granddaughter.
An unnamed German woman, 51, died in hospital on 27 August.
Jared Tucker, a father-of-three, was on honeymoon with his wife of one year, Heidi Nunes, when he died, his father said. Mr Tucker had been enjoying drinks on Las Ramblas when the van struck him.
Ian Moore Wilson was the father of a Vancouver police officer. His wife, Valerie, was injured.
The mother of Julian Cadman, the seven year old killed on Las Ramblas, was also injured in the attack and is in a serious but stable condition in hospital.
Was a bigger group behind the attack?
So-called Islamic State (IS) has said it was behind both the Las Ramblas and Cambrils attacks and that IS "soldiers" carried them out. But it did not provide any evidence or details to back up the claim.
Why Spain?
Spain is one of Europe's most popular tourist destinations, but in recent years has not seen the kind of jihadist violence that has rocked France, the UK, Belgium and Germany.
Spain's long anti-terror experience
Still, Spain has been targeted before - several trains in Madrid, the capital, were bombed by al-Qaeda inspired militants in 2004, killing 191 people and injuring hundreds of others. It remains Europe's bloodiest terror attack this century.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption What was it like to be caught up in the Barcelona attack?
IS news outlet Amaq said the attack was carried out as part of efforts to target states fighting in the US-led anti-IS coalition.
A few hundred Spanish soldiers are in Iraq, training local forces fighting IS.
The number of operations carried out against jihadists in the country has increased significantly since Spain raised its terror alert level to four out of five in June 2015, meaning there was a "high risk" of a terror attack.
Security was stepped up in the wake of truck attacks in the French city of Nice in July 2016 and the German capital Berlin in December.
On Twitter, the Spanish royal household posted: "They are murderers, nothing more than criminals who are not going to terrorise us. All of Spain is Barcelona."Throughout history, one of the largest catalysts of technological advancement has been war. The ability to fashion iron, then steel, into arms and armor lent significant power to the civilizations that first developed those technologies, and advents like gunpowder or nuclear fission would change how war is fought entirely. In World War II, the development and advancement of tank technology would see the lowly Panzer II go from a formidable force on the battlefield to utterly obsolete in a span of under ten years—considering the length and breadth of human history, this is an incredible rate of advancement.
Even in sci-fi and fantasy, we can see wartime escalation and the importance of nations to continue developing their weapons of war.
The original Gundam series, 0079, was about the development of beam weaponry, and many a theorist has surmised that, had Zeon been able to develop the Gelgoog as fast as one month sooner, the end of the war would have looked vastly different. This echoes arguments about World War II and the rise of early jet technology—by the time it had been developed, it was too late to have a significant impact on the war, but simply the fact that it was developed would go on to shape warfare into the future, as the conflict shifted from Germany to Korea.
Exalted exists in a strange place with war technology and the advancement thereof. Much of the truly superior technology is held over from the First Age in the form of power armors, artifact weaponry, powerful sorcery, and strategic superweapons (e.g. Soulbreaker Orbs). Even when it comes to naval and aerial warfare, the developments of the Second Age pale in comparison to any surviving and functional technology of the First. But these assets are rare enough that while they can have tactical influence, their ability to affect the outcome of a war on the strategic level (aside from strategic options like the aforementioned Soulbreaker Orb, or Juggernaut) is much more reduced.
But the existence of the Solars also means that humans jumped a lot of mundane technology. The Iron and Bronze Ages were entirely passed over for steel, and the fall of the Solars ushered in a nebulous period during the Shogunate which would be akin to our Dark Ages, only lasting what appears to be a period somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 years long.
With the disappearance of the Empress, we’re not only seeing a return of the Solars, but several civilizations are making mundane advancements that may change the face of warfare both in the Realm and Threshold, and it’s worth looking at those advancements—who stands to gain from them, and how they might gain them. Almost any “vanilla” story (meaning one beginning five years after the Empress’s disappearance) is going to see significant advances in wartime technology both on the mundane and magical fronts, and it’s worth laying some of these out for an easy reference.
The question I want to investigate is: what would an early war in the vanilla story look like versus a late war.
Assuming that, in vanilla, the Reclamation plot is about to hatch and the Empress is due to return within 10-15 years after her disappearance, players who establish a power base in their first 5 years (or Dragon-Blooded assuming command of a field force or even legion) will be operating in about the RY 785-790 time period. And there’s a lot of stuff going on in the world of war tech on both the strategic and tactical level.
Let’s use the Realm as our sort of “baseline”. With the world’s largest standing military, they’re the most reliant on mundane technology to outfit their legions. I won’t go into too great of detail on the Realm military, because it’s described far more capably in Scroll of Kings, but suffice to say for summary that so far as their mundane component is concerned, they’re roughly equal to the Western Roman Empire at the height of their power. They deploy in large blocks of close formation, leading their heavy infantry with medium and light infantry to skirmish in the front, and—given time to prepare, are no stranger to erecting siege weaponry such as catapults or siege towers.
Why is this question important, you ask?
Because the Realm got straight up trounced, handily, fighting what should have been an inferior opponent in the North. In terms of mundane equipment and training, the barbarian tribes united under the Yuurgen Kaneko may have been technologically inferior, but they won because of their supernatural assets. Conflated with the loss of Thorns to the vanguard of the undead, the Realm’s strategic deployment will have to change significantly, or the Empire will crumble. Military strategists around Creation, hearing this, will also have to evolve their tactics and their technology if they are to defend their borders from new, rising threats of Exalted, the undead, and the fae poised to launch the Second Crusade.
The enemies of man in the late Second Age cannot be fought by the mundane strategies of war as they have been understood throughout the entire Shogunate and Imperial Periods.
Let’s look first at who is leading mundane technological advancements in Creation.
On the northern front, introduction of the Haslanti League into any conflict is going to bring with it mundane airships, glider and other early aerial components, and crossbow technology. Only the most advanced civilizations would have the capability to actually produce airships and gliders, and most that can do so largely already do (that being Lookshy and the Realm). It’s unknown if the undead would have any use for an air corps, though it would be in their best interest to certainly deny their opponents air superiority. The Guild would perhaps be interested in developing air technology if only to give their merchant princes new options to get goods to market, but other than perhaps escort frigates armed with Scorpions or, at best, Light Implosion Bows, their own military presence in the air will likely be minimal—however, as wars are won and lost with resource acquisition, any prolonged campaign in the Threshold will want to court the Guild, if for no other reason than to deny their enemy access to feathersteel and the other materials necessary for airships, or acquire it for themselves.
The South advanced into gunpowder, but it’s a primitive sort that relies on firedust as a combustible, rather than for propulsion. So rather than developing guns, they have created flamethrowers. The concern with waging war with firedust is of course the supply—unlike an airship, firedust warfare relies on a consumable found largely in its home region (note: this could be house-ruled so that the Delzhan were merely the first to develop firewand technology, and perhaps the Haslanti, some other Northern civilization, or even the West could develop it independently or with reverse-engineering as well, and have the resources necessary to make firedust natively available). Similar to the introduction of matchlock rifles to Japan during the Sengoku Jidai, should a Realm Civil War break out on the mainland, it’s not out of the question that forward-thinking commanders would outfit their legions with a scale or two of firewand infantry, or conscripting/hiring firewand cavalry straight from the Delzhan. Essentially, whichever House claims the southern ports of the Realm and control of the Fire Navy will have access to this powerful technology, though it probably won’t be seen in any large-scale conflicts in the Riverlands.
Unquestionably, however, the leaders of technological advancement comes not from any force in Creation, but the Autochthonians, who have harnessed both steam technology and early industrialization. As their participation in the vanilla story is optional, I’ll only include them here as a special mention. In the vanilla story, they emerge in the polar South, near the edge of the world, and begin carving out an empire there as part of the Locust Crusade. Their fighting style is much more suited for Close-Quarters Combat, and formation/field deployments are something alien to their civilization. They would be much more comfortable building steam tanks and using propulsion-based weaponry like pneumatic crossbows or, once they figure out firedust, early matchlocks. Their reliance on ranged warfare could be seen as a downfall, but they have both the numbers and logistics to field enough projectile-based armaments to whittle down and rout even the cavalry of the Southerners.
On the magical front, things get more complicated.
No Realm or Lookshy Legion would dare march without a sorcerer. Spells like Death of Obsidian Butterflies are, even in the Shogunate and Imperial Periods, a staple of the battlefield, and loosing such a spell in battle would be disastrous for an opposing scale or even wing caught in its area of effect. So the idea of area-of-effect capability isn’t new to Creation’s militaries. But these options are slow and limited. Strategoi might deploy their infantry in fog or seek to assassinate rival sorcerers before attempting to rout their opponents.
Where we would see the most advancement, magically, is the rise of Solars and battlefield sorcery extending into the Sapphire and Diamond Circles. With them come Second and (gods forbid) Third Circle Demons, capable of doing what a single sorcerer could accomplish not just multiple times over, but with a much stronger ability to withstand assassination. Considering demons don’t have to materialize until they’re ready to act, and Sapphire or Diamond Circle Sorcerers would likely come with Celestial defensive Charms or even Circlemates committed to their defense, neutralizing that area-of-effect threat becomes far more difficult.
This is where Lord Tepet Arada’s strategy in the North crumbled.
We know from fiction comics later on that Chejop Kejak “gave” the Tepet Legions to the Bull of the North—we can assume that this means that there were negative astrologies affecting their battlefield performance and also likely a lack of committal from the Immaculate Order. The IO is and has been the Realm’s largest asset when it comes to dealing with supernatural threats, and at the time of the Empress’s disappearance, it’s the weakest it’s ever been since its inception. So when a Blood Ape pops up, yes, they might commit a talon to its eradication, but when a talon of Blood Apes appears in coordinated attack, that same human talon—and its entire accompanying scale—are going to rout. Men were not made to face demons en masse.
Fact of the matter is: The Realm (and, truly, any standing military) has no great answer for Yuurgen Kaneko and his Circle on the battlefield. Not at the start of a vanilla campaign. With the Immaculate Order weak, the Sword of Creation unmanned, and the Legions with no central, organizing command, there is little to nothing that the Realm’s standing doctrine can do on a late Second Age battlefield. If Lookshy fares any better, it’s because they have fewer foreign interests (meaning they can consolidate their power better) and they have the benefit of not having to cross an ocean. Any war Lookshy fights will likely be defensive, and so long as it remains so, they can rely on rapid deployments of their Yoroi Rapid-Response and Gunzosha Power-Armor battalions to carry the day against demonic, magical, and otherwise supernatual opposition. But if Lookshy is drawn out of position, they will be just as vulnerable as the Realm. Nexus has relatively little to worry about in terms of open warfare, given that they owe allegiance to no one but money, and the Reclamation effort concentrated on them is much more subtle and insidious.
Now we begin getting into the hypothetical
As a disclaimer, this is largely conjecture based on what we know from various 2-2.5 edition publications, notably Scroll of Kings. While we can make reasonable guesses as to what the major world powers will do, ultimately, the player characters will and should have greater impact.
Continuing my focus on the Realm, following the defeat at the hands of largely supernatural entities, I would think that the Palace Sublime would be petitioned to reform the Immaculate Order and begin accepting the militant training of mortals en masse. With the spear being an in-form weapon for Five-Dragon Style, it would be the ideal weapon to train mortal monks with, though an argument could be made for the naginata (polearm stats) as well. While the Immaculate Order has always been known for its militant branch, the mass training of mortals for the explicit purpose of war is not touched on in any books—it’s safe to assume, I think, a large portion of the Second Age would have lacked the massive field of synchronized mortals in kata practice. That is all poised to change, and with the Wyld Hunt in a severe dearth of capable bodies to answer the call, a shift to reliance on mortal monks would be the reasonable solution…if the Mouth of Peace agrees to such reformations.
These scales would be deployed with little or no armor and used to counteract specifically First-Circle demon forces, though they might be used to tie down Solar-trained Tiger Warriors and Lunar offspring Beastmen as well. Similar to Total War’s Naginata Warrior Monks and Imperial Flagellants, these unflagging mortal warriors would be vulnerable to missile attacks, but that’s what the heavy infantry is for—they shouldn’t be deployed against missile troops but instead held in reserve to wait for a wave of blood apes, tiger warriors, or lunar shock infantry.
The aforementioned firedust infantry or cavalry scale would be a huge boon for whoever can claim and field them in a Realm Civil War, but if the Realm rediscovers peace before the Reclamation can spin them into total turmoil, they would prove largely effective against those same first circle demons, either on the back lines to ward off agata-based flying attackers or as a shock flanking force to thin the ranks of monstrous infantry like blood apes, or even to decimate a flank after the skirmish phase.
Lookshy would do well to acquire crossbow technology from their northern cousins, if for no other reason than to equip their reservists with them. While the crossbow is technologically confounding, it eliminates the need for strength training by practitioners. A crossbow unit could be equipped and trained in a fraction of the time of a bow unit, given the capability to mass-produce the crossbows. Lookshy has the engineers to achieve this capability, and outfitting reservists so even they can be as deadly in combat as front-line skirmishers would give them a significant tactical advantage. With their local command over the skies, the Haslanti League’s airships and glider technology would round out their air force into Creation’s first non-divine aerial military.
Chairoscuro is not and has never been in a position to start any kind of conquest. Having reached their peak of development, the only thing they could really do to further advance would be to adopt Autochthonian technology when finally confronted with the alien invaders, or be lucky enough to adopt some Exalted into their ranks. A couple Lunars generating quick-footed offspring combined with their already formidable missile cavalry would give the Chairoscurans a hit-and-run style military doctrine not unlike the Huns. As no Lunars are openly working with the Chairoscurans, such a hybrid force wouldn’t take to the field until later in any prolonged conflict. This also assumes that the Chairoscurans eventually declare sovereignty and abandon the Realm. The weakness of the Delzhan Horde will continue to be, however, its logistics. Feeding a thousand men is a Herculean feat. Feeding a thousand men and their horses in the steppes if not the Southern deserts is a feat that even legends such as the Solar Exalted would have a difficult time managing.
The West is in a rough spot, technologically. They’re largely isolated from the rest of the world, and without moving into steam technology there’s only so much more their mundane ships can improve. For the most part, conflicts in the West will look like our world’s naval skirmishes up to even the early 1500s. They’ll be reliant on massed archer fire, fire-based light projectile weapons, and light siege weapons like small ballistae and scorpions, with boarding and ramming action reserved only for the militaries that have the marine manpower to rely on such strategies. Blue-water naval confrontation is almost out of the question entirely simply because keeping such forces supplied is a logistical nightmare. A ship more than a few days out of port is a ship on a timer. The exception, of course, are supernatural forces—that being First Age warships, Lunars in warform, demons, elementals, and other supernatural entities. Any entity that seeks to command the West or move out from a base of power will need to reckon and harness these forces first.
As RY 800 draws nearer and nearer, militaries in Creation are going to have to rely more on alliance and integration of new technology.
With forces like the Autochthonians pushing into Creation, the man-based militaries that come to rely on these entities will be the ones finding themselves with an edge in combat as the old ways of war are pushed farther and farther into obsolescence. It doesn’t help that the few true superweapons like Thousand-Forged Dragons, Soulbreaker Orbs, and Juggernaut can undo any advantage if leveraged correctly, but that is the reality of war and outside the purview of this little mind exercise.
Ultimately, Sun Tzu’s wisdom reigns as true in Creation as it does in our world—the commander who is victorious will first win, usually by seizing or neutralizing any opponent’s advantages, and then seeking conflict. A sorcerer should ideally not be met on the battlefield. Thusly, the wise commander will seek to know the number and composition of their opponent’s forces, and if they have (for example) a sorcerer, it would be in their best interest to kill that person in their sleep, or sway them to their side, or otherwise neutralize the threat so their heavy infantry is not marching into jeopardy. Where Lord Tepet Arada failed, merely, is that he fought a war that he would have won as near as six months earlier. By the time the Tepet Legions landed on the northern shores, they were already too late, and the Solar Circle of the North had everything they needed to best the older legion in open warfare.
So, Commander, now you have everything to need to forge your own legend into the later campaigns of Creation’s history.
What legends will they tell of your deeds?
Art: Gambargin, via DeviantArt
AdvertisementsWARSAW (Reuters) - Global economic losses caused by extreme weather events have risen to nearly $200 billion a year over the last decade and look set to increase further as climate change worsens, a report by the World Bank showed on Monday.
Typhoon Haiyan is pictured in this NOAA satellite handout image taken November 8, 2013 at 01:57 UTC. REUTERS/NOAA/Handout via Reuters
A United Nations’ panel of scientists has warned that floods, droughts and storms are likely to become more severe over the next century as greenhouse gas emissions warm the world’s climate.
“Economic losses are rising - from $50 billion each year in the 1980s to just under $200 billion each year in the last decade and about three quarters of those losses are a result of extreme weather,” said Rachel Kyte, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development.
“While you cannot connect any single weather event to climate change, scientists have warned that extreme weather events will increase in intensity if climate change is left unchecked.”
Reinsurance company Munich Re has estimated total reported losses from disasters were $3.8 trillion from 1980 to 2012, attributing 74 percent of those to extreme weather.
More than 3,900 people have been killed in Typhoon Haiyan which hit the Philippines, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded.
The typhoon threw a spotlight on the impact of climate change and coincided with the start of November 11-22 talks in Warsaw, Poland, where governments are trying to draw up a plans to slow its effects.
EMERGING ECONOMIES AT RISK
Many nations have said the typhoon matched trends towards extreme weather and was an example to spur action in Warsaw, which is meant to lay down the outlines of a global deal in 2015 that will enter into force from 2020.
But the U.N. panel of climate scientists says it has only “low confidence” that human emissions have already contributed to the intensity of cyclones, which include typhoons and hurricanes, since 1950.
As part of the talks, governments are discussing a mechanism to help poorer countries cope with losses and damage from climate change.
Although weather-related disasters can affect all countries, the most severe economic and human losses are expected in rapidly growing countries, such as those in Asia, which are building their economies in areas vulnerable to floods, droughts and extreme temperatures, the World Bank said.
The average impact of disasters on such countries equalled 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) from 2001 to 2006 - ten times higher than the average for high-income countries, the World Bank said.
But climate impacts will especially cripple poorer countries. Hurricane Tomas in 2010, for example, devastated St Lucia and caused losses of 43 percent of GDP.
To help avoid unmanageable future costs, governments should focus on making their countries more resilient to disasters, even though that might require up-front investment, it added. (Editing by Louise Heavens)France’s best-known actor Gérard Depardieu has generated a stir with his letter firing back at the French Prime Minister and turning in his beloved French passport. “We no longer have the same country. I’m a true European, a citizen of the world,” Depardieu wrote. Given France’s meteoric tax rates, he is moving to Nechin, a Belgian village just across the border from Lille, France. See Depardieu to give up passport in tax exile row. A mile can make a world of difference.
The beloved actor said his 2012 tax bill – 85% of his revenue – is fully paid. That’s a golden goose, not so? Turning 64, Depardieu said he’s been working since age 14. In the last 45 years he claims to have paid €145 million ($190 million) in taxes. That’s a lot of baguettes.
Yet Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault recently labeled Depardieu "pathetic" and "unpatriotic" for his decision. Elegantly striking back, Depardieu wrote: "I hand over my passport to you and my social security card, which I have never used." After France’s socialist President François Hollande proposed a 75% tax on earnings over €1 Million, France’s wealth-king Bernard Arnault applied for Belgian nationality. See If U.S. Had 75% Tax Rate, You’d Leave Too.
Like Depardieu, Arnault took heat, including being called a bastard. The understated newspaper headline: “Get Lost, You Rich Bastard.” Yet it’s a global trend. In Britain, the number of taxpayers declaring £1 million a year in income fell by more than 60% in just one year. The explanation might be the recession, right?
Perhaps, but this happened to be the banner year millionaires faced a 50% income-tax rate up from 40% the prior year. Incredibly, the total number of millionaire tax filers plunged from 16,000 in 2009-2010 to 6,000 in 2010-2011. See Britain’s Missing Millionaires: Income tax Rates Rise but Revenues Fall. And Americans too have looked for greener pastures.
Although some Americans vote with their feet, our inflow dramatically exceeds our outflow. Our worldwide income tax system is becoming more controversial, yet is unlikely to change. See Expats Lobby For Tax on Residence, Not Worldwide Income. When Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin left for tax-friendly Singapore, some thought it was a great idea. See Why Denise Rich Followed Eduardo Saverin’s Expat Lead.
But others became incensed. See Why Facebook’s Co-Founder Just Defriended America. The Saverin move on the heels of the Facebook IPO prompted a tax bill to slap even higher taxes on those deigning to say sayonara. That ramped up U.S. exit tax has not been passed into law, but some legislators got some nice sound bytes about taxes and patriotism.
But given America’s tough and complex tax system, anyone joining Depardieu needs some tax advice and thoughtful planning. Not only is there already a U.S. exit tax on people who give up U.S. citizenship, it can apply to handing in a Green Card too. See High Cost To Go Green: Giving Up A Green Card.
Robert W. Wood practices law with Wood LLP, in San Francisco. The author of more than 30 books, including Taxation of Damage Awards & Settlement Payments (4th Ed. 2009 with 2012 Supplement, Tax Institute), he can be reached at [email protected]. This discussion is not intended as legal advice, and cannot be relied upon for any purpose without the services of a qualified professional.ROME (RNS) Italian officials on Tuesday (Aug. 5) moved to expel a Moroccan imam who was caught on video inciting violence against Jews during Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said he had ordered the imam, Raoudi Aldelbar, to be expelled “for seriously disturbing the peace, endangering national security and religious discrimination.”
The imam was filmed during a Friday sermon in a mosque near Venice last month calling for Jews to be killed “one by one,” according to the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute, which published the video on its website.
“Oh Allah, count them one by one and kill them all,” the imam allegedly preached during the service at the mosque in the northern city of San Dona di Piave.
After the video was aired in Italy by the center-right daily, Libero, Alfano said: “Uttering anti-Semitic sermons that explicitly incite violence and sectarian hatred is unacceptable. May my decision in this case be a warning to all those who think you can preach hatred in Italy.”
The government’s decision drew widespread support across the political spectrum and from the Muslim community in the Veneto region, where the imam is based.
“Islam is a religion of peace. Those who preach death must not be allowed inside the mosques,” said Bouchaib Tanji, president of the Veneto Islamic Federation and of the Assalam (Peace) association. “Even worse is that he calls on God to exterminate an entire population.”
But politicians from the anti-immigrant Northern League issued a statement calling for greater controls on mosques, saying they were “dangerous places” that pose a “serious problem to security and public order.”
“The government must wake up and take action before it is too late,” said the statement from Massimiliano Fedriga, a party leader in the lower house of parliament with other members of his party.
Anti-Semitic graffiti was scrawled across walls in several areas of Rome last month in protest at Israel’s military action in Gaza.
KRE/MG END McKENNASOME people are never grateful. On August 31st Israel’s government made its largest appropriation of occupied West Bank land in a generation. It took some 1,000 acres of virgin hills for a proposed new city, Givaot, doubling the population of the Gush Etzion block of settlements sprawling on the hills around Bethlehem.
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But it was not enough for the area’s Israeli mayor, Davidi Perl. Frustrated by what he perceives as the government’s grovelling to westerners, on everything from the recently halted war in Gaza to the conduct of peace talks with Palestinians, he says he will change party—defecting from Likud, led by the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to Jewish Home, a party of religious radicals headed by Naftali Bennett.
Many others are following. A poll on September 2nd showed that Mr Bennett had, in effect, replaced Mr Netanyahu as champion of the right-wing camp. Although Mr Netanyahu’s approval ratings are roughly on a level with where they stood before the 50-day war in Gaza, much of the approval comes from Israelis who vote for parties left of Likud. Challengers within his party are demanding more aggression in Gaza, where the ceasefire left no clear winners, and faster entrenchment of settlements in the West Bank, even though the settler population is growing three times faster than that of Israel proper.
During the Gaza war former loyalists like Gidon Saar, his interior minister, repeatedly denounced the ceasefire deal, which envisages a gradual easing of the blockade on Gaza. A bruised Mr Netanyahu is resorting to political outreach. He and his wife, Sara, are hosting party members in the run-up to the Jewish new year. After months of relying on statements, he is again giving televised interviews.
Mr Netanyahu’s supporters hope that settlement expansion will shore up his core backing on the right. Four parliamentarians come from Gush Etzion, including the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, the Knesset speaker and the head of its powerful foreign affairs and defence committee. The new settlement, they hope, will assuage the anger at the killing of three Jewish students, whose capture outside a religious school in Gush Etzion sparked the Gaza war.
But the more Mr Netanyahu indulges the right, the more he alienates the outside world. America, the UN and the European Union have urged Mr Netanyahu to reverse course. The British prime minister, David Cameron, denounced the expansion as “utterly deplorable”.
To its foreign critics, Mr Netanyahu’s government tries to minimise the move. Tendering for construction has yet to begin, officials note; and even if it should, the land abuts the green line and lies inside blocs of territory that Israel would anyway annex under any conceivable peace agreement with Palestinians.
Nevertheless, hopes of reviving peace talks are evaporating, just as they did when Mr Netanyahu’s last land appropriation in March made peace talks go “poof”, in the words of John Kerry, the American secretary of state. Mr Netanyahu may have negotiated the Gaza ceasefire with a Palestinian delegation that included the Islamist Hamas movement, which rules Gaza. But he says he will not talk peace with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, as long as his government is backed
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All in all, we plan to share much more specific intel on Arma 3 Tac-Ops (including its release date) in the beginning of November, which is also when the first operations should appear on Dev-Branch. However, we feel it's important to already make clear that the Tac-Ops Mission Pack does not include new assets or platform features. This is also reflected in the DLC's pricing, which is about half of a regular Arma 3 DLC (excluding the Apex expansion) at € 4.99 / $ 5.99 / £ 4.49. Ultimately, we believe that this, in combination with excellent singleplayer content, makes for a splendid package. We can't wait to launch Tac-Ops and hear about your successes (and failures) on the battlefield!
Speaking of splendid packages on our 2017 Roadmap, Dev-Branch was recently updated with a first batch of the platform improvements planned for the upcoming Tanks DLC. For example, you can now try out the Driving Overhaul for tracked vehicles on the Kuma Main Battle Tank. The goal of this Driving Overhaul was to make handling, power, gears, and overall control of your vehicle correspond better with real life situations. Many of these changes were made possible thanks to the recent update of our game's PhysX libraries. Designer Ondřej Kužel is now collecting feedback on the forums, and the next step is to bring all tracked vehicles to the level of Kuma for Arma 3's next Main Branch update! Another major improvement, which is also deployed to Dev-Branch, is the Vehicle Audio Overhaul. In this case, our Audio Ninjas used new technology to equip the Kuma tank with more as well as new audio samples, while the calculation/computing of the engine's RPM has been overhauled as well. All in all, we plan to keep on introducing more overhauled vehicles to Dev-Branch as soon as they're ready and tested. By the way, Dev-Branch users might have spotted one other, small but visually appealing, tweak: heavy vehicles now simulate recoil when firing their main guns!
LOGISTICS
Last week we posted a new job advert for "Community Manager" for Arma 3 on the Bohemia careers website. If this sounds like a dream job to you, we very much welcome you to apply! Or, if you know of someone who might be a great candidate, then please make sure to share this information with her or him. As Community Manager, you'll become a member of the Arma 3 devteam, and you'll be involved in a potentially wide variety of activities, such as creating (social media) content, organizing (online) events and producing live streams, assisting with our development blogs, and much more (see the job ad for a more detailed description). Ultimately, your mission will be to develop our relationships with the wonderful people in our community, and to simply make everyone want to be a part of it. If you're thinking about applying, be sure to include a CV with relevant experience and skills, but most importantly, prepare a strong cover letter that tells us why you want to be Arma 3's Community Manager, and clearly demonstrates your ability to present yourself (bonus points if you know the appropriate usage of'splendid'). We hope to welcome you to the team soon!VOORHEES, N.J. – As the cuts kept coming and names like Robert Hagg, Travis Sanheim and Philippe Myers started dropping, there stood just two members among the highly-talented pool of Flyers defensive prospects.
Ivan Provorov and Sam Morin.
The first one is already viewed as a potential starter in the NHL. The second one, though, was a bit more surprising. Yet, in reality, Morin’s extended look, which came to a halt on Tuesday as he was among two players loaned to Lehigh Valley, shouldn’t be all that eye-popping. Taller defensemen tend to take longer to develop, and from the looks of it, Morin’s development has come along just as expected, if not quicker.
This camp was easily Morin’s most efficient one to date, as the first-round pick back in 2013 displayed both physicality, skill and composure that had not been seen before at this level.
“He was a confident player all the way through camp and he showed he’s taking a big step towards this level,” said Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol. “He’s very close.”
When asked whether or not Morin will be a call-up at some point this season, Hakstol gave an honest assessment with a nod of approval.
“I think that’s accurate,” Hakstol said.
It won’t be that easy, of course, as Morin will need to carry over that strong play and newfound confidence down to Lehigh Valley where he’ll likely work on the top defensive pairing.
I asked the second-year coach what stood out the most about the 6-foot-7 blueliner this camp compared to last, with Hakstol replying, “his poise, presence and comfort in every area of his game.”
He then used Monday’s game against the Rangers as an example of Morin’s development in a nutshell. Late in the game, Morin coughed up a puck right in front of Steve Mason that wound up being directly put past the netminder.
There was frustration, as evidenced by Morin’s slashing of his stick on the ice afterwards, but rather than carry over that emotion the rest of the way and nullify a strong showing up until that point, Morin displayed his maturation.
Had that been during the 2015 preseason, it may not have been the same result.
“I think last year that would have shook him up and rattled him,” Hakstol said. “This year, he moved onto the next play and stood out, played that next shift extremely well, aggressively and played it smart. It didn’t affect him whatsoever. That’s part of maturity, and a part of the growth.”
Morin was seen exiting the Flyers Skate Zone following his loan back to Lehigh Valley earlier today, but unlike this time last year, it was with a head held high and with the mindset that he may be back in the near future.Corporation considers either straightforward sale of site or joint venture to establish 'creative quarter' or visitor attraction
The BBC has begun the sale of Television Centre in west London in a move that is likely to raise hundreds of millions of pounds for the broadcaster.
The sell-off, plans for which first emerged in January 2007, could herald the end of nearly 50 years of broadcasting at the site.
However, the BBC is also prepared to consider other options, which would involve it retaining some presence at Television Centre. "The key objective for any sale or partnership is to maximise the value of the site to the BBC and licence fee payers," said the corporation in a statement.
A straightforward sale is likely to be quicker and easier but may not raise as much money in the long run as a joint venture, particuarly at a time when property values are depressed.
Last week MediaGuardian.co.uk revealed that the BBC was looking to market-test two options – selling the site to developers outright, or entering into a joint venture to establish a "creative quarter" or "BBC land"-style visitor attraction.
The corporation is vacating Television Centre by 2015, with its several thousand staff due to move to the refurbished Broadcasting House in central London or its new BBC North HQ in Salford.
Last spring the BBC unveiled proposals for a multimillion-pound redevelopment of the site to revitalise west London with a 23-acre "creative quarter".
Under the plan the BBC would sell Television Centre to developers but rent back some of the studios to continue making programmes at the site, and perhaps lease some space to house an orchestra.
The rest of the centre – parts of which are crumbling and likely to be demolished to make way for new buildings – could become home to independent production companies, other media organisations or performing arts companies.
• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
• To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and FacebookLINCOLN, NE—Claiming that the third-grader refuses to acknowledge anyone else’s involvement in the situation, sources confirmed Monday that egocentric 8-year-old Dylan Fielder blames the divorce of his parents entirely on himself. “Dylan is preoccupied with the extremely selfish notion that he’s the sole influence on his parents’ marital problems, insisting that he could have acted better or done more to make them get along, as if he’s the only thing that matters in this situation,” said Fielder’s school guidance counselor, Sharon Thomas, adding that the boy is so narcissistic that he quickly dismissed the idea that financial and psychological factors played a role in his parents’ recent divorce and failed to even consider that the couple’s deep-seated communication issues could possibly be more important than he is. “I’ve tried to make it evident to Dylan that there’s more to his parents’ fighting and separation than just him, but frankly, he’s too self-absorbed to see anything else.” Thomas told reporters that she would not be surprised if Dylan thinks his father’s decision to give full custody to his mother completely revolved around him too.
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MUMBAI: The consumers will have to shell out more for the ready to move-in flats under theas developers with large unsold inventories are planning to pass on the higher tax burden to home-buyers.However, the new flats will cost less, giving some breather to the developers of upcoming projects., the effective tax on under-construction projects has gone up to 12 per cent, which is an increase of 6.5 per cent. The actual GST rate is 18 per cent on realty, but allows one-third of the tax to be deducted from the land value, from the total cost charged by the developer.The GST gives an option of getting full input set-off credit, which is not applicable on ready-to-move-in flats and as a result, developers will have to bear the burden of higher tax or pass on to the end-consumers or increase the overall prices to match the new tax burden, say developers."While developers might still get some benefits for projects that are in nascent stages, they will have to bear the tax burden for the ready-to-move-in projects since they are kept out of the GST ambit, House of Hiranandani Chairman and Managing Director Surendra Hiranandani said.Gera Developments Managing Director Rohit Gera said under the, tax on under construction projects would be 12 per cent, an increase of 6.5 per cent for buyers."There is an option of getting full input set-off credit on all input side if GST is paid by them, but this is not applicable on ready-to-move-in properties," he said.As a result, developers will either have to bear the burden of the tax since it cannot be passed on to the end consumers or the rates of apartments that are ready-to-occupy will increase to the extent of the taxes," Gera said.Vinod S Menon, CEO of Bengaluru-based mid-market developer Citrus Ventures, says "everybody talks about the positives that GST brings in. But the devil lies in the details and no one seems to have any clarity on that."Menon said though one-third deduction makes the effective rate 12 per cent, with current effective VAT plus service tax rate being nine per cent, there is still a three per cent incremental charge.Since no retrospective claim of credits is possible, this will be a bone of contention between customer and developer as to who will bear this, he said.Coupled with the new regulator Rera, GST will increase paperwork and thus the overall cost, Menon said.However, Knight Frank India Chairman Shishir Baijal said like the note-ban, GST would trigger some momentary disturbances but augur well for the industry in the long term."The intention of GST is to bring in efficiency in the entire tax system, and its implementation will see some teething issues. But eventually it will pave the way for an extremely efficient tax system for the country," he said.Echoing similar views, SILA founder and MD Sahil Vora said there will be pain and forced consolidation in the sector, but in the long-run everybody will benefit."But the affordable housing sector is happy as there is no tax on it. Since almost 70 per cent of the market caters to the middle to high income segment, GST could shift focus, particularly of smaller developers towards high volume, low to medium income segment," RICS Global's Sachin Sandhir said.Anarock Property Consultants Chairman Anuj Puri said the affordable housing sector will not be impacted by GST as there will be no tax under GST for affordable housing scheme.CBRE South Asia's Ram Chandnani said GST will also attract international residential investment as it has been seen globally that a unified tax structure has been one of the many catalysts for increased investments."Additionally, sectors ancillary to real estate will see improved supply chain efficiency with the removal of various federal tax barriers and creation of a common market, accelerating the delivery of goods," he noted.Atul Chordia of Panchshil Realty said they have only completed or near-ready projects which will be paying 12 per cent GST on the cost of construction."The effective 12 per cent tax is higher than the industry as we tend to use best-in-industry material, much of which will fall under the 28 per cent slab leading to higher overall cost," Chordia said.India Ratings maintains a negative outlook for the real estate sector for FY18, on expectation of a continued slump in sale of residential units.This will lead to continued negative cash flows since FY14 and a further increase in already-high debt levels, resulting in weakening of the sector's credit profile.Rohit Jain, a partner at law firm Economic Laws Practice, said there isn't enough clarity on transitional provisions under GST, whether it pertains to credit of inventory, credit on unsold stock or the tax implications where part payments are made under the pre-GST and part under the new taxation system.Washington Democrats are planning a full-court press on John Boehner John Andrew BoehnerEx-GOP lawmaker joins marijuana trade group Crowley, Shuster moving to K Street On unilateral executive action, Mitch McConnell was right — in 2014 MORE (R-Ohio) now that immigration reform is squarely in the Speaker's court.
The Senate's passage of a comprehensive immigration reform bill Thursday has sent the package to the House and left Boehner John Andrew BoehnerEx-GOP lawmaker joins marijuana trade group Crowley, Shuster moving to K Street On unilateral executive action, Mitch McConnell was right — in 2014 MORE facing tough choices about his next steps in the face of a sharply divided GOP conference – steps he has yet to announce.
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It's by no means clear that an immigration bill will reach President Obama's desk, but Democrats hope they can build pressure on Boehner over the summer and fall.
"Mr. Boehner, you are on the clock," Rep. Luis Gutierrez Luis Vicente GutierrezDHS to make migrants wait in Mexico while asylum claims processed Coffman loses GOP seat in Colorado Trump changes mean only wealthy immigrants may apply, says critic MORE (D-Ill.) said following the Senate vote.
Sen. Charles Schumer Charles (Chuck) Ellis SchumerBrennan fires back at'selfish' Trump over Harry Reid criticism Trump rips Harry Reid for 'failed career' after ex-Dem leader slams him in interview Harry Reid: 'I don't see anything' Trump is doing right MORE (D-N.Y.) is endorsing a million-person march on Washington to pressure Boehner to act. The Hispanic, Black and Asian Pacific American caucuses are whipping hard against smaller reforms moving through the House Judiciary Committee, heralding Republican-only votes that would lend the bills little leverage. And Obama is using his bully pulpit to call on House Republicans to act swiftly.
"Today, the Senate did its job," Obama said Thursday. "It’s now up to the House to do the same."
Boehner on Thursday declared that he won't consider any immigration legislation — including a conference report — unless it has support from a majority of his troops. He also doubled down on previous vows not to consider the Senate-passed bill on the House floor.
"We're going to do our own bill through regular order, and it'll be legislation that reflects the will of our majority and the will of the American people," Boehner said during a press briefing in the Capitol.
Democrats acknowledge that the momentum generated by passage of the Senate bill is, by itself, not enough to push comprehensive reform through the lower chamber. But the lawmakers say they're confident that intensifying pressure – from both within the Capitol and without – will force Boehner's hand.
"The coalition for comprehensive immigration reform? I don't think the House of Representatives quite understands how broad and deep it is, because it's been perpetually stationed in the Senate for the last four months," Gutierrez said shortly before the Senate vote. "Well, they're closing down camp there in about an hour and setting up camp here.
"That might very well be the next Hastert rule," he added.
While many of Boehner's rank-and-file members are flat-out opposed to any immigration bill that includes a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants, national party leaders have called for action, believing it could could improve the party's standing with Hispanic voters after a dismal showing in the last two presidential cycles.
Schumer said passage of the Senate bill – a lopsided 68-32 vote that included support from 14 Republicans – "set the tone so Republicans go to Boehner and say, 'Look, I don't want to vote for this, but get it off our back.' "
In an early sign that Democrats will have some help from across the aisle, Sen. Jeff Flake Jeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeBrexit and exit: A transatlantic comparison Poll: 33% of Kentucky voters approve of McConnell Trump suggests Heller lost reelection bid because he was 'hostile' during 2016 presidential campaign MORE (R-Ariz.) said after Thursday's vote that he would begin calling members of the House Judiciary panel immediately.
"There is going to be a lot of pressure to take something up," Flake said of House leaders. "Let them do their own thing. … We can conference with just about anything.
"It's their turn," Flake added.
Opponents of the Senate bill were quick to push back, hoping to stem the momentum the reform movement gained when the Senate passed its proposal.
"Bill supporters fell well short of a vote total in the 70s which they promised," Sen. David Vitter David Bruce VitterBottom Line Bottom Line Top 5 races to watch in 2019 MORE (R-La.) tweeted after the vote, "so this has no momentum at all in the House."
It remains unclear how GOP leaders plan to proceed. Boehner said Thursday that Republicans are hoping to use next week's July 4 recess to take the temperature of their constituents, and the entire conference will meet July 10 to discuss the next step.
"I don't want to make any predictions on what the outcome of that conversation is going to be," Boehner said, "but we're going to have a conversation and determine a pathway forward."
As one option, the Republicans could stage floor votes on the four GOP bills passed out of the Judiciary Committee and then try to conference them with the Senate. Yet those proposals would receive scant Democratic support – Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) predicted Thursday they might attract "three or four" Democratic backers – and with some staunch conservatives threatening to oppose any reforms at all, their fate remains uncertain.
Indeed, some Democrats are already warning that the partisan approach will fail.
"No matter what my Republican friends do in the Judiciary Committee, it is not comprehensive immigration reform, nor will it be a complete reflection [of the House] and something you can go to conference on," Gutierrez said.
The wild card remains a comprehensive draft bill being floated among a bipartisan group of seven House lawmakers. Although the negotiators have struggled to finalize their proposal, the members of the group and House leaders on both sides of the aisle are holding out hope that a deal will emerge that can pass the lower chamber.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday endorsed the package as "a compromise … we can all support." And Boehner continued to prod the group to work for a deal, suggesting it would stand the best chance of passing and getting the issue behind him.
"I would encourage them to continue their work, because as we look for a path forward, we’re going to need the ideas from both parties,” he said.
Still, with many House Republicans ardently opposed to a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants – a key point of the Senate bill upon which Democrats are insisting – Boehner's options are limited if he hopes to move something that can pass both chambers.
In the eyes of Democrats, he won't be able to pull it off without dropping his insistence on the Hastert rule.
"Republicans are not going to pass comprehensive immigration reform. It's going to be Democrats and 30 or 40 Republicans," Grijalva said. "That's the combination, and that's the combination that needs to be allowed to vote. The whole mantra from us from now on is, 'Give us a vote.'"
Whether the pressure campaign works remains to be seen.
Erik Wasson contributed reporting.
This story was updated at 9:27 a.m.DETROIT — General Motors expects to lay off thousands of factory workers after the number who voluntarily quit through a recent buyout and early retirement program fell short of the carmaker’s target.
G.M. said Monday that about 6,000 hourly workers had left as of Saturday. That means the company still has about 48,000 hourly workers, which is 7,500 more than its year-end goal of 40,500.
A G.M. spokeswoman, Sherrie Childers Arb, said the company planned to meet with the United Automobile Workers union to determine how it could meet its goal by Dec. 31, but she said the company was not considering another buyout offer.
“Some people will go into a layoff situation,” Ms. Childers Arb said. “Others will be offered positions at other G.M. facilities. But we probably would not be able to find positions for all of those workers.”
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Workers who agreed to leave their job received cash payments of $20,000 to $115,000, with the largest amount going to those who gave up retirement benefits other than their pensions. Departing workers also received a voucher worth $25,000 toward a new-vehicle purchase.The Cash Money Records of the late ’90s and early 2000′s had a secret weapon named Mannie Fresh. Mannie played a pivotal role in the label’s early success. He nurtured the raw talents of young stars Lil Wayne, Juvenile, B.G., and Turk and conceptualized many of the Cash Money’s biggest hits. He produced banging beats, wrote catchy hooks, suggested flows, had the best adlibs and brought an undeniable energy to every record he touched. While most producers were getting placements here and there, Mannie was simultaneously producing multiple albums in their entirety. Considered the architect of that classic Cash Money sound, he’s also credited with introducing New Orleans bounce music to the mainstream. “I was just doing music,” says the New Orleans native. “It was just my idea of what music was. I never set out to create this whole new sound. It was just what I felt and as a DJ it was more of ‘What would the DJ play to get the party started?’” After parting ways with the label that not only he helped build, but also made him a star many thought his career would be over, but of course, it wasn’t. He continued his chart success with artists like T.I. and Jeezy. Here, Mannie Fresh talks to Life+Times about how Cash Money classics and T.I. anthems came together and how Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter saved Cash Money Records.Representatives of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), reached a compromise on Monday, a necessary step before the new sex work law can be discussed in the Bundestag.
"Finally, the prostitution industry will be regulated and finally something will be done for the protection of men and women active in the sex trade," a spokeswoman for the Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth Ministry told journalists on Monday.
The proposed law could enter into force on July 1, 2017, said Marcus Weinberg, the CDU's spokesman for women's affairs. Lawmakers would now discuss transitional arrangements for prostitutes and brothels by the end of 2017, Weinberg added.
The new laws include guidelines for registration, health counseling, labor conditions and mandatory usage of condoms. Operators of brothels, trailers and escort services would also have to commit to a minimum number of personnel and standards on hygiene and security. The regulation would also prohibit practices and "offers often called 'flat-rate sex' or 'gang bangs.'"
The SPD and CDU agreed to draft a new law to protect sex workers during coalition talks in 2013. The older law, passed in 2002, had been criticized for indirectly promoting the forced sex trade.
mg/ng (AFP, dpa, KNA)Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Pro-Russian separatists have disrupted voting in Donetsk, as Mark Lowen reports
People in Ukraine have taken part in a presidential election after months of unrest following the ousting of former President Viktor Yanukovych.
There are 18 candidates on the ballot, which is widely seen as a crucial moment to unite the country.
But pro-Russian separatists disrupted voting in the east, stopping many polling stations from opening and smashing up ballot boxes.
Some 20 people have been killed in fighting in recent days.
Voting in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk has been seriously disrupted.
There were no polling stations open in Donetsk city, and across the region only seven out of 12 district electoral commissions were operating.
The presidential elections were called after Mr Yanukovych was deposed in February amid mass protests against his pro-Russian policies.
At 15:00 (12:00 GMT) national turnout stood at more than 40%, Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted election authorities as saying.
Confectionary tycoon Petro Poroshenko, known as the "chocolate king", is the favourite to win.
"I am convinced that this election must finally bring peace to Ukraine... stop chaos, stop bandit terror in the east,'' Mr Poroshenko said after casting his ballot in Kiev,
BBC reporters on the ground
"Huge numbers of cameras and reporters from Ukraine and across the world were there too as - with his wife and children beside him - [front-runner Petro Poroshenko] shouted "Glory to Ukraine" and dropped his ballot paper in the box."
Daniel Sandford, Kiev
"Perhaps the most important election in Ukraine since independence in 1991 is simply not going to happen in one of the country's biggest cities."
Mark Lowen, Donetsk
"You can not only feel the tension here, you can easily see it. On our way to the town of Krasnoarmeisk, we found a heavily armed checkpoint of the Ukrainian army. The soldiers are very nervous."
Olga Ivshina, Krasnoarmeisk
BBC reporters witness Ukraine vote
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Many hope the election will bring an end to the months-long tension that has taken hold in Ukraine
Image copyright Reuters Image caption This couple in traditional dress were among the early voters in the western village of Kosmach
Other candidates include former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the ultra-nationalist Right Sector party, and two prominent politicians from the east, Serhiy Tyhypko and Mykhaylo Dobkin.
If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, a second round will take place in June.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk urged people to vote and "defend Ukraine".
On Friday Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would respect the outcome and was prepared to work with whomever was elected president.
Kiev and the West accuse Russia of stoking separatist sentiment - a claim President Putin denies.
In related developments:
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has deployed 1,000 observers, but has withdrawn most of its monitors from the Donetsk region over fears for their security
Separatists have massed outside the Donetsk home of steel magnate Rinat Akhmetov - Ukraine's richest person - who recently accused the rebels of threatening "genocide"
Italian photojournalist Andrea Rocchelli and his Russian translator Andrey Mironov were killed in clashes between separatist and government forces near Sloviansk on Saturday
Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev has begun a two-day trip to Crimea - a region Moscow annexed in March - in a visit denounced by Ukraine as a "provocation"
Separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk declared independence after referendums on 11 May, a move not recognised by Kiev nor its Western allies.
The two regions took their cue after the disputed referendum in Crimea that preceded Russia's annexation.
Polling stations closed at 20:00 (17:00 GMT), with definitive results expected on Monday.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Front-runner Petro Poroshenko and his wife voted in KievToe holds and heel hooks can be a little confusing when you’re first exposed to them. Because many leg locks are only legal in brown and black belt competitions, they’re uncommon in many schools. However, in no-gi and submission grappling tournaments they’re more common than chokes. Garry’s going to break down each finish with us along with the hand placements he likes for each.
Toe Hold
As the name implies, the toe hold starts with a firm hold of the foot, at the toes. Garry likes a grip just above the toes, at the knuckles of the foot. Closer to the ankle means less leverage and less chance of success. Going too far and just holding the toes means you’ll probably lose the grip or get penalized for attacking the toes themselves.
What type of grip: There’s debate as to which type of grip to use, four fingers with the thumb, or the five finger monkey grip. Garry likes to use the thumb grip so he has a little more control over the foot. If the foot were further away from Garry’s chest he might go with the five finger grip.
Placement of the arm: Garry favors being lower on the leg rather than higher up on the calf. Being higher up is too difficult to get a good grip of his own wrist.
Twisting: Many people try to finish by simply pushing the foot down and then they forget the twist. Garry finishes by always trying to “twist” the foot, while also pushing down.When Donald Trump took the oath of office to become the 45th President of the United States, he also gained access to the official @POTUS Twitter account. Until Thursday afternoon, that account was registered to a non-government email address.
The registration to a private email account was first pointed out by a hacker, who goes by WauchulaGhost, who shared the information on Twitter with a warning that Trump and his staff should change the emails and fix their security settings.
The @FLOTUS account belonging to Melania Trump, @PressSec account handed to press secretary Sean Spicer and @VP account held by Vice President Mike Pence all were registered to private emails accounts.
WauchulaGhost, noteworthy for his previous efforts to hack pro-ISIS Twitter accounts and replace their content with pornographic images and messages of gay pride, didn’t make his way into any off the official accounts of the new administration but did out the email addresses used to set up the accounts.
According to the hacker, the email addresses included [email protected] for @FLOTUS, [email protected] for @PressSec, and [email protected] for @VP.
The @POTUS account was reportedly linked to a Gmail address belonging to Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media and a long time Trump confidant who started as a golf caddie for the now-President.
All of this information was made available because the account holders and those setting up the accounts failed to make use of two-factor authentication, a basic security tool that requires users provide a phone number or email address associated with the account to start the process of a password reset.
Without two-factor authentication in place, Twitter serves up a redacted version of the email address linked to the account. That information is often all a person needs to decipher the full address. From there, a hacker could access the connected email account using phishing schemes, malware, brute force or just a lucky guess.
Were a hacker able to make their way into one of the linked email addresses, they could request a password reset on the Twitter account and intercept the email, allowing them to take control of a Twitter account belonging to one of the most important members of the U.S. government.
Given that single tweets from Donald Trump’s personal account have shifted the stock market and essentially issued new policy for the country, there could be real damage done were his account to be compromised.
The linked email addresses have since been changed, and the accounts are now linked to government email addresses hosted on WhiteHouse.gov.
The security woes weren’t made any better on Thursday as press secretary Sean Spicer appeared to accidentally tweet out what may have been his password to the @PressSec account.
It’s unclear if the random string of letters and numbers Spicer tweeted were just the result of him keeping his phone in his pocket or truly was a piece of his login information—likely part of a password manager or a two-step authentication process. It’s the second time in as many days Spicer has tweeted out an eight-character string before deleting it.- The Minnesota Department of Public Safety says personalized license plates that say FMUSLMS should never have been issued and that DPS agents will be revoking the plates immediately. Fox 9 confirmed the plates were ordered by a man from Foley, Minn., who purchased his truck from a Big Lake, Minn. resident.
“This personalized license plate should never have been issued; it is offensive and distasteful,” DPS said in a statement. “We are in the process of revoking and taking possession of the plates today. The Department of Public Safety apologizes for this error. The Driver and Vehicle Services Division is reviewing its process for approving personalized license plates today and will immediately provide additional review and oversight of applications.”
A Snapchat photo of the license plate was shared over the weekend on the Facebook page of Somali community activist Haji Yusuf. He told Fox 9 the photo was taken by a St. Cloud high school student. Yusuf is a member of the advocacy group Unite Cloud, working with the entire St. Cloud community to stop discrimination, especially against Muslims.
Haji Yusuf community director with @UniteCloudMN, first posted this license plate photo. His group concerned. pic.twitter.com/BUZF680XCN — jonathan choe (@choefox9) February 22, 2016
The Department of Public Safety confirmed the license plates were issued in June 2015. The application was processed at a deputy registrar’s office in Foley, Minn. and reviewed by DVS. The personalized plates were produced by MINNCOR Industries.
“I am appalled that this license plate was issued by the State of Minnesota,” Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton said in a statement. “It is offensive, and the person who requested it should be ashamed. That prejudice has no place in Minnesota. I have instructed the Commissioner of Public Safety to retrieve this plate as soon as possible and re-review agency procedures to ensure it does not occur again.”
Personalized license plate application and process
A copy of an application can be found here.
Personalized plates are available with the standard plate background for Passenger Automobiles and Pick-Up Trucks with up to seven (7) characters (including spaces) total. A character is an upper-case letter, space, hyphen, or number.
You must apply for personalized plates at a deputy registrar office or by mailing an Application for Special Plates (PS2010) and appropriate fees to:
Specialized Plates may be displayed on passenger class vehicles, one-ton pickups, motorcycles and self-propelled recreation vehicles (any gross weight).
Maximum number of characters allowed on license plate (including spaces and/or hyphens) is seven (7) for passenger class vehicles, personalized vertical motorcycle plates are limited to four (4), and personalized plates for all other vehicle types (one-ton, RV, standard motorcycle) are limited to six (6) characters (including spaces and/or hyphens).
More information about personalized plates may be found here.He's a genius, you idiot.
What's this movie about?
Monty Comes Back is an independent feature-length film following a writer and actor, Monty, whose early success has gone to his head, causing him to push away his friends and family in a pursuit to regain his notoriety.
Anna Maria Island City Pier
Shot on location in Bradenton and Anna Maria Island, Florida, this story is as much about Monty as it is about the location: warm beaches, glistening waves, the large elderly population and endless sunshine that defines the region--what may be paradise to some can be purgatory for others.
The Manatee Performing Arts Center
When the film begins, Monty still holds a job at a Michigan Community Theater--then his ego rears its ugly face. Following, we find Monty without a job and with a fresh black-eye, then watch his life quickly fall apart before resorting to a move back to his hometown in Florida to live with his parents, under the guise that he is on a "creative hiatus."
What follows is Monty's coping with his big head in a very small town, and his journey discovering what makes his own life meaningful, outside of the glory that was once bestowed on him.
A modern-day You Can't Go Home Again for the Silver Screen, following a representative of an escapist generation who find notoriety quick, yet lack the basic human qualities to deal with it.
Beer Can Island
Who's making it?
Thomas Nudi in TV Land.
This is the first feature film from writer and director Thomas John Nudi, a recent graduate of Chapman University's Dodge College of Film & Media Arts, and a Florida native. This is not the first "Floridian film" for the young filmmaker; during his graduate residency he began work on a series of conversation-based short films, the first being Urgent Care and the second, Greetings from Florida! which is set in his hometown of Bradenton, Florida and a meditation on retirement, human purpose, and the fickle nature of Florida, from the weather to its infamy as "paradise." Thomas is also a founding editor of Blacktop Passages, a literary magazine publishing poetry, fiction and non-fiction of the open road.
Vincent Dale
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ised. The days following Hughes’ passing were extraordinary to witness as a sport historian, not only to see the scale of public memorialisation that took place, but also the forms it adopted. Phillip Hughes’ death, whilst undeniably tragic, provides us with a unique case study of memory-work in the digital era.
Memorialisation of Hughes took a myriad of different forms across many social media platforms. Hundreds of thousands of people took to Facebook to express their grief – Facebook is now littered with “RIP Phil Hughes” or “Phil Hughes Memorial” page, each claiming to be ‘official’. Facebook and Twitter provided mourners with a great deal of latitude with regards to how they chose to mark Hughes’ passing. Some chose to post personal reflections of his career, others left photos of Hughes, poems and even tribute videos. The fantastic thing about social media is that these posts are still viewable now. They stand as an immediate and easily accessible archive of public reactions to Hughes’ death.
As a researcher, this type of archive presents obvious opportunities to study ‘grass roots’ construction of memories. By nature, social media are interactive and this allows researchers chances to view, in real-time, the retelling and remediation of memories. Viewing social media sites as archives of public opinion is a chance to see how certain people or groups experienced a particular event and also a way to study which pieces of information about said event are most influential in shaping public discourse. There are, as always, complications to any type of historical work though. Apart from a myriad of epistemic, technical and ethical considerations, researchers must also grapple with the messiness of human interactions as they play out on social media. The interactivity that social media facilitates often results in debates between competing discourses: how one person of group experienced the death of Phil Hughes may not have necessarily aligned with the experiences of others. Despite the potential for disagreements, social media users tend to construct memories that conform to one or two dominant readings. Holly Thorpe from the University of Waikato notes that this is often due to the influence of ‘key players’ or powerful stakeholders that can steer digital mourners toward a particular version of the past.
Discussion following Hughes’ death ranged from proposals to outlaw the ‘bouncer’ delivery, to speculation about the future of Sean Abbott, and discussions about how the sport’s governing body might officially memorialise Hughes during the 2014/2015 summer of cricket. As the days passed it became clear that the dominant theme to emerge from social media memorialisation of Hughes was that of enduring potential. Indeed, a number of messages left by mourners on Facebook and Twitter focused on Hughes being ‘taken too soon’ because he had his ‘entire career ahead of him’. Many mourners used, retweeted and recycled the hashtags #63notout and #408forever, in reference to Hughes’ score when he was felled and his playing number, respectively. There was much celebration online when Hughes was posthumously named as the 12th man for the first test-match of the summer and similar adulation as the television cameras panned across the field to reveal a giant number 408 painted onto the grass of the GABBA cricket stadium. In this way, social media gave mourners not only a chance to commune with others in grief but also a way to keep Phillip Hughes ‘alive’.
Perhaps the most interesting mourning practice born on social media in the days following Hughes’ death, was the #putoutyourbats hashtag. The hashtag was first circulated on Twitter by Sydney man Paul Taylor, 8 minutes after Phillip Hughes’ death was announced by television broadcasters. Upon hearing the news, Taylor picked up his old cricket bat and started playing with it in his lounge room. He then placed the bat outside his front door as a “mark of respect” and tweeted a photo of the gesture accompanied by the hashtag #putoutyourbats. The simplicity of Paul Taylor’s memorial obviously struck a chord with social media users. Within a week there were nearly 200,000 mentions of #putoutyourbats on Twitter, often accompanied by photos from individuals, families, teams and organisations mimicking the original arrangement. The hashtag jumped across platforms too and gained significant traction on Instagram: there are 36,690 photographs on Instagram of people ‘putting out their bats’ to commemorate Hughes’ passing.
The hashtag also moved beyond its suburban origins in Australia. Google, famed for their ever-changing and often topical ‘landing page’ images, included a pictogram of a bat leaning against a wall on the day after Hughes’ death. English football giants Manchester United also participated, tweeting a picture of a bat leaning against a corner flag at Old Trafford.
As more and more people joined in the #putoutyourbats phenomenon, Phil Hughes’ online memorialisation began to take on an entirely unique dimension. In a rather delightful paradox, social media shifted the focal point of mourning away from the digital realm and into a physical setting. Makeshift shrines began to appear on the doorsteps of suburban homes, in the entrance-ways of businesses and on the playing surfaces of sporting clubs. As this began to spread, social media websites became electronic ‘places’ for mourners to commune and also conduits between thousands of physical shrines to Phillip Hughes. In this way, the #putoutyourbats hashtag can help us understanding the changing nature of how ‘place’ is related to mourning practices in the digital age.
The idea of a ‘place to mourn’ might now be seen as dynamic rather than monolithic, traversing the barrier between the physical and digital realms. Steven E. Jones discussed the idea of digital ‘place’ in his book The Emergence of the Digital Humanities. Jones describes the Internet as having ‘everted’ when it transitioned from Web1.0 to Web2.0 in the early 21st century – the world online became no longer a ‘place’ for people to visit via their computers but rather an omnipresent and indispensable reality that infiltrates nearly every aspect of everyday life. The #putoutyourbats hashtag is a potent example of how the digital realm is increasingly indistinguishable from the physical realm – even practices that are heavily laden with notions of tradition, propriety and the physical body are becoming digital acts.
The world of social media is a messy, colloquial and difficult place to do historical work. There are many epistemic, technical and ethical considerations that historians have to grapple with before embarking on any meaningful study of the sporting past on these sites. Although I haven’t been able to investigate all of these issues within this piece, I hope I’ve been able to offer some window into the potential that social media sites have as a site for studying how a digitally mediated public constructs memories online. The connection between the sporting past and social media is becoming even more important for us to consider as sports stars and sporting teams increasingly rely upon these sites to communicate with fans.
In concluding this piece, I’d also like to add that as much as I tried to anaylse Phil Hughes’ death dispassionately, it was almost impossible not to get caught up in the emotion that all Australians seemed to be feeling during those few days in late November. It was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed and may never see its like again. I put my bat out on November 27th, and it stayed there for weeks.
– Jones, Steven E. The Emergence of the Digital Humanities. New York: Routledge, 2014.
– Gary Osmond, Murray G. Phillips, ed. Sport History in the Digital Era. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2015.
*For further reading see Holly Thorpe’s chapter in the soon to be published Sport History in the Digital Era; a must-read for anyone interested in the issues raised by this blog post.
Steve Townsend
PhD Student at the University of Queensland (Australia)
Human Movement Studies
[email protected] This Game
Key Features
Series signature dark, mischievous humour Award-winning scriptwriter Rhianna Pratchett returns with a twisted and hilarious tale of evil, chaos, Minions and the burning desire to destroy all things good!
Develop your minions! They’re back! Our cruel critters return. Call upon your minions in battle and build them into dedicated devils to do your destructive bidding. “For the Master!”
Invade. Smite. Loot! Work your way through the Netherworld and unleash hell on the world above! Trample the weak under your evil size 10s with fun and satisfying combat, combining unique abilities and melee attacks to dominate all who stand before you! Share loot or steal the spoils- how far are you willing to go in the Trials of Evil?
Four times the players, four times the fun! Evil has a new face. Well, four faces, actually. But who wears the evilist? Er, eviler? You decide! Pick from any of four distinct Netherghul characters, each with unique abilities. Play as a team, or screw each other over – evil never plays by the rules!
Step into the warped fantasy world of Overlord: Fellowship of Evil, the dark and twisted Action RPG filled with the series’ signature black humour. Penned by award-winning original Overlord scriptwriter Rhianna Pratchett, Overlord: Fellowship of Evil delivers an epic new quest featuring four Netherghūls – undead servants of the dark arts, resurrected in the absence of a true Overlord, to bring evil back to a world overrun by the forces of good.Assisting gamers once again are the mighty, maniacal and occasionally moronic minions, ready to unleash their charmingly chaotic brand of destruction and led by Gnarl, their wise old master, voiced, as before, by actor Marc Silk.Embark on a brand new Overlord adventure in single-player or with up to three friends in local and online single-screen co-op. Filled with fun combat and twisted fantasy tales, Overlord: Fellowship of Evil invites players to dive into an Action RPG where it’s good to be bad, but it’s GREAT to be evil.Overlord is the only series that actively encourages players to have fun being the embodiment of evil, destroying all that is good in a subversive, comedic manner. Fellowship of Evil captures this essence and adds in four-way, chaotic co-op play where gamers can even turn on each other. Evil always finds a way...sometimes it just needs a bit of a nudge.A pit bull mix which viciously attacked its owners when they tried to put a sweater on has been put down.
Scarface mauled its owner Brenda Guerrero on Monday when she tried to dress him at her Tampa, Florida, home.
The dog bit her by the arm before lunging at her husband, Imanuel Guerrero, when he tried to help.
It was stabbed in the neck by Guerrero's son 22-year-old son Antoine Harris and later survived being tasered and tranquilized by animal control.
A pit bull mix attacked three in Tampa, Florida, after owner Brenda Guerrero (right), 52, tried to put a Christmas sweater on him. The dog, called Scarface, was shot with a Taser and tranquilizer before it was caught
Hillsborough County officials confirmed on Wednesday the dog had been euthanized because it posed a risk to the public.
Police were called to the family home on Friday after the attack.
Brenda Guerrero had been trying to dress it when it lunged at her. Her son and husband intervened and the dog was stabbed in the neck and head but survived.
Police were shocked when their attempts to subdue it with a Taser gun and tranquilizer were unsuccessful.
'Officers responding said the dog was pretty aggressive,' Eddy Durkin with Tampa Police said to WFTS.
Brenda Guerrero and her husband Ismael Guerrero, 46, were both taken to hospital for their injuries. Mrs Guerrero's injuries are considered serious, but not life-threatening
Hillsborough County Animal Control currently has the dog. Eddy Durkin with Tampa Police said: 'When they Tasered the dog, it was still pulling away and was able to release the prongs from the Taser'
'When they Tasered the dog, it was still pulling away and was able to release the prongs from the Taser.'
Eventually it was calmed down after being shot a bean bag gun.
There were two young children inside the family's home at the time of the attack on Friday.
The dog was for the most part outside in the back yard but was able to break in to the house shortly before it was captured.
Brenda and Ismael Guerreros, who have at least one other dog, were both taken to hospital.
Brenda's injuries were considered to be serious but not life threatening.How to make CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA (18 ratings) 7 reviews so far Prep time
10 mins Cook time
15 mins Total time
25 mins
Author : Vahchef
Main Ingredient : Chicken
Servings : 4 persons
Published date : November 16, 2016
Ingredients used in CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA • Cilantro paste - 2 teaspoons. • Lemon juice - 3 tablespoons. • Cardamom powder - 1 tea spoon. • Chili powder - 1/2 tea spoon. • Turmeric powder - 1/3 tea spoon. • Cumin powder - 1/2 tea spoon. • Garlic paste - 1(1/2) tea spoon. • Ginger paste - 1(1/2) tablespoon. • Plain yogurt - 1/4 cup. • Boneless chicken - 1(1/2) lbs. • Gram flour - 2 tablespoons. • Oil - 5 tablespoons. • Salt - to taste. Method: Cut chicken into 1-inch cube pieces.
Mix all spices (cilantro paste, ginger, garlic paste, gram flour, salt, cumin powder, turmeric powder, chili powder, cardamom powder, lemon juice, cilantro paste) with yogurt and beat well.
Marinate chicken in this mixture for at least 4 hours.
Skewer the chicken with at least half inch apart. Cooking in Oven: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
Roast for about 15 minutes or until done, basting once with oil. Keep a tray underneath to collect the drippings. Cooking in Grill: Grill for 8-10 minutes or until done, basting once with oil. Serve hot by itself or with a meal.Excellent keyboard!
I couldn't be happier that I chose a mechanical keyboard that seems to suit me perfectly. The layout is very comfortable for large hands, whereas I had problems with previous keyboards (especially low profile ones) being congested enough that I often hit the wrong keys. I also like that the MX Silent switches have a degree of audible feedback but aren't as "clicky" as others. The response is also very good, as the keys only need to travel about 1/3 of the way down to activate the switches. The only negative point that I would give the keyboard is that its multimedia keys are integrated into the function keys, much like a laptop keyboard, so you have to hold "Fn" to perform the desired action--not that I use these anyhow, but I am of the mind that media controls on a full-size keyboard should be separate or not included at all.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: NewThe State of Israel is afraid of Jaffa. That's the way it has been since Tuesday evening, when a protest against the police's brutality towards Muslims at the al-Aqsa Mosque was staged - out of thin air- in the city center. Out of nothing only allegedly of course, because the rage seen in Jaffa has a history and a long list of motives.
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In order to understand the event, one has to look at the last time Jaffa's Arabs made headlines following protests: The events of October 2000. It’s hard to overestimate the importance of those events in terms of the formation of the identity of Israel's Arabs: Following the disappointment from the Oslo Agreements, their solidarity with the Palestinians in the occupied territories grew, and like the events we are witnessing now, their rage at the time also stemmed from a shared fate of discriminated populations and a feeling of injustice.
Israeli Arabs protest in Jaffa, Tuesday evening. 'Challenging the limited meanings of a second-class citizenship' (Photo: Motti Kimchi)
In October 2000, the police and border police dispersed protests by firing rubber bullets in the first stage, and later with live ammunition. The feeling of alarm and danger among Israel's Arabs soared. The impression that the State of Israel did not see them as citizens with equal rights, but as an extension of the Palestinian "enemy" against which it can use force indiscriminately, sent an increasing number of Israeli Arabs to the streets. For the first time, Israel's Arab society made a significant, united demand for a governmental response and urged the government to take responsibility for the deaths.
Tuesday's protest in Jaffa, on the other hand, as opposed to what you have been told, was a spontaneous and pretty scattered event, and above all - ideologically weak. There was no uprising against the government's policy here and no call against racism, but simply letting off some steam.
Nonetheless, we must not underestimate the slow change taking place in the Arab society in Israel. No more Lieberman-style gratitude for out actual citizenship, but challenging the limited meanings of that second-class citizenship.
The prime minister in 2000, Ehud Barak, appointed a commission of inquiry following the killing of Arab protestors by the police forces, but it quickly turned into another wedge between Israel's Arabs and the government systems. The prevalent feeling to this very day is that the Or Commission cleared the involved government and police officials of extremely significant suspicions and that no one was punished for the deaths.
In retrospect, the October 2000 events accelerated the move we are witnessing today: Political and cultural solidarity between young Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. This move also serves as the basis of the growing popularity of parties which have made the Palestinian struggle their top priority, like Balad. Arab elected representatives who openly oppose what is happening in the territories are gaining credit, and the loudest ones among them evoke a feeling of solidarity. The public denunciation of these elected representatives, which has become trendy among right-wing Knesset members, resonates the exclusion and trauma of the October 2000 events.
There will be no cure for the current rage until the State of Israel recognizes the rage accumulated earlier, in the wrongs experienced by the Arab public. Israel's Arab citizens have decided to stop being afraid.High in Peru’s Andes, the skeletons of people buried at the famous Inca site of Machu Picchu tell a tale of displacement and devoted service. A new chemical analysis of these bones supports the previously postulated idea that Inca kings used members of a special class of royal retainers from disparate parts of the empire to maintain and operate the site, which served as a royal estate.
Dramatic differences in the remains’ ratios of certain chemical isotopes that collect in bone indicate that Machu Picchu’s permanent residents spent their early lives in varied regions east or southeast of the site, say anthropologist Bethany Turner of GeorgiaStateUniversity in Atlanta and her colleagues. Some Machu Picchu inhabitants had emigrated from spots along the central South American coast, while others hailed from valleys high in the Andes.Database includes companies from all three volumes of The Science Coalition's Sparking Economic Growth report.
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3PrimeDx, Inc. 3primedx-inc 2017 0 UniversityofIllinoisatChicago 2014 IL 1 3PrimeDx is a medical diagnostics company developing a blood test, PulsePredic™, to predict sudden cardiac death (SCD) risk in patients with heart failure. Heart failure occurs in more than 3.5 million Americans each year, but there are no simple, reliable ways of predicting who is at highest risk for SCD and who will benefit from an implanted defibrillator. This blood test will enable the optimization of the intervention by providing a simple, reliable, convenient to administer and cost-effective diagnostic tool. 3PrimeDx is a medical diagnostics company developing a blood test, PulsePredic™, to predict sudden cardiac death (SCD) risk in patients with heart failure. Heart failure occurs in more than 3.5 million Americans each year, but there are no simple, reliable ways of predicting who is at highest risk for SCD and who will benefit from an implanted defibrillator. This blood test will enable the optimization of the intervention by providing a simple, reliable, convenient to administer and cost-effective diagnostic tool. The PulsePredict blood test is based on technology developed by Dr. Samuel C. Dudley while serving as Professor and Chief of Cardiology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Dudley discovered that the biomarker changes in the heart leading to sudden cardiac death could also be detected in blood, allowing for a simple diagnostic test. Biomedical Dr. Dudley’s work at UIC was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Acomni, LLC acomni-llc 2017 0 UniversityofArizona 2014 AZ 1 Acomni was started to put homeowners in control of their heating and cooling budget. The company has developed Ondo™, a Wi-Fi enabled thermostat-monitoring device that gathers data about a home’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) cycle use. By combing utility rates and weather forecasts with a patent-pending behavioral learning algorithm, Ondo is able to learn a home’s heating and cooling requirements and provide electric utility companies with the ability to visualize energy expenses and estimate future heating and cooling costs. For homeowners, Ondo enables them to heat or cool their home based on how much they want to spend on electricity, not just on how comfortable they want to be. Acomni was started to put homeowners in control of their heating and cooling budget. The company has developed Ondo™, a Wi-Fi enabled thermostat-monitoring device that gathers data about a home’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) cycle use. By combing utility rates and weather forecasts with a patent-pending behavioral learning algorithm, Ondo is able to learn a home’s heating and cooling requirements and provide electric utility companies with the ability to visualize energy expenses and estimate future heating and cooling costs. For homeowners, Ondo enables them to heat or cool their home based on how much they want to spend on electricity, not just on how comfortable they want to be. Acomni had its genesis in an algorithm created by Dr. Johnathan Sprinkle of the University of Arizona. While working with autonomous sensors to reconstruct river currents he realized that the analysis of river current flows could be applied to HVAC flows throughout a house. Dr. Sprinkle developed the algorithm to do this and then he and his research team applied for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps competition. Participation in I-Corps allowed them to fully develop their idea and flesh out its commercial value. After being recognized as the best of 27 I-Corps teams, the group founded Acomni. Technology & Web Federal funding from the National Science Foundation helped support the work behind Acomni.
Acoustic Magic, Inc. acoustic-magic-inc 2010 0 BrownUniversity 2000 MA 1 Working in Brown University’s Division of Engineering, Dr. Harvey Silverman and Dr. Michael Brandstein developed a “beam-forming” technology. This technology, now used by Acoustic Magic, has revolutionized microphones.Anyone who has spoken at a conference knows how microphones, even “array” microphones, can limit your movement. The beam forming technology used by Acoustic Magic enables the microphone to “find” a speaker, and filters out noise, echoes and reverberations. The speaker can move about the room freely and be heard with great clarity. In a lecture hall, a professor can speak and be heard and recorded, as can students’ questions or comments, all with one microphone. On a teleconference, several speakers can talk, and the “Voice Tracker” technology enables them all to be heard clearly. The technology is also used for speech dictation. Working in Brown University’s Division of Engineering, Dr. Harvey Silverman and Dr. Michael Brandstein developed a “beam-forming” technology. This technology, now used by Acoustic Magic, has revolutionized microphones.Anyone who has spoken at a conference knows how microphones, even “array” microphones, can limit your movement. The beam forming technology used by Acoustic Magic enables the microphone to “find” a speaker, and filters out noise, echoes and reverberations. The speaker can move about the room freely and be heard with great clarity. In a lecture hall, a professor can speak and be heard and recorded, as can students’ questions or comments, all with one microphone. On a teleconference, several speakers can talk, and the “Voice Tracker” technology enables them all to be heard clearly. The technology is also used for speech dictation. Acoustic Magic is a startup company based upon “beam-forming” technology developed by Dr. Harvey Silverman and Dr. Michael Brandstein of Brown University’s Division of Engineering. Technology & Web The work of Dr. Brandstein and Dr. Silverman was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation. Seed funding for Acoustic Magic was provided by the Slater Center for Interactive Technologies and the Slater Center for Design & Manufacturing Innovation, two of four technology commercialization centers operating under the auspices of Rhode Island’s Samuel Slater Technology Fund.
Aculon, Inc. aculon-inc 2013 0 PrincetonUniversity 2003 CA 1 Aculon, Inc. commercializes unique surface and interfacial coatings leveraging nanotechnology discoveries made at Princeton University. The Company's technology enables coatings to outperform all known alternatives in characteristics such as adhesion, stain resistance, scratch resistance and water and oil repellency. The company's technology is exceptionally versatile and enables several platforms of high-value commercial opportunities. Currently Aculon is focused on two platforms: (1) easy-clean, anti-smudge coatings for eyeglasses and other optical surfaces such as flat panel displays, and stainless steel; and (2) coatings that boost adhesion strength to difficult-to-adhere-to surfaces such as glass, certain metals and plastics. Aculon, Inc. commercializes unique surface and interfacial coatings leveraging nanotechnology discoveries made at Princeton University. The Company's technology enables coatings to outperform all known alternatives in characteristics such as adhesion, stain resistance, scratch resistance and water and oil repellency. The company's technology is exceptionally versatile and enables several platforms of high-value commercial opportunities. Currently Aculon is focused on two platforms: (1) easy-clean, anti-smudge coatings for eyeglasses and other optical surfaces such as flat panel displays, and stainless steel; and (2) coatings that boost adhesion strength to difficult-to-adhere-to surfaces such as glass, certain metals and plastics. The story of Aculon begins with the quest of Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, Princeton chemistry professor, who sought to understand why orthopedic implants often failed after only 10-15 years of use. He wanted to see if new approaches to modification of the surfaces of implant materials could be achieved to improve their lifetimes. The discoveries of his research team, including Aculon founder Eric Bruner, have led to a new world-wide approach for surface modification of oxide-coated metals and metal oxides. Together, Dr. Schwartz and Bruner invented new surface chemistry to control interfacial properties of indium tin oxide (ITO). This scheme was novel in its ability to attach molecules with tunable properties thereby controlling the properties of the electrode itself. Materials Funding from the National Science Foundation supported the research behind the discoveries and technologies that led to Aculon.
Adarza Biosystems, Inc. adarza-biosystems-inc 2017 0 UniversityofRochester 2008 NY 1 Adarza Biosystems is a leading developer and manufacturer of label-free biosensor assays and instruments servicing life science research, drug development and in vitro diagnostics customers. Adarza’s products and services utilize its proprietary Arrayed Imaging Reflectometry (“AIR™”) detection platform that is capable of rapidly identifying and quantifying a series of biological target analyte species in a fluid sample, without chemical labels or complex processing. The AIR™ technology offers key performance benefits in sensitivity, speed, multiplex arrays, sample size, dynamic range, ease of use and industry leading low cost of use. Adarza products address broad quantitative analyte detection applications, including cancer biomarkers, drug and vaccine development, allergy, immunology and infectious diseases research. Adarza Biosystems is a leading developer and manufacturer of label-free biosensor assays and instruments servicing life science research, drug development and in vitro diagnostics customers. Adarza’s products and services utilize its proprietary Arrayed Imaging Reflectometry (“AIR™”) detection platform that is capable of rapidly identifying and quantifying a series of biological target analyte species in a fluid sample, without chemical labels or complex processing. The AIR™ technology offers key performance benefits in sensitivity, speed, multiplex arrays, sample size, dynamic range, ease of use and industry leading low cost of use. Adarza products address broad quantitative analyte detection applications, including cancer biomarkers, drug and vaccine development, allergy, immunology and infectious diseases research. Adarza’s highly innovative AIR biosensor was developed at the University of Rochester by Benjamin Miller and Chris Striemer with grant support from the National Institutes of Health. Biomedical The work conducted at the University of Rochester was supported by research funding from the National Institutes of Health.
Adenosine Therapeutics, LLC adenosine-therapeutics-llc 2010 0 UniversityofVirginia 1999 VA 1 Supported by research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the University of Virginia has led research into adenosine, a molecule found in all cells. The body uses adenosine to signal inflammation and tissue injury. Understanding this compound has the potential to unleash therapies to treat heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, cancer and atherosclerosis. Joel Linden, University of Virginia professor of cardiovascular medicine and Timothy MacDonald, University of Virginia professor of chemistry recognized the power of this research. They collaborated with business leader Robert Capon to establish a startup company based around University of Virginia patents in this area. Adenosine Therapeutics (ATL), was acquired in 2008 by Clinical Data, a global pharmaceutical company. At the end of 2012, ATL reacquired many of its programs, including Stedivaze. Stedivaze is now more than half way through Phase III trials. Supported by research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the University of Virginia has led research into adenosine, a molecule found in all cells. The body uses adenosine to signal inflammation and tissue injury. Understanding this compound has the potential to unleash therapies to treat heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, cancer and atherosclerosis. Joel Linden, University of Virginia professor of cardiovascular medicine and Timothy MacDonald, University of Virginia professor of chemistry recognized the power of this research. They collaborated with business leader Robert Capon to establish a startup company based around University of Virginia patents in this area. Adenosine Therapeutics (ATL), was acquired in 2008 by Clinical Data, a global pharmaceutical company. At the end of 2012, ATL reacquired many of its programs, including Stedivaze. Stedivaze is now more than half way through Phase III trials. Since its founding in 1999 by Joel Linden, University of Virginia professor of cardiovascular medicine and Timothy MacDonald, University of Virginia professor of chemistry, Adenosine Therapeutics has maintained its ties to the University of Virginia and its support of university-based research. In collaboration with many different researchers, the company participated in a large number of Small Business Innovation Research grants, thereby enabling basic and translational research with federal funding. This research has resulted in over 20 patents held by University of Virginia and nearly $3 million in sponsored research by the company. In addition, tens of millions of dollars of University of Virginia basic research grants have been won using Adenosine Therapeutics compounds, and over 100 scientific papers have been published on the pharmacology and physiology of adenosine. The company has given over one million dollars to the University of Virginia Patent Foundation, employed numerous University of Virginia students, and has also participated in business school cases at the Darden Business School. Biomedical Research uncovering adenosine’s role in cell signaling and the development of specialized molecules has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Advaita Corporation advaita-corporation 2013 0 WayneStateUniversity 2005 MI 1 Advaita's mission is to bridge the gap between the ability to collect biological data and the ability to interpret it through the use of advanced computational methods. The company develops bioinformatics software tools for the research and pharmaceutical industries.Advaita's software platform, Pathway-Guide, is used for the analysis of data from high-throughput microarray and next-generation sequencing experiments. Pathway-Guide is the first tool in a new generation of pathway analysis technologies available on the market that incorporates the topology of the pathway into the analysis. This advanced analysis methodology not only provides more accurate results that correctly identify biologically meaningful pathways in a given disease, but also reduces the number of false-positive results. Advaita's mission is to bridge the gap between the ability to collect biological data and the ability to interpret it through the use of advanced computational methods. The company develops bioinformatics software tools for the research and pharmaceutical industries.Advaita's software platform, Pathway-Guide, is used for the analysis of data from high-throughput microarray and next-generation sequencing experiments. Pathway-Guide is the first tool in a new generation of pathway analysis technologies available on the market that incorporates the topology of the pathway into the analysis. This advanced analysis methodology not only provides more accurate results that correctly identify biologically meaningful pathways in a given disease, but also reduces the number of false-positive results. The genesis of the technology and its initial development took place in the laboratory of Dr. Sorin Draghici, professor of computer science at Wayne State University. Dr. Draghici aimed to create a novel technology for the analysis of biological networks with significant transformative potential for a number of life-science related disciplines that could be used as a predictor of the effectiveness of a drug on a gene. Dr. Draghici and his research team hoped to create a technology that opened a window to view the impact of a drug on an entire organism, essentially creating a roadmap for the potential benefits and pitfalls of any potential drug. Technology & Web The initial research and development was undertaken at Wayne State University with a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
Advanced Diamond Technologies (ADT), Inc. advanced-diamond-technologies-adt-inc 2013 0 UniversityofChicagoArgonneNationalLaboratory 2003 IL 1 Advanced Diamond Technologies (ADT) harnesses the superlative properties of nature's perfect material by turning natural gas into diamond in a highly controlled, reproducible process for a variety of industrial, electronic and medical applications. ADT offers several families of high performance UNCD® (ultra-nanocrystalline diamond) products that take advantage of the unsurpassed properties of diamond. ADT is the world leader in developing and applying diamond films for electronic, mechanical, industrial and biomedical applications. Advanced Diamond Technologies (ADT) harnesses the superlative properties of nature's perfect material by turning natural gas into diamond in a highly controlled, reproducible process for a variety of industrial, electronic and medical applications. ADT offers several families of high performance UNCD® (ultra-nanocrystalline diamond) products that take advantage of the unsurpassed properties of diamond. ADT is the world leader in developing and applying diamond films for electronic, mechanical, industrial and biomedical applications. The research of senior scientists Dr. John Carlisle and Dr. Orlando Auciello in the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), led to the discovery of the UNCD® thin film technology that ultimately spawned ADT. Argonne National Laboratory is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC. Materials Dr. John Carlisle Their work was part of a 10-year Department of Energy-funded basic materials science research program in advanced diamond materials. The program, funded at a level of approximately $800,000 per year, enabled the development of the materials science and resulting inventions that became the basis of UNCD technology. Argonne collaborated with external parties to form a venture company based on UNCD technology and licensed a portfolio of inventions and patents to ADT to form the startup company. Parallel research and product development continued and was funded by various parties.
Advaxis, Inc. advaxis-inc 2010 0 UniversityofPennsylvania 2002 NJ 1 Advaxis, Inc. is a biotechnology company that uses a live genetically modified infectious microorganism to activate the immune system to treat cancer, infectious disease or allergic syndromes. Advaxis, Inc. is a biotechnology company that uses a live genetically modified infectious microorganism to activate the immune system to treat cancer, infectious disease or allergic syndromes. Based on more than 20 years of innovative work by Yvonne Paterson, PhD, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, it has been found that the unique microbe Listeria monocytogenes is capable of stimulating numerous aspects of the immune system simultaneously, coordinating innate, humoral (antibody) and cellular adaptive immune responses in an extremely effective response to existing cancers and other diseases. Unlike other therapeutic approaches, in pre-clinical research Advaxis’ Listeria technology has been able to consistently demonstrate complete therapeutic responses resulting in complete tumor regression. Biomedical The basic research at the University of Pennsylvania that led to the development of this
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ATH: 10/02/1967 BURIED AT: SECTION Z SITE 1929-A GOLDEN GATE NATIONAL CEMETERY 1300 SNEATH LANE SAN BRUNO, CA 94066 (650) 589-7737
Further Reading [ edit ]
"Jackie Price" in Bury My Heart at Cooperstown by Frank Russo and Gene Racz, pp. 212-214
Sources [ edit ]
Principal sources for Jackie Price include newspaper obituaries (OB), government Veteran records (VA,CM,CW), Stars & Stripes (S&S), Sporting Life (SL), The Sporting News (TSN), The Sports Encyclopedia:Baseball 2006 by David Neft & Richard Cohen (N&C), old Who's Who in Baseballs (none) (WW), old Baseball Registers (none) (BR), old Daguerreotypes by TSN (none) (DAG), Stars&Stripes (S&S), The Baseball Necrology by Bill Lee (BN), Pat Doyle's Professional Ballplayer DataBase (PD), The Baseball Library (BL), Baseball in World War II Europe by Gary Bedingfield (GB) and The Pacific Coast League: A Statistical History, 1903-1957 by Dennis Snelling and The American Association: Year-By-Year Statistics for the Baseball Minor League, 1902-1952 by Marshall D. Wright and independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.FINE PRINT: This is a public forum offered as a service to our readers. Postings are not edited without approval by the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the staff, management, owners or advertisers of the Beaufort Observer. We will not knowingly publish anything that is libelous, profane, vulgar, or presented as fact without supporting documentation. This is primarily a forum for opinion and readers should be aware of that. NOTE: you can offer Feedback to a post by clicking on its title. To read Feedback click on the little bubble below if there is any.
When it is time to vote, remember these 30 and especially Tillis and Burr August 10, 2017 | 02:25 PM
The U.S. Senate has a 52 Republican majority that can get a conservative agenda through the Senate, but 30 of these Senators have declared they support the obstruction of Democrats. These 30 establishment Republican senators oppose putting an end to the ongoing obstruction of Democrat's legislative filibuster. As U.S. Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) recently said, "It is time for America to abolish the 60-vote Senate rule" to end the filibuster.
Urge your senators to end Democratic obstruction and end the legislative filibuster.
See the rest of the Story:
to go to the original source.
The U.S. Senate has a 52 Republican majority that can get a conservative agenda through the Senate, but 30 of these Senators have declared they support the obstruction of Democrats. These 30 establishment Republican senators oppose putting an end to the ongoing obstruction of Democrat's legislative filibuster. As U.S. Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) recently said, "It is time for America to abolish the 60-vote Senate rule" to end the filibuster.Urge your senators to end Democratic obstruction and end the legislative filibuster.See the rest of the Story: Click here to go to the original source.
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To designate a particular recipient of your donation please include or email instructions to: To designate a particular recipient of your donation please include or email instructions to: [email protected] We appreciate your support.Vladimir Putin Nemesis of the New World Order Mother Russia is a much different country from the Stalin gulags. With all the faults of a long tradition of authoritarian rule, it is natural for observers in the West to be suspect of the latest would be Czar. The remnants of the cold war linger with concerns of the true motives and goals of a second Vladimir Putin era. By most reliable accounts, he never left the power circle prior to his return as President. Upon his latest election, The Guardian published an article Putin's election victory is a headache for the west. "Nobody is any doubt that the Putin who returns to the Kremlin in May is the same Putin who has effectively run Russia for the past 12 years – prickly, uncompromising, suspicious and fond of snide remarks about western hypocrisy and double standards." The context for any serious discussion on foreign affairs must start with the admission that the New World Order is the dominant controller of political power, especially in western countries. The NeoCon/NeoLib cabal dictates worldwide compliance. Nations conform to the financial supremacy of banksters, administered by handpicked political stooges. Global governance is the end game destined for all states. Individual nations slated for extinction are doomed as long as the NWO advances their worldwide imperium. Putin provided a vision that conflicted with the cabal. Eurasian Project a Threat to New World Order provides an alternative to the West. "One might be tempted to regard Russian premier V. Putin’s paper " A new integration project for Eurasia : The future in the making", which saw the light of day in Izvestia on October 3, 2011, as the presidential front-runner’s sketchily laid out program, but upon scrutiny that appears to be only one part of a wider picture. The opinion piece momentarily ignited wide-scale controversy in and outside of Russia and highlighted the ongoing clash of positions on global development… Regardless of interpretation details, the reaction of the Western media to the integration project unveiled by the Russian premier was uniformly negative and reflected with utmost clarity an a priori hostility towards Russia and any initiatives it floats. Mao Zedong, though, used to say that facing pressure from your enemies is better than being in such a condition that they do not bother to keep you under pressure." The assessment for opposition and push back concludes: "The West’s allergy to Putin’s plan is therefore explainable, but, regardless of the opposition the project is bound to run into, of the weakness of some of its elements, and of the potential difficulty of putting it into practice, the Eurasian integration project grew out of the life of the post-Soviet geopolitical and cultural space and is consonant with current global trends." The point is that much of the humanity recognizes that the New World Order is the ultimate demonic force. It is on the path to establish planetary unification of despotism. Look to the Pepo Escobar video for context in Putin not part of NWO, labelled evil by elites. The concerted effort from the "Sub Rosa" fraternity to use their intelligence community skills and nation regime change, poses the greatest danger to any government that defies the dictates or delays the designs of the master plan. Surely, it must be just a coincidence, that the unfolding of the NWO resembles segments in The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. So how should one view Putin? The provocative Brother Nathanael ( view his videos on BATR ) provides this assessment about Putin some five years ago. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is an Orthodox Christian. Putin has publicly stated that he is a Christian — his continual Church appearances are proof of it. Recently the BBC published a major article complete with pictures of Vladimir Putin’s Orthodox Christian affiliations here and here. Because the Jews fear Vladimir Putin they are now publishing anti-Putin articles in their Jewish-controlled Press in order to bias public opinion against him such as in a 2007 Wall Street Journal article, The Perils of Putinism. The Trilateral Commission, The Council on Foreign Relations, and The Bilderberg Group, all have a lot in common - Jewish membership. These 3 Groups also share a hatred of nations that oppose their "multiculturalism" which translates into "multi-religions" with no monolithic opposition against them. The example of the latest trumped up humanitarian excuse to intervene in Syria has all the signs for the next false flag drama. Brother Nathanael chimes in on the Putin Trumps Zionist Plan For Syria YouTube. The Moscow Times adds this evaluation in Putin Has a Responsibility to Protect Syrians. "Articulating his anti-intervention policy, President Vladimir Putin wrote in his Feb. 27 Moskovskiye Novosti article that the global community should not pick sides in the Syrian conflict and that the problem should be solved "without foreign intervention and should respect [Syria's] sovereignty. … We are against accepting Security Council resolutions that would be interpreted as a green light toward military intervention in internal Syrian affairs." What's more, in his May 7 foreign policy decree, Putin wrote that Russia "will oppose attempts to use the concept of human rights as an instrument of political pressure and to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries." Putin playing the role of the peacemaker or is he posed to deploy military muscle? After the fiasco of the way NATO handled the ant-missile system on Polish soil, it is not much of a stretch (from the Russian perspective) to sense the popular support behind Putin’s hard line rhetoric. Even a Polish born card carrying member of the New World Order’s academic chapter, Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski recognizes the risks involved with the " global political awakening ". He makes the following points in Brzezinski: Don’t be emotional about Syria "I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion at this stage that the majority of Syrians don’t want the [Bashar] Assad government to stay in power. I think it’s much more complicated than that, In fact the evidence of a national uprising against Assad is relatively limited," Brzezinski said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program. On Moscow’s firm and consistent opposition to the Western countries' stance on Syria, Brzezinski said, "I think Russians have a stake in larger cooperation with us, but not on terms dictated by us. That’s a very significant difference." The essential question that has existential consequences is whether Russia (or much of the non-NWO governance bodies) is willing to revert to their serfdom heritage and accept a technocratic subservient peasantry. Putin, the KGB operative is no saint. Anyone who achieves and maintains prolonged political influence knows how to navigate the dark side. However, his strong stand represents opposition. Keep in mind that thus far, no effective counterforce to the New World Order has emerged from the assembly of nations. In the article, China Warns Russia of Coming Armageddon Initiated by the United States and its Allies, the prospects for eternal joy from apostate Christian-Zionists deceivers rises. "Fearing Western aggression, Syria's President warned this week that if his nation was attacked by NATO he would fire hundreds of missiles into Israel’s most populated city of Tel Aviv within six hours, which would, of course, bring about a catastrophic nuclear response." From a flagship NeoCon publication, World Net Daily, the Zionist smear advances against anyone who might defy or resist the New World Order false religion. Olivier Melnick writes in The Dejudaization of Jerusalem? "And now the world appears to be uniting as 20 countries are joining hands and marching toward Israel under the banner of the " Global march to Jerusalem " to "unoccupy" the city on March 30, 2012, as they all converge on the capital. A million people are expected to invade Israel’s borders." Just image when the legions of the Russia Bear march into the region and cries of Armageddon pour out of the NWO controlled media. The unholy alliance of Israeli Zionist politics and perverted dispensational biblical scripture provides the satanic justification, for the false claims, that GOD will save the New World Order heretics. Putin’s hostility to the NWO is the basic reason why Russia is so dangerous to the financial masters of the universe. Fundamentalist Christian worshipers who buy into the newspeak of the mass dinosaur media and delusional ministers will be praying for victory for the New World Order during the end time’s apocalypse. The Putin administration is no Millennium Kingdom. Nevertheless, the continuous tribulations coming from the NWO dictators, the minions of the devil, are the cause of human suffering. Who is the true nemesis of the almighty? Political redemption through global governance is an absurd nightmare. Only the Second Coming can provide the salvation from the fiendish New World Order. Beware of false prophets and heretical doctrine. The demise of this world, rapidly headed for a cosmic collision, is inevitable. Most Americans continue to serve the principality of darkness. Know your enemy well, before you leap into the hell fires, out of ignorance. Will you stand against the New World Order? Or will you, continue to accept the lies and evils that are continually committed in your name? SARTRE – June 10, 2012The Striker Winery was not only a business passion for Patty Striker, it was her home.
“She was a really friendly person,” said her brother Jeff Moses. “The type of friend you'd want to have - outgoing, and life of the party.”
The winery has been long out of business, ever since April 10, 2000, when a co-worker found the McMinn County woman fatally shot inside.
She was just 35, with four children at home.
Strikers' Winery in 2000.
“I was stunned, I really didn't believe it,” said Patty Striker's youngest brother Mark Moses.
Early on, a missing cash register suggested a robbery, but things didn't add up. Sheriff Joe Guy, who was then a deputy, was called to the scene.
“The waters muddied very quickly,” said Guy. “We have very few robberies here, we certainly have no robberies that wind up in a homicide, and that raised red flags for pretty much everybody who was there.”
Suspicions turned to Patty's husband, Stan.
“Because of the type of person he was,” explained Jeff Moses. “And threats he made before she was killed.”
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“Patty and her husband were going through a very difficult divorce, he had everything to gain by her death.”
Patty Striker during an interview with WBIR previous to her 2000 death.
But Stan Striker had a solid alibi.
“He was at work that morning,” said Investigator Calvin Rockholt. “There was even video footage pulled of him at his place of employment. He could have not been the shooter, but he could have helped set it up."
Billboards covered the town and rewards were offered, but still the case couldn’t move forward.
A billboard above Athens was put up following Patty's death.
"Sometimes after a while you run into a wall,” said Guy.
Fast forward to February 2014, when tragedy hit the winery again.
“Mr. Striker takes the now teenage children out to the property under the pretense of doing some cleaning up," explained Rockholt. “He takes out a handgun and shoots both children.”
Both the boy and girl were able to run away to safety and survived.
“When they got away from him, he went back to his automobile and committed suicide,” said Rockholt.
“It made us suspicious to what extent of a role he played in his wife's death, but there was no smoking gun, no confessions letter we could wrap it up with,” said Guy.
Rockholt is part of a new cold case task force created to crack unsolved crimes in Polk, Bradley, Monroe and McMinn counties. Patty Striker's case tops his list.
A gradaution picture of Patty Striker, shared by her family.
“We cannot allow a murderer to be on the streets, time will not be your friend, we will continue to look for you,” said Rockholt.
His team is working closely with local law enforcement to reanalyze evidence and chase down each and every lead.
“As time goes on we believe people will change their mind and come forward," said Rockholt.
As the years passed, Patty’s children have grown and lead normal lives.
“Those kids are doing real well, they have adjusted well, they have moved on and are just going on with life,” said Jeff Moses.
Patty’s parents died without seeing resolution.
“It worked on them very hard, and you could see it, the physical effects of it on them,” said Mark Moses.
Patty’s brothers believe the new task force is their last chance.
Patty holds one of her children.
“I have faith in him that he [Rockholt] can solve this. He told me himself that this is solvable,” said Jeff Moses.It's been 17 years without an arrest, and it's time for that to change.“We need to know the whole story, we need to know what happened and why it happened,” said Jeff Moses.“Every one of us needs that chapter in our life to be closed,” said Mark Moses.Law enforcement were able to pinpoint a timeline between 8:30 and 9:15 a.m. that Patty Striker was killed at the Striker Winery in Athens.
That day was April 10, 2000.
If you have any information about this case you can reach the cold case task force at 844-878-9580.I've written a very sophisticated and exquisite, ego-boosting and mind-blowing (albeit perhaps a bit over-engineered) script which aims to prove Arch's superiority, day or night, Europe or America.
It should work with any sane shell, it is quite cpu and memory efficient, it's extensible, it follows the KISS and UNIX principles (do one thing, but do it well). Without much additional effort you can use it to send the good news of Arch's superiority to all the recipients in your address book or make it be known to you and whoever is your in your room by putting it through your speakers at every full hour. Only your imagination is the limit.
I deem the code stable, but you never know. Please test it thoroughly to iron out all possible bugs. The usual warnings about having data backups and my lack of responsibility about any possible damage done apply, of course.
Enjoy!
#!/bin/sh echo "Arch is the best!"
Last edited by lucke (2008-04-18 18:54:59)Twelve o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory
And all its clear relations,
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.
Half-past one,
The street lamp sputtered,
The street lamp muttered,
The street lamp said, "Regard that woman
Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand,
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin."
The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.
Half-past two,
The street lamp said,
"Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter,
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter."
So the hand of a child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.
I could see nothing behind that child's eye.
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him.
Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered,
The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
"Regard the moon,
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smoothes the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory.
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and old Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells
That cross and cross across her brain."
The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets,
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.
The lamp said,
"Four o'clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life."
The last twist of the knife.There’s a double standard in America when it comes to obeying the law.
Conservative firebrand Dana Loesch took to social media to ask a very good and timely question: Why do businesses have to “follow the law” but cities labeled “sanctuaries” do not?
Businesses must “follow the law” and bake a cake but cities can ignore law and be “sanctuaries” for those who enter illegally? — Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) July 10, 2015
Loesch was referring to a controversial Oregon couple who are in the process of defending their First Amendment rights after their bakery was fined $135,000 because they declined to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding.
Loesch raised the question of why Aaron and Melissa Klein should be forced to bake a cake against their religious beliefs when a “sanctuary city” such as San Francisco can simply ignore federal law and let illegal immigrants with criminal records roam free.
Of course, the tragic murder of Kathryn Steinle, 32, by a five-time deported criminal alien as she took a stroll with her father along a San Francisco pier has a lot of concerned citizens asking how that can happen.
But not everyone has his priorities straight.
That’s why Loesch decided to take the question to Twitter, and the responses were epic.
@DLoesch @JoeC1776 Cakes are much more important than potential murderers and rapists! — PieVana (@Jennife00167811) July 10, 2015
@DLoesch @ChrisLoesch The Obama administration has been ignoring the laws for 7 years now, and no one has yet to be held accountable! — Dillon (@000Dillon000) July 10, 2015
@DLoesch Welcome to Bizarro America. Everything is the opposite of what you think is right. — I, Notar (@I_Notar) July 10, 2015
@DLoesch if we don’t do something drastic this one set of laws for libs and one set for us peasants crap will be standard practice. — Brad The Impaler (@BEBolly71) July 10, 2015
It seems that’s where we’re headed.
@DLoesch Yep, it’s the “law of the land” when it suits their purpose. — Jim (@Ringo1256) July 10, 2015
@DLoesch @SCforfreedom selective law enforcement is a political weapon; it all depends on whose voter is being affected… #demsbuyvotes — emil shue (@emilshue) July 10, 2015
@DLoesch can I sue a Jewish deli for not making me a BLT sandwich?? Or Arab cafe for not making me pulled pork BBQ?? #danospeaks — Dano (@DanoWright1) July 10, 2015
@DLoesch sure. Its like you expect government in the U.S. to conduct itself by the U.S. Constitution or something. — Will B (@AutisticInTech) July 10, 2015
Logic? What’s that?
@jackachtabowski @DLoesch And Christians. Texas could be a sanctuary state for Christians. — Linda Baker (@LuckyL8e) July 10, 2015
They may be onto something.
H/T: Twitchy.comRichard Goldstone has finally broken his silence over his Washington Post op-ed. He granted an interview to the AP to rebut the erroneous report that we picked up on yesterday saying he was considering trying to nullify the report within the UN. From the AP:
South African jurist Richard Goldstone said Tuesday that he did not plan to seek nullification of his highly critical U.N. report on Israel’s 2008-2009 offensive in the Gaza Strip and asserted that claims to the contrary by Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai were false... In an interview with The Associated Press, Goldstone said that Yishai had called him on Monday to thank him for an op-ed piece published Friday in The Washington Post in which the judge wrote that new information had come to light that made him rethink his central conclusions. Goldstone said, however, that he never discussed the report with Yishai in the telephone conversation. Israeli leaders have called for the report to be retracted since it was issued in 2009. “There was absolutely no discussion about the Goldstone report on the call,” the jurist said in a telephone interview from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Goldstone said he thanked Yishai for calling and “stated that my concern was to work for truth, justice and human rights.”
Goldstone also added that aside from the one point he made in his op-ed, the Goldstone Report stands as written:
“As appears from the Washington Post article, information subsequent to publication of the report did meet with the view that one correction should be made with regard to intentionality on the part of Israel,” the judge said. “Further information as a result of domestic investigations could lead to further reconsideration, but as presently advised I have no reason to believe any part of the report needs to be reconsidered at this time.”
Jerry Haber responds to the interview over at the Magnes Zionist:NEW DELHI: One of the terrorists who attacked a BSF convoy in Udhampur on Wednesday morning has been caught alive and all the hostages have been freed.The security forces are conducting post-attack operations. The entire area has been cordoned off.Minister of state in PMO Jitendra Singh confirmed that one terrorist had been caught alive and the three hostages have been rescued.According to TV reports, the militant who has been caught alive has been identified as Usman.Earlier today, militants had attacked a convoy of BSF on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway in Udhampur district killing two BSF jawans. Around eight personnel were injured in the attack.One terrorist was killed in the counterattack by the security forces."Militants fired at a BSF convoy at Narsu Nallah situated between Udhampur town and Chenani town on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway today (Wednesday)," a senior police officer said.Security forces check the body of a suspected rebel after a gunbattle on the Jammu- Srinagar highway at Narsoo Nallah, near Udhampur. (AP photo)This is the home of Pygments. It is a generic syntax highlighter suitable for use in code hosting, forums, wikis or other applications that need to prettify source code. Highlights are:
Read more in the FAQ list or the documentation, or download the latest release.
Like every open-source project, we are always looking for volunteers to help us with programming. Python knowledge is required, but don’t fear: Python is a very clear and easy to learn language.
Development takes place on Bitbucket, where the Mercurial repository, tickets and pull requests can be viewed.
Our primary communication instrument is the IRC channel #pocoo on the Freenode network. To join it, let your IRC client connect to irc.freenode.net and do /join #pocoo.
If you found a bug, just open a ticket in the Bitbucket tracker. Be sure to log in to be notified when the issue is fixed – development is not fast-paced as the library is quite stable. You can also send an e-mail to the developers, see below.The VA inspectors' report finds a community referral program plagued with delays in service - not unlike what veterans faced at VA medical centers that prompted changes in the first place. (Photo: AP)
Inspectors for the Department of Veterans Affairs say a community-referral program designed to make private medical treatment available for veterans is plagued by delays in care, improper patient scheduling practices, cost overruns and other problems.
The findings make it clear that former military personnel who have suffered stress and medical complications because of delayed treatment in VA medical centers are now encountering the same problems when they get referred by the VA for private care.
The Patient-Centered Community Care program, known as PC3, was created to provide outside treatment for veterans when VA medical facilities are too busy or do not have needed services. Instead, the 35-page report says the program has "caused patient care delays" and "is not achieving its intended purpose to provide veterans timely access."
Those scathing conclusions are based on research at nine VA medical centers nationwide.
The new report adds to a 15-month crisis of leadership and operations at the VA caused by revelations of delayed and inappropriate medical services, mismanagement, financial problems and other problems. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned amid controversy last year and interim Inspector General Richard Griffin retired under pressure this week.
BLIND SCHEDULING
According to the report, VA contractors routinely engaged in "blind scheduling" — setting up appointments without first discussing the date with patients who might not be available. Because of that practice and other issues, about 43,500 of the 106,000 doctor visits that were authorized either did not get scheduled or were never carried out.
The PC3 system is so problematic that every VA leader interviewed by inspectors had cut back or completely stopped use of the program. As a result, the report says, VA costs increased dramatically because expected savings were based on patient volume.
The inquiry was launched after an unnamed whistleblower complained about rampant failures in the system. Inspectors determined that VA staffers at every facility they visited had stopped using the medical-referral program as intended due to "pervasive dissatisfaction."
They also found that:
Contractors are not meeting timeliness requirements for patient appointments.
VA staffers fail to provide authorizations to contractors in a timely manner.
DOCTOR SHORTAGE
There is a shortage of private doctors contracted through TriWest Healthcare Alliance Corporation and Health Net Federal Services, the two companies that book private-care appointments for VA patients at an annual cost of $9.5 billion.
TriWest, which serves veterans in Arizona, said in a prepared statement, "Many of the challenges noted within the report occurred within the infancy of the program and have been refined over the past year."
"We are proud of the fact that the PC3 program was used by VA here in Phoenix to assist them in eliminating the initial backlog of more than 14,700 Veterans between April and August 2014," the company said. "Following that time, we evaluated together the opportunity for refinement and have implemented most of those changes, to include a brand new system through which we move patient information to speed service and enhance effectiveness."
The company has a $4.4 billion contract to serve as broker, booking appointments for veterans. Inspectors found the VA authorized more than 55,000 doctor visits through TriWest, but 37 percent either did not get scheduled or were never held. In many cases, patients did not even know an appointment had been booked.
The report also says TriWest took an average of 21 days to create appointments, even though it is required by contract to accomplish that task within five business days.
The inspector general did not say whether patients died or suffered medical setbacks because of delays. But in some specialized-care areas, nearly all appointment requests went unfilled.
The Phoenix VA Health Care System used a fraudulent scheduling system to track patients and their appointments, resulting in long wait times for sick veterans despite the appearance that they were getting care within recommended time frames. Some officials received bonuses based on the bogus wait times.
For instance, the report says TriWest was authorized by one VA hospital to take 192 gastroenterology patients over three months, but set appointments for only 20 of those. The patients who experienced delayed care included 57 who were symptomatic for cancer or other "potentially significant conditions." At another hospital, 94 of 150 rheumatology appointments booked by TriWest involved waits greater than 30 days.
The report says another facility reported that Health Net took an average of 146 days to return 50 unfilled-appointment authorizations for oncology patients, including nine for colonoscopies and 12 for mammographies.
Inspectors said oversight of the PC3 program has been undermined because contractors are not providing medical documentation as required and the VA does not keep a comprehensive database of patient referrals. Instead, the department relies on information provided by TriWest and Health Net, both of which "inaccurately" reported the unfilled appointments, the report said.
The report closes with a list of 10 reform recommendations and a note that the VA undersecretary for health concurs with each of them.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1LYZybRShare. Her character, Agent Reyes, appeared in the last two seasons of the series. Her character, Agent Reyes, appeared in the last two seasons of the series.
The X-Files continues to bring back familiar faces for next year's six-episode event series -- now with the addition of Annabeth Gish (Sons of Anarchy), who's set to return to her role as Agent Monica Reyes from the original series.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, next year's X-Files revival will be the first time we've seen Gish's Agent Reyes since the finale back in 2002. Gish was originally hired on the show as a recurring cast member in Season 8, and was promoted to series regular by the ninth (and final) season, where she co-starred alongside Gillian Anderson's Agent Scully and Robert Patrick's Agent Doggett.
Gish is set to appear in one episode of The X-Files sequel series. She joins returning cast members David Duchovny (Fox Mulder), Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully), Mitch Pileggi (Walter Skinner), and William B. Davis (The Smoking Man), along with a ton of announced guest-stars, including Robbie Amell, Lauren Ambrose, Joel McHale, Annet Mahendru, Rhys Darby, and Kumail Nanjiani.
The X-Files returns Sunday, January 24, 2016, on Fox.
Exit Theatre Mode
Anthony Couto is a writer for IGN. If you’d like to discuss the DC Multiverse or Star Trek, chat with him on Twitter at @AnthCouto.Video: Car crash leads to explosions, fire in Santa Clara Copyright by KRON - All rights reserved Video
UPDATE 11 P.M.: The crash happened just before 4 p.m., a PG&E spokesperson said. Due to safety concerns, PG&E crews were forced to dig a second access point in which to reach the line.
Acting Battalion Chief Bill Montana said that most of the fire had been contained around 6 p.m., but "we had active flame until PG&E shut the line down."
"At this point we're in fire watch mode, putting out hot spots," Montana said. Crews will be on the scene of today's fire all night, Montana said.
UPDATE 8:40 P.M.: The gas line has been capped.
UPDATE 8 P.M.: Lawrence Expressway is now open. Five business have been destroyed.
UPDATE 8:22 P.M.: PG&E is having trouble putting out the gas line.
UPDATE 6:09 P.M.: Santa Clara police have tweeted a white car hit a gas line at Poinciana Plaza, sparking the fire. The driver fled after the crash. PG&E is on-scene. Police are looking for the driver.
Officers are looking for a female who drove an early 1990s white two-door Honda Accord that struck a gas line at a strip mall at Poinciana Drive and White Oak Lane, police said.
Crews arrived to find a heavy fire at a laundromat that spread to four other businesses, he said.
A food store and hair salon also caught on fire, Rose said. A person inside the laundromat and a firefighter were transported to a hospital for minor injuries, he said.
Video: Car crash leads to explosions, fire in Santa Clara Gallery 1
As of 6 p.m., the fire was contained but still burning, according to Rose.
Two people were taken to the hospital -- one of them is a firefighter. Both injuries are non-life-threatening.
Explosion Update: a white 2-door early 90s Honda Accord with Hispanic female driver struck a gas line at Poinciana Plaza. - Santa Clara Police (@SantaClaraPD) August 27, 2015
UPDATE 6:04 P.M.: The fire happened at a shopping center.
SANTA CLARA (KRON) -- Santa Clara fire are battling a blaze in the area of Lawrence Expressway and Poinciana Wednesday afternoon, fire crews said.
Traffic has been diverted as a result. Lawrence Expressway is closed in both directions between Reed and Poinciana due to the fire units on scene. Three structures are involved, police said.
Santa Clara police tweeted the call initially came about two loud explosions at around 3:50 p.m. Police are asking people to avoid the area of Poinciana Plaza on White Oak.
Sunnyvale fire are assisting as well. No injuries were reported.
Stay with KRON4 for more on this breaking news story.
Call initially was reported as two loud explosions. - Santa Clara Police (@SantaClaraPD) August 26, 2015The Red Sox clubhouse has turned into Goldilocks, the players searching for the bed that is not too hard and not too soft, but just right.
Last September, the clubhouse trampled on a players’ manager with championship pedigree. Terry Francona was too soft. So Boston enlisted Bobby Valentine, whose acerbic way has the Red Sox players complaining to ownership that he is too hard on them.
So what will be “just right” for this finicky group?
We can assume Boston, which opens a three-game set in The Bronx tonight, will have to make that decision soon. Red Sox
|
."
[10] "Nelson DeMille, Author: The Lion." John Gambling Show, WOR, June 14, 2010.
[11] "Nelson DeMille: The Lion"; "Glenn Beck: 'Fiction Becomes Reality' With Nelson DeMille and Vince Flynn."
[12] Sherryl Connelly, "9/11 Remembered: For These Authors, September 11 Was Transformative Event." New York Daily News, September 11, 2011.
[13] "Nelson DeMille, Author: The Lion."
[14] Ginia Bellafante, "Dark Plots Conceived in a Tudor Setting." New York Times, November 9, 2006.
[15] Soha ElSaman, "Q&A With Nelson DeMille: All the Lion Games." Al-Masry Al-Youm, April 27, 2010.
[16] Arlene Getz, "Vietnam Redux." Newsweek, January 23, 2002.
[17] "Nelson DeMille: The Lion."
[18] Mark Simone. 77 WABC Radio, May 22, 2010.
[19] Sherryl Connelly, "DeMille's Latest a Compelling Contest of a Cop vs. Master Terrorist." New York Daily News, January 16, 2000; Joe Meyers, "An Oldie but Goodie From a Master Entertainer." Connecticut Post, August 3, 2010.
[20] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 7-8.
[21] Sherryl Connelly, "DeMille's Latest a Compelling Contest of a Cop vs. Master Terrorist"; "Picks and Pans Review: The Lion's Game." People, February 14, 2000.
[22] Sherryl Connelly, "DeMille's Latest a Compelling Contest of a Cop vs. Master Terrorist"; Joe Meyers, "An Oldie but Goodie From a Master Entertainer."
[23] Arlene Getz, "Vietnam Redux."
[24] Linda Richards, "January Interview: Nelson DeMille." January Magazine, July 7, 2000; Joe Meyers, "An Oldie but Goodie From a Master Entertainer."
[25] Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game, p. 203.
[26] Ibid., pp. 219-220.
[27] Ibid., pp. 14-15.
[28] Elaine Budd, "More Thrills From Westlake, DeMille, Perry." Hartford Courant, March 26, 2000.
[29] Nelson DeMille, The Lion's Game, p. xii.
[30] "Glenn Beck: 'Fiction Becomes Reality' With Nelson DeMille and Vince Flynn."FACT: Contrary to popular belief, peer-reviewed research has shown that consumption of neither beer nor wine cause the dreaded “beer belly”. Well, sort of. Here we explore the contributing factors to abdominal fat storage.
According to the best evidence, it is not possible to spot reduce fat with exercise (via a scalpel, maybe). Conversely, it is not feasible to spot increase fat. You can’t control where you will deposit fat. There is no good data linking a macro/micronutrient to fat collection in a specific body part. By this I mean, food and drink have no direct effect on where you store body fat. Books like ‘Wheat Belly’ and others promoting this nonsense have been fully debunked. There are many systems within the human body responsible for adipose creation, expansion, and deflation. Fat cells do not disappear (yes, some will die but are promptly replaced), instead they simply shrink. It is during puberty that the distribution of fat cells start to take shape and residency in certain areas of the body. After this cycle, most people will not create or lose fat cells for the rest of their lives unless they have liposuction (which may cause new fat cells to develop in other areas!). The total number of fat cells essentially remain the same throughout a person’s life. Generally speaking, fat cells do not split they simply get larger or smaller. Here is the rub; as one loses weight the fat cell will decrease in size but annoyingly stay alive. They will continue to send strong signals to the brain essentially saying, ”feed me” through a complex exchange of hormonal drivers. This may help explain why it is so difficult for a formally obese individual to have successful long-term weight loss.
NOTE: People who become obese as adults may have no more fat cells than their skinny peers, only larger ones. Rodent research has nevertheless demonstrated that new fat cells (adipose tissue hyperplasia) can, in fact, be created by chronic overfeeding.
There are two major types of fats in the body: Visceral fat (deep fat), which grows internally around the organs; and subcutaneous fat, which is marbled underneath the skin’s surface. Beer bellies are associated with visceral fat. Although it is possible to have both types of fat around the midsection. That being said, it is the visceral fat that has the most deleterious effects on morbidity. It is a major feature of metabolic syndrome. In doing my first cadaver lab I began to see why: the gelatinous yellow adipose tissue residing in the viscera can literally squeezes the internal organs and prevents them from functioning properly. This fat narrows and restricts blood flow to the internal organs, raising blood pressure, damaging capillaries and increasing systemic inflammation. This is the most damaging type of fat for human health. Look at the white areas around the stomach in the MRI image below and compare the difference between the two individuals:
The 4 factors primarily responsible for determining the storage of abdominal fat are:
Genetics Gender Calorie intake Hormones
It is not completely clear why we get fat. The foundation of obesity is based on calories in and calories out (CICO). However, this does little to explain why we overeat and why some get fat and others don’t. The cause of obesity is multifactorial: genetics, calories, diets, medical issues, hormones, activity levels, pharmaceuticals, stress, psycho-social elements, environment, sleep, etc… The Insulin Hypothesis for explaining weight/fat gain posits that obesity is primarily a function of a hormonal imbalance which drives an impulse towards overconsumption followed by an adipose storage bonanza. There is no doubt alcohol has a profound effect on our hormones. Beer, specifically, is brimming with maltose, a type of sugar which significantly effects insulin secretion.
Beer has been vilified as the main culprit behind the dreaded Buddha belly. But there is still controversy surrounding how well ethanol-derived (alcohol) calories can be utilized, since they aren’t an efficient energy source and tend to potentiate a thermogenic effect (increase in metabolic rate). In general, extra consumption of liquid calories and sugar will result in weight gain. When your body is metabolizing alcohol the liver becomes preoccupied with burning it, not fat. Alcohol tends to increase one’s hunger, decrease willpower and the ability to make healthy choices. Here is something you don’t often hear at 3 AM after leaving the bar: “I’m drunk, let’s make a healthy salad!” I don’t think that phrase has ever been uttered. Liquid calories are rarely a good idea when trying to maintain or lose weight. They have a small effect on satiety and sometimes, in the case of alcohol, will actually increase your hunger. I am constantly telling my personal training clients to stay away from liquid calories. In the standard American diet (appropriately nicknamed SAD) liquids make up approximately 22% of the total calorie intake.
Calorie Count in Popular Beverages:
12 0z. Beer: 130-200
12 0z. Light Beer: 75-110
5 0z. Red Wine: 110-150 5 0z. White Wine: 110-150 1.5 0z. Vodka: 100-175
1.5 0z. Whiskey: 100-175 4 0z. Martini: 275-375 12 0z. Jack/Rum & Coke: 285-310 12 0z. Margarita: 375-475 12 0z. Gin & Tonic: 250-275
Fun Fact: The published research has shown the relationship between alcohol and weight gain is inconsistent and in many cases, an inverse reaction is noted in heavy drinkers. They will actually lose weight. This may be due to co-factors including chronic meal skipping and underfeeding. The Annals Of Epidemiology concluded in a 2010 report “Our results showed that alcoholics are habitually less active and that alcohol drinking is an independent predictor of lower percent body fat, especially in male alcoholics.”
Women tend to have less intra-abdominal visceral fat than men but higher overall body fat. This predisposition may be due to a woman’s need to have enough space in the abdominal region to ‘fit’ a fetus.Typically when women gain fat, it is spread judiciously throughout their upper arms, butt, hips and breasts. It is rare to see a woman who is skinny all over except for a beer belly unless she is pregnant. On the hand, men tend to preferentially store visceral fat and not so much subcutaneous fat (just under the skin) in the hips and arm regions. To the chagrin of many middle-aged women, menopause corresponds with a decrease in estrogen which is linked to increased abdominal fat storage. It is a myth that menopause causes women to gain fat (age and environmental factors are more to blame); it does, however, initiate a redistribution, commonly parking itself in the waist area. According to the Mayo Clinic, “women who take hormone replacement therapy (HRT) tend to have less of a shift toward more belly fat than those who do not.” Hormones play a huge role in lipid distribution and fat storage. Manage your hormones and you will control your body-fat composition.
Many scientists now believe a simple anthropometric waist measurement (taken sagittally around the belly button without sucking in) is the best indicator of future cardiovascular metabolic risks like diabetes, heart disease, stroke etc. Belly fat is insidious. It not only looks bad but it congeals around your internal organs and practically suffocates them. This yellow visceral fat is a disease magnet. A seven-year study published in the journal “Obesity” evaluated 720 individuals and found that “The predictive power (for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and strokes) of a single measurement of waist circumference was at least equal to that of WHR (Waist to Hip Ratio) and BMI (Body Mass Index) combined.”
I am not a teetotaler, but life is all about choices. Alcohol is not bad in moderation. In fact, the Journal of the American Medicine Association concluded in a meta-analysis of 34 studies, “Low levels of alcohol intake (1-2 drinks per day for women and 2-4 drinks per day for men) are inversely associated with total mortality in both men and women. Our findings, while confirming the hazards of excess drinking, indicate potential windows of alcohol intake that may confer a net beneficial effect of moderate drinking, at least in terms of survival.” It has been shown to reduce the effects of high cholesterol, heart disease, some forms of cancer and even impotence. There is a dearth of research which concludes moderate imbibing is a healthy component of longevity. The majority of individuals who reside in the Blue Zones, areas where people on average live longer than anyone else in the world, practice moderate drinking (except for the abstaining Seventh Day Adventists in Loma Linda California). One main caveat is with women who are at risk for breast cancer. The data suggest they should drink no more than 1 serving per day. Chronic alcohol abuse is in no way healthy. It contributes to many diseases and lower overall mortality. Besides the obvious hazards of over-consumption it also decreases fat oxidation, stimulates appetite, suppresses testosterone, increases cortisol, and provides little in the way of nutrition.
TIP: If you know you’re going to have a big drinking night perhaps eat less for lunch and dinner (saving the calories/sugar for the booze) and have a plan of action if the munchies should arise.
A beer belly is simply excess visceral and subcutaneous abdominal fat. Any surplus in calories can cause a beer belly, but there are some characteristics of alcohol that may lead to increased adipose storage. Primary alcohol negatively affects one’s satiety and hormonal balance, specifically testosterone, cortisol, and estrogen. These hormones have a pronounced effect on body fat composition. It is quite common, for some, to drink 300-1000 calories (or more) of alcohol in one day. Add this to the calories from food and it will easily result in an energy surplus. Though I loath to say this again, in the end, it all comes down to moderation. You cannot beat a balanced diet and exercise regimen when it comes to health promotion.
byI am delighted to have been invited and to take part in the Press Street Art trip in Flanders organised by Visit Flanders and Visit Ghent (also written Gent and Gand), our first destination is the city of Ghent.
Ghent is the fourth largest city in Belgium and home to nearly 250,000 inhabitants. Located near to an important river port, the city center of Ghent is a pedestrianised area that could be mistaken for a historical museum of Flemish architecture and still portrays the previous legacy of medieval life within the city. Impressive Gothic sites, such as the Cathedral of St. Bavon, are breathtaking. This is a must see!
Ghent was the capital of the old county of Flanders, a large drapier and merchant city, and afterwards the birthplace of Charles V, from the twelfth century onward, and through the subsequent centuries Ghent flourished both economically and culturally. After the radiant period of the 16th century, Ghent today retains an abundant architectural heritage which embellishes its city center. In addition, it currently contains an intense cultural life and mix from museums and The Arts to annual festivals (Gentse Feesten) attracting nearly two million visitors and an international film festival, making the city a tourist center at the foreground! With the artworks of Flemish masters assembled in the sumptuous Museum of Fine Arts.
And within this eclectic mix, Street Art and Graffiti? The streets and walls of this wonderful Flemish city are a maze of creative artworks from native artists such as Cee Pil, Mr Mong, Klaas Van der Linden, Bue the Warrior, Resto and Sam Scarpulla and artists from around the world, among which are Chase, ROA, Steve Locatelli, Smates, Bisser, A Squid Called Sebastian, Jesus Benitez, Super A, Violant …
Do you need an online Guide to visit Ghent Street Art scene? Here it is! A map, interesting streets, creative hubs, … and also where to drink or eat in creative places.
In This Guide you will find: Ghent Street Art Hot spots – Ghent Creative Hubs selection – Ghent Street Art Photo Gallery – A Street art Map of Ghent – Original places to Eat and Drink in Ghent
Ghent Street Art Hotspots:
City Centre:
Take you time, and by walk or by bike, discover the historical center of Ghent. You will find amazing graffitis and street artworks almost everywhere, on every street corner. Use the Street Art Cities Ghent map and mobile app. And you won’t miss a thing!
Here are some hot spots (Street Names that have street art and graffiti murals to discover)
Parijsberg: Walls by Strook, De Papzakken, Bue & Chase
Miriam Makebaplein: Wall by Michaël Borremans
Korianderstraat: Wall by Bue, Jamz & Cum Collective
Ketelvest, view from the bridge: Mural by Roa & Bue
Zuidstationstraat, cornerhouse: Wall by Siegfried Vynck
Pelikaanstraat: Artwork by Pol Cosmo
Jan Palfijnstraat: School of Murals & students from Kask
Stadshal/townhall: Mural by Michaël Borremans
Korenmarkt: Artworks by Ayşe Erkmen en Ann Veronica Janssens
Sluizekenkaai: Walls by Bue & Phase, Bue & Madame La Belges
Sleepstraat: Mural Artwork by A Squid Called Sebastian, Violant
Willem De Beersteeg: Street Art mural by Resto
Rembert Dodoensdreef: Graffiti artwork by Klaas Van Der Linden
Kraankindersstraat: Street Art Murals by A Squid Called Sebastian, Mr Mong, Strook,Mr Mong, Roa, Bue, Jean Spezial
Désiré Fiévéstraat: Erica Il Cane & Bastardilla, 2014, for Mira Miro
Sorry, not Sorry fest:
The City of Ghent brings Street Art, graffiti and Urban art to the forefront by means of the “Sorry, Not Sorry festival”. More than 40 cultural partners and over 70 international and local artists have contributed to this four day event. During the festival, visitors and art fans have been able to enjoy performances, view new murals, graffiti and art installations throughout the city. In September 2017 murals by Violant (Portugal) SUPER A (Netherlands) etc... For more informations visit Sorry Not Sorry Website and map
Grindbakken:
Situated in the old harbor of Ghent, Grinbakken is a legal zone open to street art and graffiti artists. In this zone of the doks, everything is changing constantly as one artist succeeds another thus replacing the previous artworks. Amazing and very creative graffiti artworks everywhere! Often you can be left speechless with the discovery of incredible new talents. Grindbakken is an area full of emotion that will appeal to all lovers of graffiti and street art.
Ghent Creative Hubs:
Kapow collective:
Sam Scarpulla Kingdom! Kapow is an organic artistic collective, constantly growing and seeking new talent. Graffiti artists, Street Artists, Musicians, Film Makers, … All creative artistic expression is welcome in the temple of creation which is Kapow in the city of Ghent. It’s a place you must visit to meet artists and discover some Street Art masterpieces by Bisser, Klaas Van der Linden …
Visit Kapow Facebook Page
Topo Copy:
A fantastic “openlab research center” for print, zines, paper, copy, ink and art … with a self-publishing label & library, activities such as workshops, lectures, interventions and exhibitions take place in this incredible space. Topo Copy is a cool and social project by El Topo, Jonas Nachtergaele (a.k.a. Copy), Jens Wijnendaele and Dries Deriemaeker. They operate an open atelier with machines for creation using ink and paper! And they print Riso! A must see and must visit in Ghent. You can contact them through their Website. You will be made very welcome.
Topo Copy Website
Ghent Street Art Maps and Mobile App
You can use this great mobile app, constantly updated by street art and graffiti local enthusiasts. You will effortlessly find street art murals, graffiti artworks and creative hubs in Ghent through using this mobile app (available on Android Play Store and Apple App Store). This will help you plan a walk or bike ride to discover Ghent’s urban art scene and historical city (click the banner to access the map)
Places to Eat & Drink in Ghent
Here is a selection of cool and good locations established with collaboration from local Street Artists and Urban Art lovers in Ghent. Having visited these bars, shops and restaurants on my recent trip, i was most welcomed by the friendly locals and would have no hesitation in recommending the places i have listed if you wish to experience Ghent away from the typical tourist paths.
Yuzu
By Nicolas Vanaise. You’re looking for creative and delicious chocolates? This is the place! A mix of Art and Gastronomy. A must!
De Superette
Is a bakery and restaurant by Kobe Desramaults (very famous Belgium chef). The most delicious bread i have experience in a while, amazing pizzas and very creative food.
Bibb Gent:
Fusion Tapas & Cocktail bar. BiBB is a rooftop tapas bar in Gent. Very creative food in a very original rooftop space. I recommend.
Noah:
Drinks, dinner, on a boat in Ghent doks? Then this is for you. Amazing food and cool price.
De Dulle Griet:
Belgium = beer. And here you can choose from more than 500 beers. Touristic, but when in Belgium you must try some Belgium beer.
Dreupelkot:
A vast menu of shots, many different tastes and flavors for you to try. A special atmosphere for both locals and tourists.
Holy Food Market:
Here you can experience Street Food in the beautiful surroundings of an old chapel. More expensive but great food
Wurst:
Hot dogs with a twist. Created by a famous Belgian chef.
Balls & Glory:
Meat balls and vegetables, that’s all they serve … but damn good
Hot Club de Gand:
Jazz club, with good drinks and regular concerts
Otomat:
Pizza has been revisited. Excellent … and served with beer
Afsnis:
Bar with fantastic drinks, and regular concerts
Komkommertijd:
Vegan restaurant by buffet … much choice and some amazing vegan discoveries.
De Loge:
Bar with small food menu (Tasty organic food & Great Value) Regular concerts from local talents
Le Bal Infernal:
Café, relaxing atmosphere between old books.
OR Coffee:
Coffee house that imports it’s own coffee beans, exclusive tastes at this venue for coffee lovers.
Clouds in my coffee:
Coffee & food in a great environment, where creative people also sell some goods (can be busy)
Bar Bricolage and DOK, these are summer bars that close at the end of September. Reopens spring.
About Street Art in Flanders:
Flanders Street Artists you absolutely need to know – Stan Slabbinck aka STSJASTA “Street Art in Flanders” – ROA “Lifesize Animal Murals” – Interview with Smates “Talented Street Artist from Flanders” – Dzia Street Artist from Antwerp “Animals on the wall” – SMOK interview in Antwerp – Klaas Van der Linden “talented street artist based in Ghent” – Interview with Sam Scarpulla “Street Artist in Ghent”
Ghent Street Art Gallery:
And Many More ….
Special Thanks to great people and street art lovers from Ghent:
Katalin Chovanetz: Visit Gent
Dries Van Melkebeke and Sam De Brabander #sorrynotsorrygent
Festival.sorrynotsorry.gent Sorry Not Sorry Gent
Ferdinand Feys: Instagram – Flickr
And of course thank’s to the artists we met in Ghent during that press trip: Sam Scarpulla, Violant, Super A, Klaas Van der Linden …
Photos by: StreetArt360 and Ferdinand FeysA FORMER heroin addict has revealed that he is tired of people asking him what the drug feels like.
48-year-old Wayne Hayes has been clean for four years, but whenever he reveals his drug history people will eventually ask him what it felt like to take heroin.
He said: “It usually takes them two or three conversations with me but they inevitably ask. I say it felt awful, it took my home, my friends and my dignity.
“Then they say, ‘No, what did the actual heroin feel like?’
“I say it was like a nice warm bath. One that takes away your home, your friends and your dignity.
“Then they do a ‘sad face’ and run off to tell all their friends what heroin is like.”
Hayes’s work colleague Martin Bishop said: “Since watching Trainspotting on DVD I’ve always wondered what junk feels like, and getting Wayne to talk about it probably helps with his therapy or whatever.
“When I finally get him to spill the beans I always make a caring face and touch his shoulder, even though I’m quite excited.”(On Right: The Washington Post’s Latin American correspondent Nick Miroff. On Left: Miroff’s future father-in-law Manuel ‘Barbarroja” Piniero, with friend, colleague and fellow KGB-protege Che Guevara.) Well, here’s a little item The Washington Post has been hiding for years:
You see, amigos: The Washington Post’s former Latin American correspondent Nick Miroff (he now reports in Washington D.C. itself) is married to an apparatchik of the Castro regime named Camila Pineiro Harnecker. She is the daughter of the founder of the Castro regime’s Military intelligence service. This notorious KGB-protege, Che Guevara-chum and Stalinist torturer was named Manuel “Barbarroja” Pineiro. Camila’s mother, Maria Marta Harnecker Cerda, is a Chilean Communist who worked for Salvador Allende and scurried to Stalinist Cuba upon Augusto Pinochet’s (just-in-time!) liberation of Chile. In brief; for years Manuel Pineiro served for the Castros exactly as Yezhov, Yagoda and Beria served for Stalin–as a mass-murderer/torturer.
And wouldn’t you know? Like so many others in such “sensitive” positions within Stalinist regimes (Yezhov, Yagoda, Beria– indeed, like Che Guevara himself!) Manuel Pineiro’s usefulness to his employers finally expired. In 1998 “Barbaroja” was offed in a “car accident” in Cuba. Upon the Stalinist mass-torturer’s offing by his Stalinist mass-torturing “comrades” in 1998, his faithfully Communist daughter even made a little film in his honor titled “A fighter for all just causes.”
A couple years ago The Washington post ran an “in-depth” article (by Nick Miroff) on an islet off the southwestern coast of Cuba called The Isle of Pines which hosted the biggest prison/torture and forced- labor complex for political prisoners in the history of the Western Hemisphere.
Tens of thousands of American citizens of Cuban heritage had family members tortured there by Castro’s Stalinist regime. Some had their family members murdered there. Dozens of the surviving torture victims are U.S. citizens and live in the U.S. today. These heroes qualify as the longest-suffering political prisoners in modern history, having suffered prison camps, forced labor and torture chambers for a period three times as long in Castro’s Gulag as Alexander Solzhenitsyn suffered in Stalin’s (8 years.) Several of these prisoners are black Cubans who suffered longer in Castro’s prisons than Nelson Mandela spent in South Africa’s (27 years.) Their (genuinely) inspirational stories of survival against unimaginable odds during multi-decade terms of forced-labor and torture in Castro’s Gulag all began at the Isle of Pines’ Presidio Modelo.You probably already know that we offer unlimited free art assistance
That's because we think that you should be able to have a ballin' jersey design without dropping crazy cash. Our in-house designers can drum you up anything from a classic, stately screen print logo, to an over-the-top ridiculous sublimated jersey.
Want to challenge our designer to see what magic we can come up with for your team theme? Click the button below to get started on your custom jersey order!
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Below you'll find a few of our favorite sublimated team jerseys from summer 2016!
seattle league team
Hip Hop Anonymous
Our boy Karl came up with this rad design when the Seattle league team asked him for something sublimated with no other parameters. The captain was so jazzed when Karl came back with this design that he put in a good chunk of his own money to bring the cost down for his players. Awesome jerseys. Better captain.
seattle club team
Kermit Roosevelt Jr.
Karl designed this sub tank for his own Seattle club team. He loves creating over-the-top designs, and his team has gotten huge compliments from everyone they've played. Bonus: they light up SO BRIGHT underneath blacklight when they're out on the dancefloor!
SUNY Cortland
Team Rocket
Emily came up with this Mewtwo jersey to complement the dark Charizard jersey she designed for the New York-based college team last year. The Charizard design was a huge hit for the team, and this one is going into production now! Keep a look out for Team Rocket on the field!
University of Puget Sound Clearcut
Fivers Kip and Dylan (both Puget Sound alumni) teamed up on this stellar jersey for the Clearcut ladies women's team. The team was so psyched about the design that they took third at DIII College Championships this year!
wildwood tournament team
Big Summer Layout
The tournament team Big Summer Layout sent in this design to Sarah last year, but there wasn't enough time to get the jerseys to the team in time forWildwood 2015. Luckily, they were able to rock them on the beach in NJ this year!
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OVER TO YOU
Does your team's sub jerseys stop your opponents in their tracks to marvel in its awesomeness?! Send over pics! We'd love to see!Baird, who is signed on to partner David Reynolds in the #9 entry at the enduros this year, was scheduled to drive the car during Friday’s co-driver session.
However his last-minute appointment as the main driver of the #4 Erebus car, following Aaren Russell’s departure from the team, means Baird won’t be available for 30-minute session on Friday afternoon.
As a result, Douglas has been nominated by the team as the driver of the Reynolds car for the co-driver session.
Douglas, who races in both the second-tier Dunlop Series and third-tier Kumho Series, is currently without a drive for the endurance rounds, although is expected to be in the frame for a touted Wildcard entry from Eggleston Motorsport.
Erebus, meanwhile, is yet to reveal its longer term plans following Russell’s departure, with Baird’s current deal a one-off for the Ipswich weekend. Should he continue to race the #4 for the remainder of the season, Erebus would need to find a replacement co-driver for Reynolds ahead of Sandown, Bathurst, and the Gold Coast.
Douglas declined to comment on the Erebus situation when contacted by Motorsport.com, confirming only that he’ll be at Queensland Raceway this weekend for the Kumho Series round.A bunch of people who do nothing but invade the comments sections on blogs and YouTube will never become a political force to be reckoned with. Sorry, men’s rights crusaders.
When you spend as much time being morally outraged about false rape accusations, defending #Gamergate, sneering at the concept of social justice, and treating modern feminism as the last refuge of Jim Crow-style bigotry as I do, people tend to assume you’re a men’s rights activist, or MRA.
It’s terribly depressing, although not surprising, that the people making this accusation are so far removed from reality that they can’t imagine a principled conservative, libertarian, or, in my case, conservatarian, holding precisely these same views. Nope, far easier to make the mocking accusation that I belong to a movement unknown except as feminist blogs’ collective Emmanuel Goldstein, and as the object of one of the least funny sketches in “Saturday Night Live” history, due to its small, fringe and almost entirely Internet-driven nature.
I’m not an MRA, and I don’t see much benefit in being associated with the movement. The most obvious reason would be because MRAs are some of the least politically savvy people on the Internet and, having worked in politics, I know how hard it is to live down an association with a paper tiger. The MRA style of discourse, as I learned firsthand when one somehow managed to become a Facebook friend of mine (a mistake I later corrected), is also often paranoid, truculent, and almost willfully ugly.
There are deeper reasons, however.
Why Oppression Is Not a Compelling Complaint
First off, while MRAs have a valid case that current Western society is hostile to men, their historical domination of institutions notwithstanding, these arguments strike me as completely beside the point. In fact, arguments that begin and end with complaints of oppression are generally unpersuasive.
Conservatives judge on the axis of ‘Will this policy make the world more civilized or more barbarous?’
This is probably at least partially a function of ideology. Arnold Kling, in his “Three Languages of Politics,” talks about how people of different political persuasions tend to judge potential policy outcomes along three different axes. Libertarians judge on the axis of “Will this policy lead to freedom or tyranny?” Conservatives judge on the axis of “Will this policy make the world more civilized or more barbarous?” And liberals judge on the axis of “Will this policy make the world or less oppressive?”
The first two of these are the only two that make any sense to me as a means to judge policy, and the second is the main one that appeals to me. This has cost me some friends, particularly within libertarianism. Anarcho-capitalists especially are often incensed that my main argument against their ideal world is not that it’s not really free, but that it leads to such a barbarous state of affairs that it may as well be tyrannical.
This is a fundamentally conservative concern, and one I think is reasonable to have about any policy, unless you want to live in a Hobbesian state of nature with nothing but your guns to protect you, or in a Soviet-style collective with only the commissar to judge you. Both of these systems strike me as not merely un-free, but also as something that we simply are too civilized to accept as a species, and thankfully so. We are people, not animals, whether those animals are lone wolves (in the case of anarcho-capitalism) or sheep (in the case of communism).
Even if I think the liberty concern can lead one to misguided places, however, I can at least somewhat identify with it. The “oppression” concern, on the other hand, strikes me as not merely irrelevant, but also deeply dangerous. Why? Well, let’s consider a group of people who are obviously oppressed, and yet for whom we shed no tears: Pedophiles. For the sake of making this case as black and white as possible, I’ll even leave out ephebophiles (those attracted to teenagers) and confine this group to solely those with an attraction to very young children.
Let’s consider a group of people who are obviously oppressed, and yet for whom we shed no tears: Pedophiles.
Plenty of people can’t help being pedophiles. Is it unfair to treat them less kindly as a result? A hard core leftist might say yes. But it seems that if society wants to minimize harm, it has to harshly treat those who are hard-wired to victimize others. If harsh treatment isn’t effective, so be it, but that doesn’t change the fact that, if it is, we shouldn’t be upset at being oppressive.
This isn’t motivated by any animus any more than taking a gun into wolf-infested woods is motivated by animus. Rather, just as the wolves are more dangerous than rabbits, pedophiles are more dangerous than normal human beings in a specific, predictable way, and need to be treated differently because they are different.
Some Oppression Is Warranted
I don’t think all men are morally equivalent to pedophiles. That would be extremely stupid, and probably something Andrea Dworkin or Amanda Marcotte actually believes. What I’m trying to illustrate by bringing up the pedophile example is that oppression can be justified in some cases. In fact, it can be highly rational. So we should judge any case where it is alleged on the basis of whether the supposed “oppression” is sufficiently warranted, not simply on the question of whether it is oppression.
If we’re going to propose reforms, we are obliged to know why we made things the way they are first.
My defenses not only of Gamergate but of the people protesting against the Ferguson police were grounded in this simple idea: that their oppressors were behaving irrationally and in a manner that was dangerous to a civilized society. It was not simply that they were being oppressive, and that was automatically bad. Some behaviors, if condemned, would disproportionately cast men in a negative light, yet we’d still agree they ought to be condemned. Rape, which is a mostly (although by no means exclusively) male crime, is a very good example, the current extremist panic over it notwithstanding. Yes, similarly singular behaviors exist among women, blacks, white people, Hispanics, Asians, Arabs, or any other demographic group you can name.
In short, it makes no more difference to my belief in the righteousness of a cause if its members are oppressed than if all of them painted their faces blue. With oppression, as with almost everything else, I tend to defer to Chesterton’s fence. That is, if we’re going to propose reforms, we are obliged to know why we made things the way they are first.
Identity Politics Mean Special Pleading
But even if MRAs could construct an airtight case that their oppression leads to a worse society, I’d be leery of joining a group with “men’s rights” as its official modus operandi.
Abolitionists let their movement die after it had won its big fight, rather than degenerating into a dubious ‘movement’ made up of scammers and professional victims.
Question: What’s the difference between abolitionists and civil-rights activists? Answer: There’s no abolitionist equivalent to Al Sharpton. The abolitionists let their movement die after it had won its big fight, rather than trying desperately to hold onto the old spark and eventually degenerating into a dubious “movement” made up of scammers and professional victims.
Why did it do this? Well, many reasons, but there’s one I want to focus on: abolitionists were less concerned with liberating blacks than with making sure slavery denied no one individual rights. Once that threat was gone, there was nothing left to “abolish.”
But civil rights couldn’t do that
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Shield from 2014 with 13 regular season wins.
The Thorns closed 2015 with a 3-2 loss to the Western New York Flash. After the departure of Head Coach Paul Riley, Portland hired former Washington Spirit coach Mark Parsons, who will lead the Thorns this season.
Reign FC currently has the upper hand in the regional rivalry after shutting out the Thorns in both matches last season.
The last time the Cascadia rivals faced off at Memorial Stadium on July 26, 2015, Reign FC came out on top 3-0 with a goal in the 38th minute from midfielder Jessica Fishlock and two from forward Beverly Yanez in the 46th and 50th minutes.
Sunday’s match will also allow Reign FC’s newly acquired draft picks, goalkeeper Lindsey Luke and defenders Carson Pickett and Paige Nielsen, to experience NWSL play for the first time.
Reign’s 2016 pre-season line-up features 26 signed players and invitees. Goalkeeper Andi Tostanosky, defender Kelly Beck, midfielders Erica Shelton and Kathryn Bennett, and forwards Rebecca Candler Dani Foxhoven are participating in the 2016 Health Warrior Training Camp as non-rostered players.
The current Reign FC roster includes goalkeepers Hope Solo and Haley Kopmeyer, defenders Lauren Barnes, Rachel Corsie, Elli Reed, Kendall Fletcher, and Michelle Cruz; midfielders Kim Little, Jessica Fishlock, Keelin Winters, and Havana Solaun, and forwards Merritt Mathias, Manon Melis, Beverly Yanez, and Kiersten Dallstream. Forward Megan Rapinoe has not yet reported to camp.
Reign FC will also go up against University of Washington in the Community Shield Match at Memorial Stadium in Seattle on April 9 at 7 p.m. Reign FC has made tickets available at no cost. Tickets are available now at Reignfc.com/tickets.
There is a ten ticket limit per account; tickets are required for entry. Tickets to the Community Shield Match are also included in every Seattle Reign FC season ticket membership.
Reign FC will welcome the start of their fourth season on April 17’s home-opener against Sky Blue FC at Memorial Stadium at 4 p.m. Ticket prices start at $18 and are available at Reignfc.com/tickets.
About Seattle Reign FC:
Seattle Reign FC is one of ten teams in the National Women’s Soccer League. The NWSL is the premier women’s professional soccer league in North America, featuring many of the top players from the United States, Canada and around the world. Seattle Reign FC train and host home matches at Memorial Stadium, located in the shadow of the Space Needle on the Seattle Center campus. For more information on the club visit ReignFC.com or call 855-REIGNFC.
#LetItReignWith thousands of people traveling to tournaments around the world and millions tuning in to live-streamed competitions online, fighting games are on the verge of becoming a bona fide, electronic spectator sport. But for the community to break into the big time, it's going to have to attract more big name sponsors beyond those like gaming peripheral maker Mad Catz and energy drink NOS, which currently help support players and tournaments financially.
So when a major corporation in one of the biggest industries in the world announced earlier this week that it was interested in potentially sponsoring the competitive fighting game scene, it should have been unvarnished good news for the community. Since that corporation is online porn giant Brazzers, however, the announcement has set off an internal debate about the image that the growing community wants to project to the world.
Pro gaming meets porn
Brazzers Director of Special Events Rob Steele confirmed the company's plans to dive into the world of fighting game sponsorship Monday evening in a live-streamed interview with popular pro fighting game player Joe Ciaramelli, who goes by "LI Joe" online. Ciaramelli was the one who first reached out to Brazzers about potential partnerships with the fighting game community, an idea he said initially grew out of jokes his friends made about his resemblance to porn star Johnny Sins.
While Steele said he's not a gamer himself, he found others in the Brazzers office were excited about the opportunity Joe presented. "I had no idea how big the industry was... and then I brought it up to a friend of mine, and he was like you've got to jump on this. This is history right here if you get involved. This is something you've got to do," Steele said during the announcement.
What finally sold Steele on the idea of putting money into the fighting game scene, though, was watching the now-famous video of Daigo's full parry comeback at the 2004 Evolution tournament, and seeing the cheering crowds that accompanied the amazing display. Steele said videos like that convinced him that "this really is real—I have to get a company seed out there, y'know?"
While Steele didn't yet have details about what form Brazzers' pro fighting game sponsorship would take, he hinted that the company might want to back an entire team of players and even host tournaments where participants would get to hang out with some of the site's well known stars at after-parties. In other words, this doesn't sound like a small commitment.
"A potential death sentence... for the growth of the sport."
If you were watching the comments from the over 2,000 people watching Ciaramelli's live-stream Monday night, or following Twitter feeds and message boards frequented by fighting game fans, you might think the reaction to Brazzers' announcement was overwhelmingly positive. But not everyone is happy about the attention, and some are concerned that association with a porn site could stunt the burgeoning fighting game community's growth.
"I don't think many in the fighting game community realize how much of a potential death sentence this is for the growth of their sport" said a top executive involved with the fighting game business. He runs one of the more successful fighting game teams and also manages a marketing agency for companies interested in the community. Still, he requested to remain anonymous for this article because, he said, Brazzers' well-known porn brand is so toxic that he was afraid his team and his current sponsors would be tarnished by being associated with it, even in the context of commenting for a news article.
The executive's comments echoed those of many I talked to who were even more reluctant to put themselves out there as publicly against a situation that so many of their fellow players saw positively. Twitch TV outreach manager captured the general feeling among many when he tweeted his thoughts that the fighting game community was "shoot[ing] itself in the foot," in its rush to embrace this sponsorship. "This is a horrible look on all levels. And no one is speaking out?"
"Any time you engage in a sponsorship relationship with a company, they're affecting your image just as much as you're affecting theirs," the anonymous executive said. That can be a big problem for attracting other sponsors, he added, pointing out that standard endorsement contracts have clauses safeguarding against improper behavior and inappropriate content, which would include affiliation and/or links to pornography. "Any individual player who accepts sponsorship from, and correspondingly endorses the product of a porn site can pretty much kiss sponsorship from any other company goodbye," he said. "Even if and when that sponsorship ends in the future, companies won't touch those players."
The executive also expressed concerns about having his team even play against opponents that had a Brazzers logo in front of their name, or attending a tournament that featured the company as a sponsor. "It's not just about who the logo's on, it's also about putting the sponsor's brand in a safe, constructive, space—an industry or community that the sponsor can confidently say they're proud to support," he said.
That might help explain why Evo tournament co-founder Tom Cannon recently tweeted, "to be super clear, there will never be a reference to [Brazzers] at Evo, in any way, shape, or form." But the executive I talked to worried that he might have to pull his support from many smaller tournaments and events with less stringent controls, and recommend his marketing clients do the same if Brazzers was present. If the Brazzers brand was really pervasive in the community, he said, he might have to steer clear of fighting games completely "for at least two years" to protect his brand's image.
"This is a situation in which a small handful of people, by accepting sponsorship from Brazzers, have the potential to do tremendous damage to the image of an entire industry and its growth potential," he argued.
Any sponsorship is good sponsorship
"One egg shouldn't spoil the bunch but it does happen," Ciaramelli admitted in a discussion with Ars. But he also argued that certain players being willing to take money from a porn site shouldn't mean that the whole fighting game community is infected by the association.
"It's like NASCAR," he said. "You have cars race around a track with all kinds of stuff on the car that have nothing to do with the cars or racing: Jack Daniels [for instance]. Does that mean there are shots given out at NASCAR races? Is everyone driving drunk?"
For Ciaramelli, there's no such thing as a bad sponsorship, in a sense. "I think of it this way. I've been playing for 20 years. If someone is going to help me do what I love to do, and put me in the light... yeah it's maybe not such a good light, but I have the light of an entire community on me right now. It's hard to tell a company 'No, please, don't help me do what I love.'"
And Ciaramelli also argues that there may be no such thing as bad press, either, as far as this controversy is concerned. "People know about us today who didn't yesterday," he pointed out, and even if those people are potentially disgusted by potential associations with a porn site, just knowing about the community might get them to look for other players or tournament videos that they'll end up loving. "I certainly think numbers will grow from this," he said. "I think we will gain more people in the community."
Brazzers, for its part, seems sensitive to the idea that being linked to its brand comes with its own baggage. "A lot of people are kind of tentative to attach their brand to us because of what we do for a living," Steele admitted in his live chat with Ciaramelli. "It's kind of not the right thing for some people." But he also said that Brazzers wasn't trying to force itself on the fighting game community, and that the people he had talked to had all accepted the potential sponsorship idea with open arms. He also pointed out that Brazzers is expanding into less explicit, more party-focused content with its "Brazzers After Dark" sub-brand.
"We're not there to scare people off and we're not there to mess with anybody that doesn't want us," he said during the announcement. "We see something here that makes sense, and if it makes sense we’re all about it.... In everything we do there's going to be people who don't like what we're doing, [but] at the end of the day we're a company ourselves, and we're not going to embarrass ourselves or do anything that's going to put ourselves in jeopardy."
Associating with an industry that's seen as degrading to women might be an extra-sensitive topic for professional fighting gamers now, given that accusations of sexual harassment at a tournament last month gained widespread attention and raised the specter of pervasive sexism in the community. But Ciaramelli argued that porn is a legitimate business, and that no one is being abused or exploited in this situation. "All I'm doing is wearing a shirt," he said. "There are much worse shirts I've seen at a tournament than a shirt that says Brazzers on it."
As for arguments that Brazzers sponsorships would hurt the fighting game community's efforts to reach spectators and participants of all ages, Ciaramelli says those efforts are already harmed by competitions in M-rated games like Mortal Kombat and "NOS girls half dressed at tournaments promoting a drink." He also pointed out that some players like Long "Shaddy K" Tran are sponsored by an electronic cigarette manufacturer, which hardly projects a family friendly image.
Then again, there might not be a branded image ridiculous enough to scare off Ciaramelli. "If a company came to me and said 'Hey, Joe, we like fish, please wear this fish on your head we will send you around to play,' I'd ask for a big fish to fit my skull," he said.Bullet proof jackets and helmets built to the highest specifications of personal protection are not just built in India but exported to more than 230 forces in over 100 countries.
Last Monday, Baljit Singh, a brave Punjab police officer dared three terrorists who had entered the police station in Gurdaspur to come out and face him man to man.Within minutes, Mr Singh was dead. He took a bullet to the head.He was wearing neither a helmet nor an Indian Army innovation called the bulletproof patka, that gives Sikh men limited protection from gunfire.Mr Singh's courage, or for that matter, the courage of the Punjab policemen around him cannot take away from the fact that guts alone cannot defeat highly trained terrorists armed to the gills.Elsewhere, some policemen of the Punjab police wearing neither helmets not bullet proof vests engaged the terrorists with primitive Self-Loading Rifles (SLRs), which was no match for the firepower of the enemy's AK-47s. A short distance away, burly cops of the police force moved up and down a roof throwing grenades at the terrorists and then ran for their lives before the grenades exploded. When the Punjab Police's Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams arrived, they were seen rushing to take up positions wearing their knee pads. They had not worn either their helmets or their bullet proof jackets.14 years after the 2001 attack on Parliament, little seems to have changed for the policemen on the ground. Back then, some policemen tried engaging the heavily armed terrorists who attacked Parliament with pistols. During the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks in 2008, some gutsy cops facing the likes of Kasab had nothing more than their lathis. Some had primitive Lee-Enfield.303 rifles. Very few had bullet proof jackets and almost no one had helmets other than cricket helmets which have somehow become standard issue for police forces across the country.It doesn't take rocket science to understand that a helmet designed to stop a cricket ball can never stop a high velocity round from an AK-47, the infantry weapon of choice not just for terrorists but also Indian armed forces.Why in 2015 are our policemen less protected than soldiers fighting the First World War a century ago? Believe it or not, there are solutions easily available right here in India.Did you know that India is considered a world leader in body armor technology? Did you know that bullet proof jackets and helmets built to the highest specifications of personal protection are not just built in India but exported to more than 230 forces in over 100 countries?Among the users - the British, German, Spanish and French Armies - and police forces stretching from Japan in the East to the US in the West.At the Kanpur-based MKU, India's largest manufacturer of body armour, the biggest problem often lies with the mindset of the police forces that they have to deal with.According to MKU Chairman Manoj Gupta, "Most of our police forces and reserve police as well in our states are mostly equipped for anti-riot protection, not for anti-terrorist operations. There has to be deep thinking over this by policy makers."According to some estimates, there is a standing requirement of at least 50,000 bullet proof kits in India's police forces but there is never a clear indicator since individual states handle their own law and order decisions and rarely spell out a requirement until they finally come out with a tender.But the problems begin when the acquisition process starts. Deadlines for acquisition are frequently extended. State forces refuse to reveal the methodology they use in assessing the capability of a particular system. Vendors looking to sell to police forces have serious questions with the evaluation process and often have to wait indefinitely for answers to queries they may have. All of this happens before time consuming price negotiations even begin with a shortlisted vendor.Ironically, the manufacture of bullet proof kit in India comes at a time when the Centre is trying to push Make in India as one of its primary manufacturing strategies. In the case of companies like MKU, not only are they manufacturing in India, they are exporting their equipment to highly discerning foreign customers while looking to expand their footprint across the globe. For the policeman or policewoman on the ground, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Bamboo shields, the trusty bamboo lathi, the.303 and Self-Loading Rifle are a constant. The only other constant is the courage that our police display on the ground. After all, that's all they have to take on a determined enemy who are better trained, better equipped and perhaps better motivated.Donald Trump pointing his finger like a gun (CNN/Screencapture)
Donald Trump supporters are planning an armed demonstration to intimidate protesters when the Republican presidential candidate visits Pittsburgh for a town hall meeting and campaign rally.
A social media user posted the group’s plans about noon Tuesday on Reddit, saying at least 16 armed Trump supporters will form “roving support units” to stop protesters from forming road blocks, reported Pittsburgh City Paper.
“The majority of us will us will be open carrying sidearms and long arms (AR-15 style preferred, but AK’s and such are fine),” said user ElDuderino412. “This isn’t gonna be a place to mess around!”
The newspaper published a screenshot of the original post, which has apparently been deleted from the “Pittsburgh” subreddit, but the same Reddit user continued to discuss his plans for the open carry demonstration — which he said was intended primarily to prevent roadblocks.
That social media user complained that anti-Trump protesters were “paid to intimidate others and cause havoc” — and he issued several warnings about gun violence.
“I hope any ‘protestors’ who think it might be a good idea to pull some of the crap that we’ve seen done elsewhere remember Pennsylvania has a castle doctrine,” said the social media user, ElDuderino412. “I would not hold people against their will with illegal roadblocks or any other tactics.”
He said the law allowed gun owners to use deadly force if they were harmed or prevented from going about their lawful business, although ElDuderino412 conceded he was not an attorney.
“There are examples in history where people have been murdered in such roadblocks,” he posted. “It’s up to each individual to understand the laws on their own, I am not a lawyer. Kidnapping may be the wrong term, but if someone uses force to get away from one of these roadblocks consisting of people pounding on cars and such I would be very surprised to see charges brought upon someone in this state.”
Although that Reddit user’s comments were the most widely publicized, city officials said they had been monitoring numerous social media posts alluding to gun violence during the Trump visit.
“There’s a lot of chatter that’s out on social media,” said Mayor Bill Peduto. “Our police bureau and Department of Public Safety have been monitoring it since Monday. We want to make sure everybody is safe. We also want to guarantee that everyone has their First Amendment rights protected, which means that all of the different speeches, all of the different protests can happen. But they have to happen within the proper perimeters of keeping a city safe.
Trump will record a one-hour town hall hosted by Fox News broadcaster Sean Hannity about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, and then go on to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center for a campaign rally at 7 p.m.
Police said they were aware of the social media gun threats and would monitor the credibility of those threats of violence ahead of Trump’s visit.
“We have developed a robust operational plan to ensure that we are prepared to deal with any emergency situations that might arise during the day and evening,” the police said in a statement. “We will be executing that plan with the same crowd management philosophy that we always use, which includes protecting constitutional rights.”
Administrators at the University of Pittsburgh, where Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall is located, said they were also aware of the threats and warned the open carry demonstrators were not permitted on campus.
“Pennsylvania law allows open carry on public property,” said Kathy Humphrey, senior vice chancellor for engagement and chief of staff. “We expect that these demonstrators, if present, will abide by the law and remain off private property, which includes University of Pittsburgh campus areas.”
Watch this video report posted by WPXI-TV:When it comes to evaluating the financial performance of top movies, it isn’t about what a film grosses at the box office. The true tale is told when production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs collide with box office grosses and ancillary revenues from VOD to DVD and TV. To get close to that mysterious end of the equation, Deadline is repeating our Most Valuable Blockbuster tournament, using data culled by seasoned and trusted sources.
JURASSIC WORLD
Universal Pictures
THE FILM
THE BOX SCORE
After a 14-year lapse, Universal Pictures finally let audiences back to Jurassic Park. Guided by a filmmaker whose previous film Safety Not Guaranteed cost probably what they spent in catering, Jurassic World paired up-and-coming superstar Chris Pratt with Bryce Dallas Howard. Would the fourth installment of the venerable franchise created by the late Michael Crichton still have what it takes? Let’s look at the bottom-line numbers to show how the picture did.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The delay in mounting another Jurassic Park has been attributed to development hell, but it seems to have everything to do with the bruised feelings that happened when DreamWorks seemed headed for a distribution deal at Universal after it was extricated from Paramount, only to veer at the last moment and head to Disney. Steven Spielberg, who by the way never ever left his Amblin offices on the Universal lot the entire time, is now back at his studio home. This all worked out very well, and the franchise only grew in value while it stayed dormant. Two mega stars were launched in Colin Trevorrow, who won’t be back for a sequel because he got his dream job directing a Star Wars film, and Pratt, who showed that Guardians of the Galaxy was no fluke and became the brightest male leading man in Hollywood in years. Jurassic World opened huge as you would expect, with $208.8M in its opening weekend domestic, and $316M for its five-day opening worldwide. Its $1.6B global gross made it 2015’s second-highest-grossing film, and the fourth-highest grossing of all time. So why did it finish only third biggest of 2015? Certainly, the $250M production budget brought it slightly down to earth, but take a look at the participations line and it tells you everything. Some $200M was paid out to talent, according to our experts, and that is by far the biggest amount of any film so far. The bulk of that money went to Spielberg, who directed the first film and, though he’s now a producer,he basically got somewhere near 35% of money after cash break, sources said. Spielberg has always had these kind of deals and made a fortune on the Men in Black films in the same fashion. Despite this hit, Universal realized an astounding $474M in net profit, but a Cash on Cash Return of 1.6. And that puts the picture in third place.Last year, a study on the American Jewish population published by the Pew Research Center made it plain that non-Orthodox Jewry in this country was in crisis. The devastating statistics about rising rates of intermarriage, assimilation and declining rates of affiliation painted a Portrait of Jewish Americans that left little doubt that liberal Jewry was in crisis. Since then, many in the Reform and Conservatives denominations, especially their leaders, seem to be in denial about the seriousness of the problem, but a story in today’s New York Times illustrates their dilemma nicely.
The article concerns the decision of Rabbi Andrew Bachman of Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn to leave the rabbinate and pursue a new career in poverty work. On the surface, there’s nothing particularly significant about this. Rabbis, like lots of other professionals, often change their professions in mid life. As the rabbi says, the shift is neither a crisis of faith nor a contradiction of his life’s work as there is no inherent contradiction between being a Reform rabbi and being a poverty activist.
But the Times was not wrong to highlight this story as being something of a metaphor for liberal Jewry. Bachmann was widely seen as being among the best and the brightest in the Reform rabbinate and a man who had transformed his synagogue into a vibrant center attracting congregants eager to be a part of his vision of social activism. His decision to leave doesn’t mean that Beth Elohim will collapse. But it does show that when you start treating Judaism as merely a vehicle for liberal social activism, it’s difficult to resist the impulse to eliminate the middleman. Bachmann may not be renouncing his faith or even his calling as a rabbi but, as we learn in the Times account of his decision making process that he has discovered that he’s a lot more interested in spending his life advancing the anti-poverty agenda than in teaching Judaism to a generation of Jews who are desperately in need of leaders able to reach them.
One needs to be careful about going too far with this line of reasoning, but, it’s difficult to criticize the Times for assuming that there is a connection between the rapid decline in affiliation and synagogue attendance and the way many non-Orthodox Jews believe their faith is synonymous with liberal activism rather than a civilization and a people that transcends the particular political fashion of our own time.
Those who wrote about the Pew Survey rightly focused on statistics that showed the overwhelming majority of non-Orthodox Jews are intermarrying and the secondary results that show that the children of such marriages are exponentially less likely to be Jewishly educated, affiliate with the Jewish community or regard themselves as “Jews by religion.” Those numbers point in only one direction and it is one that means that within a few generations most of the descendants of those who currently call themselves Conservative, Reform or Reconstructionist Jews will have left the Jewish community and have only the most meager and vestigial ties to their origins.
But just as telling as the intermarriage numbers were those that explored what it means to be a Jew to those who still do consider themselves Jewish. Relatively few see it as having anything to do with religious faith or being part of the Jewish people. More think it is a function of having a sense of humor than being connected to the State of Israel. When asked what defines Judaism and Jewish identity, most eschew all those elements that are the defining characteristics of Judaism and, instead, focus on those that apply equally to all faiths, such as a desire to promote social justice.
Jewish identity and faith has always contained within it a lively mix of the universal and the particular. But in the universe of liberal American Jewry, the balance is skewed toward the former. As Cynthia Ozick memorably said, “universalism is the particularism of the Jews.”
As such, liberal Jews are far less likely to resist the blandishments of assimilation since there is very little difference between their view of their faith and the secular political version of liberalism. However, as many in these denominations have discovered, it is a lot easier to devote yourself to a liberal cause without tugging along your Jewish baggage. In a movement that treats anti-poverty work as synonymous with faith, who can blame Rabbi Bachmann for deciding to stop trying to feed the hungry in a Jewish context and instead just cut straight to the chase?
As I wrote in the November 2013 issue of COMMENTARY, this exodus of non-Orthodox Jews is largely the function of free society in which Americans have a choice as to whether they will retain their faith and the breakdown in barriers between faiths that has caused non-Jews to be willing to marry Jews. But it is exacerbated by a societal trend in which the overwhelming majority of American Jews have lost all sense of what it means to hold onto a viable Jewish identity that can be handed down to subsequent generations. If you believe, as most do, that Judaism can be summed up in the phrase “tikkun olam” — a concept about repairing the world that has become a tired cliché and been stripped of its particular Jewish meaning or, as the old quip goes, the Democratic Party platform with holidays thrown in, why be a Jew at all?
The answer from all too many liberal Jews is that there is no real reason to stick with Judaism and the result are the numbers that the Pew Center published. Sadly, both the leaders of the Conservative movement and Bachmann’s Reform movement, have taken a blasé attitude toward the Pew statistics, claiming that their impact is either being exaggerated or misinterpreted rather than raising an alarm. That sort of complacence is on display in the quotes in the Times article from both Bachmann and Reform leader Rabbi Rick Jacobs. They urge Jews not to “build a wall around their Judaism in an effort to preserve it. But it’s difficult to view the catastrophic numbers in a context other than one in which the consequences of not preserving distinctions or viewing Judaism as religious liberalism are becoming apparent. As scholars Jack Wertheimer, Steven Cohen and Steven Bayme have pointed out, the only way to preserve non-Orthodox Jewry is to emphasize both Jewish particularity as well as seek to promote endogamy.
Rabbi Bachmann isn’t leaving Judaism but that is exactly what most non-Orthodox Jews are doing. If even he sees a life devoted to Jewish teachings as somehow not fulfilling enough to suit his needs, how can anyone else argue that it is reasonable to expect his congregants not to shuck off Jewish particularism just as easily?Hillary Rodham Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham, sat on the board of a self-described mining company that in 2012 received one of only two “gold exploitation permits” from the Haitian government—the first issued in over 50 years.
The tiny North Carolina company, VCS Mining, also included on its board Bill Clinton’s co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), former Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.
The Rodham gold mine revelation is just one of dozens featured in a forthcoming bombshell investigative book by three-time New York Times bestselling author Peter Schweizer, according to a Thursday statement from publishing giant HarperCollins. The publisher says the book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, is the culmination of an exhaustive one-year deep dive investigation into the nexus between the Clintons’ $100+ million personal wealth, the Clinton Foundation, and the decisions Hillary made as Secretary of State that benefited foreign donors, governments, and companies.
VCS’s coveted gold mining exploitation permit was apparently such a sweetheart deal that it outraged the Haitian senate, since royalties to be paid to the Haitian government were only 2.5%, a sum mining experts say is at least half the standard rate. Moreover, the mining project in Morne Bossa came with a generous ability to renew the project for up to 25 years. Nevertheless, the fledgling company proudly touted its luck in landing the deal.
“This is one of two permits issued today, the first permit of their kind issued in over five decades,” reads the only press release under VCS’s “news” tab on its scant website.
According to USAID, $3.1 billion have been dispersed since the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
Clinton Cash is said to contain “seismic” and “game-changing” revelations that far eclipse anything presently reported on the Clinton Foundation’s violation of its agreement not to accept foreign government money during Hillary’s tenure as secretary of state.
In 2011, Schweizer’s book Throw Them All Out exposed insider trading by members of Congress and became the subject of an award-winning CBS 60 Minutes story and “started the STOCK [Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge] Act stampede,” according to Slate.
“Bestselling author Peter Schweizer coins a new term to describe the unique way in which Bill and Hillary tend to mingle their political, personal and philanthropic interests: the ‘Clinton Blur,’” says HarperCollins editor Adam Bellow. “Schweizer’s scrupulously sourced and exhaustively researched book raises serious questions about the sources of the Clintons’ sudden wealth, their ethical judgment, and Hillary’s fitness for high public office.”
The book is slated to hit bookshelves nationwide May 5th.
Clinton Cash – Annoucement Release.doc
//My friends, Alex Jones here with dire news regarding a recent attack on the heart of the Infowar and the liberty movement worldwide.
The election of Donald J. Trump as 45th President of the United States was a crushing blow to the globalist empire, and there’s no question that the elite have pinned Infowars to be one of the primary driving factors behind the biggest upset to the New World Order in decades.
Today, Infowars has been banned from one of the largest advertising platforms in the world for its support of Donald J. Trump in an unprecedented attack on the liberty movement and free speech.
This is a platform that Infowars has used to promote its own products to millions across the web and as one of its primary sources of self-funding. In total, Infowars is expected to lose a large percentage of its total income that could be used to hire more reporters, build better studios, get better equipment, and keep on fighting.
This ban is a critical blow to the pumping heart of the Infowar, as we are an independent media organization that receives absolutely no funding from government groups or mega corporations.
In response, we have launched a massive ‘Defend Infowars’ special on InfowarsStore.com with major specials on our top Infowars Life formulas and other products.
We will also be launching The Defense of Liberty 13 Hour Special Broadcast tomorrow starting at 11 AM CST and going all the way to midnight.
Live streams, which will also include my Reddit AMA on internet censorship, will be available on our YouTube Channel as well as on Infowars.com.
We also urge our supporters to visit the Coalition to Defend Free Speech and sign the petition to fight against censorship of independent media.
Thank you for your support and thank you for making everything we do possible,
Alex JonesWILLIAMSBURG, Va. -- Marcus Thornton scored 20 points and Tim Rusthoven added 17 as William & Mary routed in-state rival James Madison 78-56 on Saturday.
William & Mary (10-6, 2-1 Colonial Athletic Association) hit 10 of 20 from beyond the arc and shot 56.9 percent from the field, including 70.8 percent in the first half en route to a 42-24 lead at halftime. The Tribe used a 29-7 run to build a 22-point lead shortly before the half.
Thornton was 4 of 6 on 3-pointers and hit 6 of 10 from the field, while Rusthoven hit 6 of 9 field goals.
Andre Nation scored a career-high 25 points for James Madison (6-13, 1-4), which got out-rebounded 35-24 and lost its fourth straight game. James Madison was just 5 of 23 from beyond the arc and 11 of 22 from the free throw line.Rasputin: Report By The Czar’s Secret Police (Okhrana)Russian State Papers and other documents relating to the years 1915-1918 Translated by A. L. Hynes Imported into HTML by Rob MosheinRasputin has utilized his position as a monk to gain entry into hundreds of Muscovite females. He has even gained entry into the Czar’s daughters and the Czarina herself. His influence is great within the Czar’s court where practically every woman has fallen under his spell. Now he is making political and strategic decisions, transmitted through the Czarina, which directly effect World War I and the future of Europe. His reputation as a legendary lover cannot be discounted. (See Google images: “Rasputin”)EXTRACTS From the data of the external surveillance over Gregory Rasputin from the 1st Jan., 1915, up to the 10th Feb., 1916.I January. Rasputin has sent a telegram to Pokrovskoe [his native village] addressed to the elder of the village: "I have secured the wood free of cost; it is to be carried away when permission to fell has been granted."10 January. ShapovaIenkova [a doctor's wife] has presented him with a carpet. He has dispatched a telegram: "Tsarskoe-Selo, Palace Hospital. Anna Alexandrovna Vyroubova. Although I was not present in the body, in spirit I rejoiced with you. My feelings are the feelings of God. I send an angel to console and calm you. Call in a doctor." 12 January. Rasputin has received a petition to His Majesty from a peasant of the government of Saratov, called Gavrill Panteleiev Shishkin, with an "appeal for remission (he has been convicted to imprisonment in a fortress on account of his connection with some sect); and another from a peasant of the government of Tambov called Alexander Ossipov Sleptzov, also appealing for pardon. The latter has been convicted for forgery of cheques. Rasputin charged them 250 roubles for his trouble.17 January. Rasputin spent fifty minutes in the public baths, in No-3, 4th Rogdestvenskaia Street, but whether he went there alone or with someone has not been ascertained.18 January. The peasant Avgust Kornilovitch, an employee of Councilor of State Ginsburg [contractor for coal to the fleet] brought Rasputin 1,000 roubles, forwhich he took a receipt in the delivery book.26 January. Simanovitch [a merchant] has brought Rasputin several bottles of wine. Rasputin gave a dance tonight in honour of some discharged prisoners. The entertainment was attended by the two Volynskys, Shapovalenkova, Maria Golovina and by four unknown men and six unknown women. One of the men carried a guitar. The party was very noisy, with singing, dancing and applause; it lasted till late into the night28 January, Von Bock, accompanied by an unknown person, brought Rasputin acase of wine.12 February. Rasputin was taken by an unknown woman into the house No. 15-17, Trotzkaia Street to Prince Andronikov [attached to the Ministry of Internal Affairs]. His departure was not observed, but at half past four in the morning he returned home in the company of six drunken men (one of whom was carrying a guitar). These people remained with him till six o'clock, singing and dancing. The following morning Rasputin received nobody, as he was asleep.18 February. Rasputin
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in her book, ‘I knew exactly what he meant. Take care of it. That was a challenge to give Dave Powers oral sex. I don’t think the president thought I’d do it, but I’m ashamed to say that I did.”
An emotional Alford told Vieira that the incident still makes her sad and angry.
“It makes me angry because I didn’t just splash water in the president’s face and tell him to get lost,” Alford said. “It makes me sad because I did it.”
JFK aide Powers died in 1998, before Alford came forward with her secret.
Alford claims the president asked her to “take care” of his brother, freshman Senator Ted Kennedy, in the fall of 1963 towards the end of their affair, but she refused.
Pregnancy Scare and the Cuban Missile Crisis
When Alford returned to college in the fall of 1962, she briefly panicked that she might be pregnant. She says she contacted JFK aide Powers.
“He said that he would put me in touch with someone who would put me in touch with someone who would put me in touch with someone down the line if I should need help and luckily I didn’t,” Alford said.
Alford says that she and Kennedy continued their relationship. She says that they devised a nickname, “Michael Carter,” for Kennedy to use when calling her dorm.
When a phone call wasn’t enough, Alford says the president would brazenly make arrangements to bring her back to Washington, D.C. She claims that even returned to visit the president during the tense night before the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved.
“I think the president wanted me to be there,” Alford said. “I really didn’t spend much time with the president. I was just there.”
She didn’t sleep with the president that night.
Alford returned to the White House as an intern again in the summer of 1963. She was in charge of photo sessions in the Oval Office which meant she saw the president almost daily. Since Jackie Kennedy was pregnant, Alford says she had limited access to Kennedy after hours.
Alford never met the first lady and she says Kennedy only discussed his family with her after the death of his newborn son, Patrick, in August 1963. Patrick Kennedy died of an under developed lung syndrome shortly after birth.
As the fall neared, Alford was falling deeper in love with Tony Fahnestock, a college student she’d been dating since the beginning of 1963. She kept her relationship with Kennedy secret from Fahnestock. When she and Fahnestock became engaged, Alford says Kennedy congratulated her.
“He was happy for me and sort of joked that, ‘Oh, well, you’re not going to leave me are you?’ So it was a kind of complicated thing for me, but he was happy that I had met Tony.”
Alford says that Kennedy gave her two gold pins with diamonds in the center of them as a present and an autographed picture that said, “Warm regards and best wishes and appreciation.” He joked that no one would ever know what he was really appreciating her for, Alford says.
Once she was engaged, she says the dynamics of her relationship with Kennedy shifted from being sexual to more of a friendship.
Kennedy’s Assassination and Burying the Secret
Alford says the last time she saw Kennedy was 15 days before he was assassinated. She says that they saw each other at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City on Nov. 15, 1963. Alford claims Kennedy gave her $300 as a wedding gift and promised to call when he returned from Texas. Seven days later, the president was dead.
Alford heard the devastating news when she and her fiancé were driving to his family’s home in Connecticut.
“I could hardly breathe. I was in so much pain,” Alford said. “Here was Tony who I was going to marry, who I loved, there was the president who I had loved, who I had spent 18 months with, he was dead. The feelings were just explosive inside me.”
Her grief stunned her fiancé, prompting him to probe about her relationship with Kennedy. She confessed the affair. It was the first time she’d told anyone.
“Tony’s reaction was emotionally violent,” Alford said. “His response was so devastating that at that moment what happened for me was I just shut down emotionally…because what Tony said to me was, ‘you and I will never ever talk about this and you are never to tell anybody else.’”
Alford buried the secret and says that she shut down emotionally. She did her best to cover up her past, never mentioning her summers as a White House intern on resumes and getting rid of gifts Kennedy had given her. She cut up the autographed picture and pawned the gold and diamond pins.
“It’s very hard to live without telling people,” Alford said.
Alford and Fahnestock married in 1964. In a sadly similar twist of fate to Mrs. Kennedy, Alford lost her first baby to the same under developed lung syndrome that had taken Patrick Kennedy. Alford went on to have two healthy baby girls.
No Regrets and Moving Forward
Alford says that her emotional shutdown impacted her marriage to Fahnestock, leading to their eventual divorce. Still, she doesn’t regret the affair.
“I don’t actually regret that I had the affair with President Kennedy. What I regret is that I was shut down emotionally,” Alford said.
Alford told Vieira that she wishes she’d told her parents about the secret relationship.
“I think they died not knowing all of me,” she said.
The story of Alford and Kennedy’s alleged affair was first mentioned in 2003 when historian Robert Dallek mentioned a beautiful intern who was believed to be one of Kennedy’s paramours in a biography of Kennedy. When the New York Daily News tracked her down, Alford submitted a written statement acknowledging the affair, but did not speak publicly.
Shortly after the story became public, she met her current husband, Dick Alford. Mimi Alford says his encouragement helped her confront her past and led her to write her memoir, even though she knows she will have critics.
“People are going to judge me. There’s nothing I can do about that. All I can say is that, for me, to write this book, Once Upon a Secret, was extremely important. I had to do it…I can’t separate the Kennedy name from it. This was part of the story,” Alford said.Do you guys remember all that talk regarding the TV adaptation of Wes Craven’s slasher flick Scream? Well, things have quickly started heating up as we have just received word via B-D on the progress of the series.
According to the site, Wes Craven will direct the pilot episode for MTV from a script penned by Jill Blotevogel.
As for plot details? A source tells the site the following;
The pilot explores a YouTube video that has gone viral and causes problems for the protagonist, Audrey, who is caught in the middle of murder and the town’s troubled past.
Production is said to begin this Summer, so casting shouldn’t be too far behind. What do you guys make of a Scream TV series, and are you happy to see Craven returning? Hit up the comments and let us know.UPDATE: Responding on Reddit Friday, Chris Suprun said he worked as a firefighter in Dale City, Virginia on September 11, 2001. But there's no listing for Dale City on his publicly available and comprehensive LinkedIn résumé. Dale City's station records state none of its members were part of the initial response to the Pentagon on 9/11.
In September 2001, according to Suprun's LinkedIn résumé, he was employed by the Manassas Park, Virginia fire department. Suprun also does not list being a firefighter in Dale City, Virginia on a recent lengthy seven-page paper résumé, which WFAA obtained. Neither Suprun nor his public relations firms have responded to WFAA since this story was first published.
DALLAS -- The Republican elector who has gotten national attention for refusing to vote for Donald Trump at the Electoral College on Dec. 19 was apparently not a first responder on September 11, 2001 as he has stated for years and has a questionable career history, according to an investigation by WFAA.
Chris Suprun, 42, portrays himself as a heroic firefighter who was among the first on the scene after the third plane flew into the Pentagon on 9/11.
In a heavily-publicized editorial this month for the New York Times, Suprun stated that as a member of the Electoral College he will not cast his ballot for Trump because the president-elect “shows daily he is not qualified for the office.”
Suprun, a Dallas resident for more than a decade, even used his résumé to establish credibility in the Times piece, writing in the second paragraph: "Fifteen years ago, as a firefighter, I was part of the response to the Sept. 11 attacks against our nation."
He has founded a nonprofit called Never Forget and state records show he is a licensed paramedic -- but much of the rest of résumé, publicly available on LinkedIn, is questionable.
In addition, on at least two occasions over the last couple years at crowded Major League Baseball games, Suprun has been introduced as a 9/11 veteran before throwing out first pitches.
"He claimed to be a first responder with the Manassas Park [Virginia] Fire Department on September 11, 2001 and personally told us stories 'I was fighting fire that day at the Pentagon,’" said a first responder who knows Suprun and only agreed to speak about him if his identity was concealed.
"No, I was on a medic unit that day at the Pentagon and you make a phone call to Manassas Park and you find out that he wasn't even employed there until October 2001."
The City of Manassas Park confirmed to WFAA that it hired Suprun on October 10, 2001, one month after the 9/11 attacks.
The fire chief there added that his department never even responded to the Pentagon or any of the 9/11 sites.
"It's no different than stolen valor for the military; dressing up and saying 'Hey, I earned a Purple Heart' when you weren't even in combat.' There's a big difference between shopping at Old Navy and being a Navy SEAL," said the first responder who knows Suprun.
But Suprun's résumé raises even more questions.
It shows he was, at the time this story aired on WFAA, a paramedic with Air Methods air ambulance service. But Christina Brodsly, a spokeswoman for that company, said he is not an employee there.
Suprun also claims to currently be a paramedic with Freedom EMS in Dallas. But records from the Texas Department of State Health Services indicate there's no such company. A firm with that name used to exist in Houston, but it went out of business in 2008, according to DSHS.
Turns out, federal court records show Suprun has spent the last five years in bankruptcy while his résumé says he was working. He even collected unemployment during part of it, court records show. Suprun was just released from bankruptcy supervision this month.
He never responded to multiple emails from WFAA and calls to his telephone go to a recording which says his voicemail is full.
Two public relations firms he has hired – Megaphone Strategies and Fenton Communications – responded to our requests for an interview saying: “Suprun's schedule is jammed packed.”
His story raises a bigger question, though. How are presidential electors chosen? And more importantly, aren't they vetted? Unfortunately, not. They are selected in an almost informal process that each party undertakes at their state convention.
"Parties might want to ask for a little more background information, do a little bit of checking into people who would like to be members of the electoral college,” said Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at SMU.
He suggested that Suprun’s case might change things four years from now.
"I think in the future there will be a little more vetting and scrutiny given to prospective electors only because there's been so much discussion in this cycle of the possibility of faithless electors," continued Wilson.
If Suprun isn't working at the places on his résumé, whose uniform is he wearing at public appearances? Manassas Park, VA said it looks similar to theirs from 12 years ago but could not positively identify it.
Texas electors meet Monday in Austin. It's uncertain who will get Suprun's vote. But as Suprun questions Trump's credibility fellow first responders have doubts of their own about his.
Copyright 2016 WFAAOn Twitter Friday morning, President Donald Trump accused former FBI Director James Comey of making “false statements and lies” in his congressional testimony (while also claiming that the testimony somehow delivered him “complete vindication”):
Despite so many false statements and lies, total and complete vindication...and WOW, Comey is a leaker! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2017
It’s nothing new for Trump to accuse his political enemies of lying, but what makes this a particularly serious accusation is that Comey was under oath before Congress. So if he was lying, he was committing perjury. And if found guilty under the general federal perjury statute, Comey could get a prison sentence of up to five years.
But Trump’s accusation is very difficult to believe here, for several reasons.
First, Trump himself has raised the prospect that he could have “tapes” of his conversations with Comey.
James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017
So Comey knew weeks ago that there was a possibility that his conversations with Trump were recorded. Why in the world, then, would the former FBI director go give false testimony about them, if he’s well aware there could be irrefutable evidence contradicting his claims and exposing him to prosecution? Comey’s behavior makes a whole lot more sense if, as he said, he believes any tapes will vindicate him. (“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” he testified.)
Second, while there are certainly many cases in which administration officials have committed perjury, it makes most sense when done to protect the president or higher-ups in the administration. The hope would be that the president’s allies could shield them from prosecution or, failing that, that the president could pardon them (as in Iran-Contra).
This makes no sense in Comey’s case, because he would have to be deliberately committing perjury in order to hurt the president, knowing full well that the president’s allies would be highly motivated to try and prosecute him for even the smallest factual discrepancies.
Third, where the factual record is in dispute, Comey has evidence, and so far Trump has presented none.
Despite the president’s claim Comey told many lies, a statement from his personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz only names two specific instances in which he says Comey’s testimony is false. They are:
“The President never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that Mr. Comey ‘let Flynn go.’” “The President also never told Mr. Comey, ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty’ in form or substance.”
This contrasts with Comey’s testimony, which claims:
“[On February 14, President Trump] then said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” [At a dinner on January 27] the President said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.”... [Later in the dinner] he then said, “I need loyalty.”
But Trump’s lawyer presents zero actual evidence that what Comey said is false. In contrast, Comey wrote contemporaneous memos documenting each interaction that he wrote and shared with FBI leaders.
So essentially the president is accusing Comey of lying under oath about both of these topics, and in the memos he wrote and distributed months ago. If Trump has any evidence that his accusations are true, it’s nowhere to be seen. And note that while Comey’s side of the story was given under oath, Trump’s has not been.Telltale Games has built a solid reputation adapting existing franchises into adventure games, but according to the studio's new CEO it has an "upcoming original IP" in the works. The news comes as part of an announcement earlier today that the company's president and co-founder, Kevin Bruner, is now CEO. He replaces Dan Connors, who will stay on as an executive advisor.
While corporate musical chairs is interesting to some people, the promise of an original Telltale game inspires hope, as does "unannounced partnerships". Could this mean our long-hoped-for Seinfeld game is happening? Probably not, to be honest.
Here's Bruner's full statement, via GamesIndustry.biz.
"We're thrilled to continue our growth and bring our unique style of scripted entertainment to the next generation of digital media, and do that across thousands of different devices. Our top priority is to continue fostering an environment where the most talented and creative storytellers in the industry are working side by side with the world's biggest creative partners. We're already working on some of the biggest franchises in entertainment, and when you add our unannounced partnerships and upcoming original IP, it's clear the most exciting time to be at Telltale is now, and there will continue to be more and more opportunity to innovate ahead of us."
Following its success with The Walking Dead, Telltale has embarked on serialised adventure games based on The Wolf Among Us, Borderlands and Game of Thrones. Here's what we think they should do next.It’s often publishers that are left claiming that the influx of venture capital-backed advertising technology companies is leading to a downward spiral of low-priced, low-quality ads that make it nearly impossible to be a content publisher. Now you can count at least one top VC as also in that camp: Marc Andreessen.
Earlier today and this evening, Andreesen engaged in a lively Twitter discussion on the fate of news as a business, taking a few detours to address the ills of Web advertising. After he complained about teeth whitening ads, I posed the question to him whether advertising technology had failed publishers, seeing as the ads he complained about weren’t direct sold but placed through the Web of intermediaries that’s arisen to comprise the ad system.
That’s fairly damning coming from the founder of Netscape and the leader of one of the top VC firms, Andreessen Horowitz. Andreessen, whose firm invests in tech platforms rather than media, had several other interesting thoughts on the state of news businesses and advertising.
The news market will expand.
Picking up from Part 1: Best news about news business is gigantic expansion of addressable market — rise of developing world + Internet. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
Total addressable market for news by 2020: ~5 billion people worldwide; straight extrapolate from # of cell phones -> smartphones globally. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
Alas, that’s not great for many incumbents.
Many evolving markets seeing “death of middle”: broadest breadth winning; deepest depth winning; neither broadest nor deepest in trouble. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
And scale will matter — or expertise in an area.
So logical to expect big winners in news business to either be the broadest or the deepest: to max mass or go max specific. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
Of the eight possible ways he sees to build a business off news, ads will remain No. 1.
(1) Advertising. Still central for many news businesses. But need to get out of “race to bottom” of bad content, bad advertisers, bad ads. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
Publishers need more self-respect
Quality journalism businesses need to either take responsibility for own high-quality advertisers & ads, or work with partners who do. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
The banner ad has failed publishers and the industry.
@zachcoelius Yes. Internet advertising suffering horribly by premature format standardization. Has been rolling fiasco for 2 decades. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
Because the ads are really terrible.
There is no excuse for crappy network-served teeth whitening and “one weird trick” ads served against high quality content. Disastrous. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
And irrelevant.
@jeffjarvis Right. Vast majority of ads I’ve seen in my life has been irrelevant to me. Continues every day. Mass waste. Makes no sense. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
Subscriptions will play a role.
(2) Subscriptions. Many consumers pay $ for things they value much of the time. If they’re unwilling to pay, ask Q, are they really valuing? — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
(3) Premium content. Paid tier on top of free ad-supported. High end e.g.: Bloomberg & Reuters. Will work for more & more. Again, value = $. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
And so will other avenues, like events.
(4) Conferences & events. Bits becoming abundant; human presence becoming scarce. Charge for scarcity. Bits drive demand for presence. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
Quality is still a viable strategy in a world of aggregation and clickbait.
On Internet, no limitation to # of outlets, voices; therefore quality can easily coexist with crap. All can thrive in respective markets. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
In fact, the amount of noise increases the value of the signal.
And, the more noise, confusion, and crap — corresponding increase in need for trusted guides, respected experts, quality brands. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
And that will lead to a diversity of media companies, even if they’re not enormous businesses.
Remember: Most great businesses are not big businesses. This market plenty big enough for thousands of high-margin small-medium businesses. — Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) February 6, 2014
Image via ShutterstockPUBG's Miramar map is live on the PUBG test server, which is available as a separate library entry to anyone who owns the game on Steam. Our resident parachuters Chris and Evan dived in together to see how it compares to Erangel.
Evan: Yow, this is such an upgrade. It's not just the novelty of having a new place to run around—Miramar feels like a map built from the ground up for PUBG.
Chris: Yeah, even having not put nearly as much time into PUBG as you have, I can't really imagine revisiting Erangel once Miramar is on the main servers. It's not just a refreshing change of scenery (though it is a refreshing change of scenery). Miramar feels like a stronger and better map for PUBG.
Evan: It's inviting and bright, a big contrast from the Soviet dullness of Erangel. It puts me in this wild west mindset that melds nicely with battle royale—I want to get into trouble. The region feels more authentic, too. I spotted some Catholic symbols across Miramar, like the burned-out glass candles left around the mausoleums at Graveyard.
Chris: The setting does feel much more specific, which I think is good. Maybe I've just been playing in these vaguely Eastern European post-apocalyptic landscapes for too long (since Stalker) and it's great to feel an altogether different vibe. Even though presumably everyone is still dead from the apocalypse.
Evan: Speaking of that, it's funny how closely Miramar mirrors the general shape of Chernarus, the stock map for Arma 2 and DayZ.
Chris: It definitely feels like an intentional homage to Brendan Greene's DayZ days (zees).
Evan: So one strategy-affecting change I'm seeing the off-road terrain. It's rugged. Miramar isn't a landscape of halfpipe hills to flip your car off of. Most of the areas we drove across were bumpy and irregular, and we had to move at half speed. I felt way more fragile when driving.
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Its complexity favors tactics like window sniping and hiding in subtle arrangements of cover.
Chris: It feels almost too extreme of a change—I don't think PUBG is a game that needs to be slowed down any further. I like it, though: it'll force players to make real choices in their strategy depending on what vehicle they're driving and where they are. In Erangel I don't ever really deliberate about going off-road. It's honestly not much different than driving on paved surfaces. In Miramar, you might opt for speeding through a big town along a road (and drawing certain gunfire) instead of skirting it over the terrain, simply because going off-road is tougher and slower now.
Evan: The other side effect of that change is that the landscape as a whole has way more nooks and crannies, little dips in elevation to go prone in. Whether you like that will depend a lot on which version of the game you're playing (first- or third-person), and what range you like to fight at, I think.
It's absolutely a more complex map. A lot of the structures I've been inside are less uniform, departing from, say, the monotony of Georgopol's symmetrical rows of copy-and-pasted apartment towers. But that complexity favors tactics like window sniping and hiding in subtle arrangements of cover to get a good shot, neither of which are my favorite moments in PUBG.
Chris: Me neither.
Evan: I'm still getting a read on how the structure of this new map affects the rhythm of migration, looting, and combat. Miramar has a few islands—two SW, and two off the east coast that aren't connected by bridge. But they're extraordinarily small. I like that boats are deemphasized (I mean, it's a desert), but I also like the way Erangel's southern island operated as a secondary region to the main zone. Don't expect to get ambushed on any bridges, because there aren't any bottlenecks here.
Chris: It'll be interesting to see what become the most favored landing spots. Right now it seems like Erangel was at the start, where if you want some quick action you land in a big town and otherwise you pick a more remote location. As the map gets more familiar to players we'll start to see what people gravitate towards. But it definitely feels more crowded in terms of buildings and looting than the first map. Remote spots still feel close to everything else.
Evan: Yeah, exactly—apart from the fringes, where the circle's least-likely to spawn, most parts of are within 500 meters of a city or major compound. On the whole, more areas seem viable. The decision to put the military base in the far NE corner of the map is a little weird to me—it means there's one route in and out of a major landmark. I guess it's at least a change from the racetrack ring of road that circles Erangel's base.
I'd say there's still plenty of work to do.
Chris: It might work well during the matches where the circle closes on the southern side, so those who land at the base to get good gear can't just camp on it for the entire round.
Evan: Chris, you were the first person outside of the studio to see Miramar when you went to South Korea to write a cover story about it a couple months ago. Has this thing changed in any noticeable ways since you saw it then?
Chris: Yeah, it's changed a lot. The build I ran around in didn't have any of the big towns, the river at the edge of the map has been turned into an ocean, and there's a lot more polish and finer detail now. It also feels like there's less cover: the early build I saw was heavily dotted with trees, but playing today I feel way more exposed than I did then when running out in the open. I'd say there's still plenty of work to do: I noticed some architectural features that didn't quite fit together in some of the buildings. But it's come a long way since I first saw it in September.
Evan: Yeah, I think the number of manhours put into this piece of geometry is evident from the moment you step on it.
Chris: What do you think about the new vaulting system, though? I didn't use it much. Maybe I don't think to do it (except in the lobby, where that's all I do) or maybe it's not quite the game-changer I thought it would be. I've done or two jumps through a window because it's closer than the door.
Evan: It's useful in windows—I don't have to circle a house looking for the door, I can just bust through the nearest frame. With PUBG's forgiving fall damage, I can also make a panicked leap out a second or third story and survive. It's handy, and it's going to make sieges less predictable.
Chris: PUBG definitely feels less predictable now. A new map, new weapons, and new vehicles are kinda what PUBG needed for a shot in the arm. It's weird to say a game that draws almost 3 million players a day needed a makeover, but it feels exciting to me again.
Evan: If PUBG's future maps are this intricate and inspired, it'll have a long lifespan. I should note that although I've been getting terrific fps on Miramar, we did have a few server disconnects and crashes, but that's relatively expected in this testing phase. Otherwise there's no reason not to get these 14 gigs on your hard drive right now.This is the age of anti-heroes dramas.
Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) are the living proofs of a change in the narrative styles adopted by TV writers these days.
Long gone are the days when the main character was a positive everyman with noble and saving-the-world like intentions. And when someone happens to be a positive character of such, he or she ends up being physically or morally harmed, or worse decapitated.
We are fascinated by anti-heroes. They tend to stay more hooked up on our feelings than positive characters do. There’s something magnetic and thrilling in supporting the bad guys that clearly makes us more disposed to forgive them and cheer for their progress in the storylines.
The American drama has recently given us two great examples of anti-heroes that are likely to be remembered and leave a cult image of themselves in the years to come.
I chose to focus on Walter White and Frank Underwood since they are the best examples of anti-heroes in television, though they’re not the only ones. Tony Soprano and Don Draper (from Mad Man) are two great anti-heroes of previous shows.
Then who, in an imaginary competition, is the greatest anti-hero?
Walter White/Heisenberg
As we all know, he is the chemistry teacher diagnosed with lung cancer, who eventually decides to direct his life towards the criminal world by becoming the greatest methamphetamine’s cook and producer of the world. With a 99.1% purity, Walter White’s – in art Heisenberg – meth is the best ever manufactured. He eventually becomes a producer himself, unchaining his product from the hands of the villain Gus Fring.
Walter White’s story is about a man who has been given the chance to pursue his ambitions “thanks” to his disease and, therefore, has nothing to lose. He chose to exploit all these circumstances to reveal his nature, though he’s been hiding under the idea of leaving something for his family.
Frank Underwood
Conversely, House of Cards’ protagonist totally lacks an inner and more human side, showing to the world a meticulous, impassive, rational and machiavellian character whose only pursuit is to ambition and personal success. And if this means hurting others in order to succeed, that is completely accepted. He doesn’t need anyone’s permission and appears able to act with “ruthless pragmatism”.
In comparison, Frank appears to be the Heisenberg side of Walter White. He seems to lack humanity and he usually exploits his wide range of skills in order to accomplish his personal goal.
Contrariwise, Water White shows some kind of good intentions in what he does.
He still retains some sort of humanity that eventually makes him vulnerable and weak. That is observable in the feelings he has for Jesse and how he’s not completely ruthless and schemer in every situation. “Ozymandias” is a clear example of what I’m talking about.
Nonetheless, after coming to know Walter’s personality I had personal doubts about his reasons: is he a good man transformed by the need to provide for his family? Or was wickedness already an inner side of his persona? Did the cancer give him an excuse to unleash his real personality?
Walter wasn’t a bad person: he truly believed his goal was to leave something to his family after he’ll be dead. But eventually, we come to know that what he was doing had awakened some sort of inner strength he had been covering for too much time.
Speaking about House of Cards instead, I think we’ve been played by Frank Underwood.
He’s not the anti-hero we want him to be.
He is the villain of the story and there’s something scary, thrilling, disturbing and peculiarly disarming about being confident of the bad guy. He has nothing that may justify his action — contrary to Walter White — therefore watching him playing his role to me is like watching the whole Harry Potter saga from Voldemort’s point of view.
Nonetheless, we cheer for Frank as we have supported Walt and we want both of them to win and accomplish their purposes.
Maybe there’s something evil in everyone’s inner side as I personally get excited every time I see Frank succeeding or talking directly to his audience. To us, to me.LAKELAND | When deputies found Thomas McFadden on Thursday, he was hiding in a closet with a Tiffany-style lamp shade over his head as a disguise, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office.
LAKELAND | When deputies found Thomas McFadden on Thursday, he was hiding in a closet with a Tiffany-style lamp shade over his head as a disguise, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office.
Minutes earlier, he had fallen through ceiling tiles at the South Lakeland Outback Steakhouse and into a liquor closet before running away and breaking into a man's home.
Deputies said in reports the incidents were induced by a "two-week methamphetamine binge."
But McFadden, 35, now faces burglary of an occupied home, burglary of an unoccupied structure and two counts of criminal mischief, according to reports.
He remains at the Polk County Jail, records show.
McFadden, who owns McFadden Plumbing, first approached employees at the restaurant shortly after 2 p.m. Thursday and claimed he had been called to fix a leak.
The employees were unaware of any current plumbing problems, but said there had been a leak in the women's restroom a week ago, reports said. The employee asked McFadden to wait while she talked to a manager.
McFadden, according to deputies' reports, then went to the women's restroom and tried to climb into the ceiling. He eventually climbed the wall of a stall and later fell through the ceiling on the other side of the restroom wall, landing inside the restaurant's liquor closet.
His landing broke several bottles, reports said. He also caused damage to the restaurant's duct work, wiring, ceiling and several light fixtures.
Employees repeatedly told him to leave, but he didn't, reports said.
He told them he was with Stuart's Plumbing, but only after employees revealed that's who they contract with, reports said. They learned the company didn't employ him.
When employees questioned him, McFadden ran out of the restaurant, a report said. Deputies had been called and were on their way.
Outback's kitchen manager chased after him until McFadden jumped into a retention pond, the report said.
A few minutes later, Robert Gardner heard a loud banging and went to his living room to see what was causing the loud commotion, report said. There he found McFadden, wet, muddy and sitting on his couch.
Gardner asked the man why he was there and McFadden replied, "I'm looking for Eric McFadden," the report said. Gardner asked him to leave, but McFadden refused.
Suddenly McFadden stood up and asked for a Dr Pepper, but Gardner told him he didn't have any, reports said. That's when McFadden ran into a back bedroom, locked the door and refused to come out.
When deputies arrived and forced their way inside the bedroom, McFadden was found inside the closet with a Tiffany-style lamp shade on his head.
[ Jeremy Maready can be reached at [email protected] or 863-802- 7592. ]A 61-year-old man Jim Osche happily singing a Beach Boys song in front of a crowded restaurant in Pennsylvania was body slammed by a cop before he was carted off to jail Friday. The videos show that Osche was attempting to walk away when the cop grabbed him and slammed him down on the pavement in front of shocked witnesses eating and drinking at Shula’s Steakhouse in downtown Allentown while two security guards in dark suits stood passively watching. The guards apparently told Louisa Ranis Soos, one of the women who recorded the incident, that Osche had touched the officer. This is how she described the incident after posting her video to Facebook: Apparently an elderly person called the cops because he didn't like the noise of his singing.Different AngleErin Lewis of Albany fights the cold and the wind as she takes a walk over the lunch hour on Washington Ave. Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2014, in Albany, N.Y. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union) Erin Lewis of Albany fights the cold and the wind as she takes a walk over the lunch hour on Washington Ave. Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2014, in Albany, N.Y. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union) Photo: Paul Buckowski Photo: Paul Buckowski Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Keep that shovel handy 1 / 7 Back to Gallery
Albany
The groundhog was right.
The cold, snowy winter
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The Chassis
Expect the current control-arm suspensions, composite leaf springs, adjustable magnetic dampers, and Brembo brakes to carry on with appropriate revisions. Shifting weight rearward to improve acceleration and braking will necessitate new wheel and tire sizes. Expect Michelin to continue as the tire supplier.
The Cockpit
Since the engine no longer impedes the driver’s view ahead, a lower seating position is practical. A much shorter hood would also improve forward sightlines. This is the designer’s delicate balancing act, because rear visibility will be hampered by the new engine location.
We’d also love to see a larger touch screen in the center dash to take over additional secondary-control functions. This would be an ideal opportunity to switch from the common landscape format to a portrait-mode (taller, narrower) screen, à la Tesla Model S. As long as round knobs for basic entertainment and HVAC functions remain, we’ll be happy. The absence of a traditional gear-stirring stick means that new space will be available for a smartphone dock, storage bins, and the requisite cup holders.
We’re hoping that the lessons learned from today’s GT and Competition Sport seats help the Corvette team home in on one improved bucket suitable for both soft- and hard-core users.
The Body
Doors are the next logical candidate for conversion from sheet-molded fiberglass to lighter, stiffer, crash-resistant carbon-composite assemblies. Current Corvette supplier Plasan Carbon Composites manufactures carbon-fiber panels for both the Corvette and the Viper, and this firm has the interest and ability to supply additional parts using its advanced pressure-press processes.EDMONTON — “The time for talk is over. We just have to get results.”
It was a two-question post-game scrum for Connor McDavid Saturday night, and not because he cut it short. He simply didn’t require any more questions to say what you needed to hear from the captain of a listing ship.
“I don’t know what needs to be said,” he quipped. “We just have to be better.”
Let’s cut to the chase: Was last season a fluke?
Are the Edmonton Oilers just McDavid and a bunch of average Joes? Has general manager Peter Chiarelli’s gamble proven bad, when he went through the summer without signing a top-four NHL defenceman?
And, by the way: What the heck happened to Cam Talbot, who was pulled for the second time in four games, flushed by Ottawa in a 6-1 Senators win.
Edmonton Oilers on Sportsnet NOW Want to livestream all 82 Oilers games this season? See how you can stream this + over 300 regular season NHL games with Sportsnet NOW.
The Oilers are 1-3, and that’s not good. But the truly disconcerting part is the level of their play, which is nothing short of horrendous, particularly for a team that many expect to challenge for a Stanley Cup.
The Oilers got pounded at home by Winnipeg on Monday, had an off-day and then three solid days of video work and practice. They looked ahead to this game all week, and on Saturday they came out to show what they’d learned. The Senators scored the game’s first six goals.
How deep is this hole?
“If you’re defining the hole by standings and points, I wouldn’t consider it that deep,” said head coach Todd McLellan. “If you’re defining it based on our play and fundamentals, we are deep.
“I’m concerned, because I think we need to play the game faster. We need to have much more polish in our game than we’re seeing right now.”
Sometime during the first intermission, while the Oilers were licking their wounds in their dressing room at Rogers Place, the official scorer increased their shot total from seven to 11. As it turned out, that four-shot barrage was as dangerous as the Oilers would get all night.
The Oilers fell to 1-3 as the Senators completed their first ever three-game sweep of Western Canada. The 3-0-2 Sens haven’t lost in regulation, but the team that’s raising even more eyebrows across Canada this morning is the Oilers.
As in, “What the heck is happening in Edmonton?”
“You can come up with any excuse or cliché at this point,” Milan Lucic said, “but it comes down to our attitude and the emotion we bring to the game. This early on in the season, we’re ready to be tested with some adversity, but feeling sorry for ourselves and thinking we deserve better is not going to get us out of this.
“Goals aren’t coming easy for us right now, we are not clean and sharp in the offensive and neutral zones, we are allowing guys to walk into our zone and things like that.”
Leon Draisaitl missed the game with a concussion, and without his support McDavid went 2-for-11 in the faceoff circle. Ottawa, meanwhile, played without Erik Karlsson, still out after foot surgery, and didn’t miss a beat with three power-play goals.
And Talbot? Yikes.
In his last three starts Jacob Markstrom, Connor Hellebuyck and Mike Condon have outplayed him. His game is, like the team in front of him, at a level far below where he ended last season.
“We’re all in this together,” McLellan said. “We’re in it from the goal crease, in through the blue line, the forwards and the (coaching) staff. We all have a little piece to play in it. There have been times where we’ve needed a save, but there have also been times where he’s made some saves. We have to reward him at the other end and we have to play much more sound defensively than we are right now.”
And if you’re wondering, don’t even mention the term “playoff hangover” in this matchup. The Senators (who’ve won nine of their last 10 games in Edmonton) made it to double-overtime of Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Final before losing to Pittsburgh last spring, and they’ve started the season with real purpose.
Edmonton went into Round 2 by comparison, and is playing like a team that’s got rooms booked for the Stanley Cup Final next spring.
“There are ways out of it and there are ways to dig yourself even deeper,” Lucic surmised. “It’s just a matter of building the right mood and attitude, and coming to the rink and showing it on the ice. It’s easier said than done.
“I’m all for being positive, but you have to be realistic with yourself and your game and what you bring to the team. That’s what it comes down to right now.”Whether you say “Vires in Numeris” or “To the Moon” your future with virtual currencies will change because of the taxman. In Notice 2014-21, 2014 I.R.B. 938 (4/14/2014), the IRS issued its first set of guidance on how virtual currency transactions will be taxed. The issue of how to treat cryptocurrency, for tax and other legal purposes, is not a new or solely domestic concern. Both the European Central Bank and the Government Accountability Office have produced reports detailing the logistics of virtual currencies and their potential for abuse. Virtual currencies have populated the news recently, ranging from Josh Wise’s top 20 finish at Talladega Superspeedway in his crowd-funded No. 98 Dogecoin Ford, the Winklevoss (yes, the same Winklevoss’ from The Social Network and Facebook fame) Bitcoin Trust, to the catastrophic failure of Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox.
The IRS has decided it wants a piece of the action on virtual currencies. There are many virtual currencies including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Doegcoin, Darkcoin, Ripple, Digitalcoin, Worldcoin, Vertcoin, and Peercoin. It seems that all you have to do is think of a word, then add "coin" to it and voila you have a math-based cryptocurrency. The IRS adopted the strategy of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and classified Bitcoin, and its counterparts, as a virtual currency and not a “real currency.” Bitcoin does not reach the level of a “real currency” because it is not recognized as legal tender of a government. The IRS is aware that virtual currencies are used to pay for goods and services, held for investment, and are mined (often requiring expensive, dedicated machines) to ensure network security.
Notice 2014-21 treats virtual currencies as property for federal tax purposes and general tax principles for property transactions apply. Treating virtual currencies as property results in favorable tax treatment. Taxpayers will be able to claim either capital gains or losses on transactions if they hold virtual currencies as investment property similar to stocks and bonds. However, taxpayers will recognize ordinary gain or loss if they hold virtual currency as inventory mainly for sale to customers in a trade or business. Like other capital assets, taxpayers will need to know the basis in order to compute gain or loss. The IRS takes the position that the value of virtual currencies must be reported in U.S. dollars (USD) and the fair market value is determined on the date of payment or receipt. There are dozens of virtual currency exchanges each with some degree of variance. For Bitcoin (currently the most widely used virtual currency) the major exchanges include Bitstamp, BTCe and BTC China. The Notice does not specify which exchange taxpayers must use to determine value in USD and thus taxpayers may “shop” for the best price. While this might seem inconsequential to small investors, a 10% or greater variance between exchanges will provide definite benefits to institutional investors, such as the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust.
Virtual currencies can be acquired by purchasing them on exchanges or by “mining” them. For Bitcoin, miners download free software used to solve complex equations and verify the public ledger. When a person successfully solves the equation they are rewarded with 25 Bitcoins. Bitcoin users mine to verify that transactions are legitimate and to prevent hackers using botnets and malware from manipulating the Bitcoin algorithm. The Notice states that the fair market value of mined virtual currency as of the date of receipt is includible in gross income. The rationale for why mined virtual currency is immediately taxable is not explicitly stated but it is likely hinged on §83. Section 83 deals with an exchange of property for services rendered. The IRS takes the position the users who mine Bitcoin are effectively being compensated in property in return for performing services for Bitcoin. While this rationale may seem sound, there is potential controversy because there is no “employer” in the §83 sense. Section 83 applied whether the payee is an employee or independent contractor. A problem arises because when the Bitcoins are awarded because there is not a traditional payor. Whether you receive property in exchange for services from the corporation that employs you, or whether you receive the same for mowing your neighbor’s lawn, there is a payor. The problem with Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies, is that Bitcoin is an algorithm. There is no Bitcoin corporation, nor is there a single person or group of people controlling Bitcoin. Bitcoin is simply an idea. There is no one in charge of Bitcoin and when the maximum supply of 21 million Bitcoins have been issued there will be no “new” Bitcoins.
The Notice continues to use the §83 framework to detail virtual currency informational reporting. Bitcoin miners will be subject to self-employment taxes. Along this vein, virtual currency paid as remuneration for services constitutes wages for tax purposes and are subject to federal tax withholding, Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax, Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) tax, and must be reported on Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement. So, in instances where Bitcoins are paid for successful mining, someone is responsible for the federal tax, FICA, and FUTA withholding and for issuing W-2’s. But the who is unclear. Under the IRS’ rationale, Bitcoin itself is responsible since it is the closest thing to an employer. Despite this guidance, it is still unclear how tax withholding and information reporting will be implemented.
The IRS left open the possibility that virtual currency miners may be engaged in a trade or business. A person who in the course of a trade or business is required to give the payee a Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Income, for payments over the equivalent of $600 USD. A trade or business is not a defined term and is determined based on the facts and circumstances. But in order to be a trade or business, and not a for profit activity, the taxpayer must have a good faith intention of making a profit and the activity must be regular and continuous. If a taxpayer is considered to be in the trade or business then they could ordinary and necessary expenses. Ordinary and necessary expenses would likely include the cost of purchasing Bitcoin mining machines, the ratable portion of energy used to run the machine, renting expenses, repairs and maintenance, and compensation related expenses. Taxpayers also would be able to depreciate their mining equipment.
The IRS does not appear to apply this guidance retroactively. But taxpayers may be subject to penalties for not complying with this notice in future virtual currency transactions and mining operations. The major problem with the Notice lies with its enforceability. Despite popular claims, virtual currencies are not anonymous, they are pseudonymous. Virtual currency is held in a wallet through a complex unique address. Users may own virtual fortunes (many users easily have in excess of $10 million USD equivalent) and never use their virtual currency to purchase items or convert it to USD. While virtual currencies can be traced through the public ledger to individual users, there are many “masking” programs that will create tens of thousands of fake transactions to hide the identity of the true holder. The methods for collection and enforcement are light years behind the cryptocurrency pioneers and adopters. Every day new businesses are launched that either use virtual currencies or implement them in previously unknown ways. People who have built virtual fortunes in currencies like Bitcoin can easily mask their wealth. This would be similar to the Major League Baseball of 1998 trying to test the players of today for steroids with 1998 technology. The result would be futile, considering Major League Baseball has a hard enough time catching steroid users with modern technology.The VBites Group is the world’s leading manufacturer of plant-based, meat-free, vegan meat substitutes. Through our taste-obsessed research and development, we are focused on delivering a wide variety of delicious and healthy meat substitutes to satisfy the most discerning meat-reducer. In short, our mission is to deliver all of the taste and texture of meat, fish and dairy products, but without the harmful dietary, environmental, welfare and sustainability drawbacks of pastoral agriculture and fishing.
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At our roots, we are a vegan company. We care about the planet, our health and the welfare of animals, and that pervades everything we do, from the way we support small businesses to the choice of ingredients in our products.It’s said that stars are made this time of year. While that certainly may be true, it doesn’t necessarily mean the players bursting into the public eye and cementing their status as household names are coming out of nowhere. If anything, their crowning represents something of a delayed reaction to trends that have been brewing all year.
The beauty of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is things slow down from the blur of the night in and night out regular season schedule just enough for us to be able to soak up a larger share of the daily action and digest more information about what’s really taking place on the ice. The combination of that, and the naturally larger spotlight that comes with the national stage, is the perfect recipe for helping shine a light on more nuanced and under-appreciated stories.
One of my favourite examples of this from last year’s post-season was the emergence of Viktor Arvidsson, who used it as a launching pad for going from a fairly anonymous third-liner on the Nashville Predators to a name every hockey fan needs to be familiar with.
While his talent is undeniable, it may not have always been that obvious. It would have been hard to notice when he had the job description of a bottom-six player and getting 12 minutes of action a night.
What did stick out about Arvidsson even then, though, was his innate ability to always be in the middle of everything and create something whenever he got an opportunity. Even with the restricted playing time, he was an absolute force during Nashville’s run against the Ducks and Sharks. He had only one goal (and another assist) to his name in those 14 games, but his activity and impact on the game were noticeable as he looked like a puck-shooting, scoring chance-generating demon.
It was a trend that had carried over from the regular season, where an unfortunate combination of a suppressed shooting percentage and lack of exposure were really the only things keeping Arvidsson from completely blowing up.
Betting on a) his shot-generating ability being something he could reproduce, b) the puck luck eventually normalizing to something close to league average for forwards, and c) him receiving a larger workload, was a big reason why I ultimately felt comfortable featuring Arvidsson as a top breakout candidate prior to the season.
There’s a lot to glean from looking at individual shot rates because of what they represent. The reason why we should care about it is because, at the root of everything, there is the following relationship: shots lead to goals, and goals lead to wins.
This year’s list of highest-volume trigger men features a lot of the usual suspects, with a few intriguing young names who we should keep an eye on:
Player 5v5 Shot Attempts/Hour Timo Meier 22.83 Brendan Gallagher 21.54 Evander Kane 20.36 Alex Ovechkin 19.82 Jeff Skinner 19.37 Viktor Arvidsson 19.17 Vladimir Tarasenko 19.15 Patrice Bergeron 19.00 Frank Vatrano 18.82 Boone Jenner 18.62 Max Pacioretty 18.59 Patrick Sharp 18.55 Auston Matthews 18.35 Tyler Toffoli 18.07 Nazem Kadri 17.98 David Pastrnak 17.92 Craig Smith 17.80 Rick Nash 17.69 Tanner Pearson 17.65 Jeff Carter 17.61 Jack Eichel 17.53 Filip Forsberg 17.50 Artturi Lehkonen 17.34 Patric Hornqvist 17.31 Tyler Seguin 16.98 Ryan Hartman 16.66 Michael Frolik 16.48 Jakob Silfverberg 16.43 Andreas Athanasiou 16.36 Andre Burakovsky 16.24 Brandon Saad 16.15 Cam Atkinson 15.98 John Tavares 15.82 James Neal 15.77 Taylor Hall 15.76 Brad Marchand 15.73 Nathan MacKinnon 15.71
Timo Meier’s place atop this list is likely exaggerated by the fact he only appeared in 34 games (and just under 400 minutes) this season, but with that disclaimer out the way, there’s still a lot to be excited about with him. Especially since he’s been nothing but a high volume shot generator at every level he’s played (unfortunately the data available for the lower levels is archaic so we’ll have to work with shots on goal per game, which is good enough for our purposes):
Season League Shots/Game Team Rank 20142015 QMJHL 5.18 1st 20152016 QMJHL 5.88 1st 20162017 AHL 2.97 1st
Right now, he’s buried on the depth chart of a deep team that’s in win-now mode, but he also looks like he’s a prime candidate to take a leap forward next year depending on how the next few months shake out for the Sharks and whether they’re willing to get younger this summer or bring back this roster for one more spin in 2017-18. With Meier, it’s more a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’ he’ll break out in a big way.
Then there’s Frank Vatrano. Shooters shoot, and Vatrano seems to have gotten the memo.
In all honesty, Vatrano almost definitely would’ve been on that aforementioned pre-season list with Arvidsson if not for the unfortunately timed foot injury that sidelined him for the first two-plus months of the season. He scored an unfathomable 36 goals in 36 AHL games last season, putting north of five pucks on net per game.
In nearly exactly a full season’s worth of NHL games spanning the past two years, Vatrano has scored goals at five-on-five at the same rate as Logan Couture and Rick Nash, and put the puck on net more frequently than everyone but Evander Kane. In a time where it’s tough for players to routinely score goals and for teams to find players who can do so on the cheap, Vatrano seems like someone who could check those boxes.
However, the most intriguing of this bunch as soon as next season may very well be Washington’s Andre Burakovsky, who finds himself in a fascinating spot this summer.
Regardless of how the rest of the playoffs play out for the Capitals, at this point it looks like a given that TJ Oshie will walk and leave a void on their top line’s right wing. Assuming they don’t lure some other free agent with promises of the cushy gig, Burakovsky seems like the most logical next man up to fill that spot.
Where things really get interesting is that Burakovsky is up for a new contract this summer. If the Capitals do intend to promote him to a more prominent scoring role, they’d do well to take advantage of how the system favours teams over players by buying up some future years with a longer-term deal rather than going the bridge route in restricted free agency negotiations — especially since he looks like a prime candidate to explode offensively any moment now.
You wouldn’t know it just based on looking at his raw point totals from this past season, but he’s already proven himself to be a supremely effective player on a per-minute basis:
Player 5v5 Points/Hour Conor Sheary 3.05 Evgeni Malkin 2.92 Connor McDavid 2.91 Sidney Crosby 2.71 Thomas Vanek 2.63 Mark Scheifele 2.53 Jason Zucker 2.50 Scott Hartnell 2.46 Viktor Arvidsson 2.45 Jason Pominville 2.43 Brad Marchand 2.42 James van Riemsdyk 2.42 Nicklas Backstrom 2.41 Nikita Kucherov 2.39 Patrik Laine 2.38 TJ Oshie 2.38 Henrik Zetterberg 2.37 Nino Niederreiter 2.37 Ryan Getzlaf 2.34 ANDRE BURAKOVSKY 2.33 Brandon Saad 2.31 Nikolaj Ehlers 2.30 Patrick Kane 2.30 Johnny Gaudreau 2.28
Bringing things full circle with the Nashville Predators, there’s one other notable player who just narrowly missed the cut here, but warrants mentioning: Kevin Fiala. His shot generation skills in his first real NHL season found him sandwiched between some fairly elite company (rounding out the remainder of the league’s top 50 this season):
Player 5v5 Shot Attempts/Hour Wayne Simmonds 15.18 Vincent Trocheck 15.17 Sidney Crosby 15.09 KEVIN FIALA 15.09 Sebastian Aho 15.07 Jordan Eberle 15.05 Corey Perry 14.98 Conor Sheary 14.95 Blake Wheeler 14.93
The fact he flashed during the times that he was able to stick in the Predators lineup wasn’t much of a surprise given that Fiala is the type of scintillating talent prospect enthusiasts have been drooling over for years now. He’s always been ahead of the curve. In his draft year he had the highest points-per-game of any U-18 player in the top Swedish league since Peter Forsberg, and as a 19-year old last season he led his AHL team in scoring despite the brief cup of coffee he had in the NHL.
On the playoff stage against the Chicago Blackhawks, Fiala has shown signs he’s ready to take the next step towards not just being a household name, but even being considered among the league’s next bright young stars.
In Game 2 Fiala scored the wicked goal shown above, which featured a little bit of everything that makes him great. In Game 3 he was arguably the most dangerous player on the ice, putting seven pucks on net and playing more than he ever has in a single game at this level before ultimately winning the game in overtime with another dazzling goal.
Through this series the Blackhawks have had no answer for the combination of Fiala, James Neal and Calle Jarnkrok – the Predators have controlled 60.3 per cent of the shot attempts and 72.1 per cent of the scoring chances whenever the three of them have been on the ice together during five-on-five play. The addition of a second dominant forward line to complement Arvidsson, Forsberg and Johansen is something the Blackhawks haven’t been able to account for and match.
Yet as good as Fiala has looked, he still needs to refine some things. His physical tools are off the charts, but sometimes they can also be a bit of a curse. He gets to his spot so quickly and plays with such pace, that he occasionally takes himself out of prime scoring regions just because he forgets he has the luxury of slowing down and making a better decision with the puck.
Considering his age and relative lack of experience, there’s no reason to believe Fiala won’t eventually figure out that part of the game. And when he does – look out.Project Management Jobs
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As the first full 3-D Pokémon adventure, Pokémon Colosseum doesn't disappoint! See all your favorite Pokémon as they take their exploits onto the GameCube system. The land of Orre has been besieged by shady characters known as Team Snagem, who have developed a way to steal Pokémon from other Trainers. You must travel around the region and rescue stolen Pokémon from these nefarious gangsters. Not only that, but the Pokémon that have been stolen have been infected and have turned into Shadow Pokémon! So you'll need to cleanse them of their curse, as well.
For Pokémon veterans, many aspects of Pokémon Colosseum will be familiar. All of the locations you know from the handheld Pokémon games are in the game—Poké Marts, Pokémon Centers, and even Pokémon Day Cares are available to you. The battle system too is very familiar, including the chance to fight in double battles, where smart strategy is as valuable as brute force.
There are all kinds of ways to battle just for fun in Pokémon Colosseum, as well as many stadiums in which these encounters can take place. You can use Pokémon you caught in the story mode, as well as the Pokémon from your Pokémon Ruby Version and Pokémon Sapphire Version games. Work your way through over 100 Trainers on the Mt. Battle challenge—a gauntlet guaranteed to test even your best Pokémon team!Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently warned Israel that his Iran-backed terror group could attack targets producing mass Israeli casualties, including a huge ammonia storage tank in Haifa, and a nuclear reactor in Dimona. ( REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman )
Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently warned Israel that his Iran-backed terror group could attack targets producing mass Israeli casualties, including a huge ammonia storage tank in Haifa, and a nuclear reactor in Dimona.
Also last month, Tower Magazine reported that, since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, Iran has provided Hizballah with a vast supply of "game-changing," state-of-the art weapons, despite Israel's occasional airstrikes against weapons convoys.
In a future conflict, Hizballah has the capacity to fire 1,500 rockets into Israel each day, overwhelming Israel's missile defense systems. Should such a scenario materialize, Israel will be forced to respond with unprecedented firepower to defend its own civilians.
Hizballah's advanced weapons and the systems needed to launch them reportedly are embedded across a staggering 10,000 locations in the heart of more than 200 civilian towns and villages. The Israeli military has openly warned about this Hizballah war crime and the grave threats it poses to both sides, but that alarm generated almost no attention from the global media, the United Nations or other international institutions.
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Like the terror group Hamas, Hizballah knows that civilian deaths at the hands of Israel are a strategic asset, because they produce diplomatic pressure to limit Israel's military response. Hizballah reportedly went so far as offering reduced-price housing to Shiite families who allowed the terrorist group to store rocket launchers in their homes.
But if the global media, the UN, human rights organizations, and other international institutions predictably pounce on Israel after it causes civilian casualties, why are they doing nothing to prevent them? Hizballah's very presence in southern Lebanon is a flagrant violation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, which called for the area to be a zone "free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons" other than the Lebanese military and the U.N. Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
The resolution also required Hizballah to be disarmed, but the terror group today has an arsenal that rivals that of most armies. Hizballah possesses an estimated 140,000 missiles and rockets, and reportedly now can manufacture advanced weapons in underground factories that are impervious to aerial attack.
"Israel must stress again and again, before it happens, that these villages [storing Hizballah weapons] have become military posts, and are therefore legitimate targets," said Yoram Schweitzer, senior research fellow at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).
Meir Litvak, director of Tel Aviv University's Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, agrees, adding that global attention would "expose Hizballah's hypocrisy in its cynical use of civilians as... human shields."
But even a concerted campaign to showcase Hizballah's war preparation is unlikely to change things, said Eyal Zisser, a senior research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. Hizballah exploits the fact that "the international community is too busy and... weak to do something about it," Zisser said. All of "these talks and reports have no meaning. See what is happening in Syria."
Israel has targeted Hizballah-bound weapons caches in Syria twice during the past week. Syria responded last Friday by firing a missile carrying 200 kg. of explosives, which Israel successfully intercepted.
If Hizballah provokes a war, Israel can legitimately attack civilian areas storing Hizballah arms if the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) first attempts to warn the targeted civilians to leave those areas, Litvak said. But "it will certainly be very difficult and will look bad on TV."
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Although Sunni Arab states are generally united against the Shiite Iranian-Hizballah axis, Litvak, Zisser, and Schweitzer all agreed that Israel could hope for no more than silent support from them when the missiles fly.
Indeed, the "Sunni Arab street" is likely to be inflamed by the images of civilian death and destruction caused by Israel that international media will inevitably broadcast, further limiting support for Israel from Iran's Sunni state foes.
Rather perversely, the Lebanese government has embraced the very terrorist organization that could cause hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilian deaths by converting residential areas into war zones. "As long as Israel occupies land and covets the natural resources of Lebanon, and as long as the Lebanese military lacks the power to stand up to Israel, [Hizballah's] arms are essential, in that they complement the actions of the army and do not contradict them," President Michel Aoun told Egyptian television last month. Hizballah, he said, "has a complementary role to the Lebanese army."
Aoun's declaration means that Lebanon "takes full responsibility for all of Hizballah's actions, including against Israel, and for their consequences to Lebanon and its entire population, even though the Lebanese government has little ability to actually control the organization's decisions or policy," said INSS Senior Research Fellow Assaf Orion.
MK Naftali Bennett, a veteran of Israel's 2006 war with Hizballah, believes that Lebanon's official acceptance of Hizballah and its policy of embedding military assets inside residential areas removes any prior constraints on Israeli targeting of civilian areas. "The Lebanese institutions, its infrastructure, airport, power stations, traffic junctions, Lebanese Army bases—they should all be legitimate targets if a war breaks out," he said. "That's what we should already be saying to them and the world now."
In a future war, Hizballah is certain bombard Israeli civilian communities with missile barrages. Israel, in response, will have to target missile launchers and weapons caches surrounded by Lebanese civilians.
But it need not be so. Global attention on Hizballah's abuses by journalists and diplomats could lead to international pressure that ultimately reduces or even prevents civilian deaths.
Those truly concerned about civilians do not have a difficult case to make. Hizballah has shown a callous disregard for innocent life in Syria.
It helped the Syrian regime violently suppress largely peaceful protests that preceded the Syrian civil war in 2011. Last April, Hizballah and Syrian army troops reportedly killed civilians attempting to flee the Sunni-populated town of Madaya, near the Lebanese border. In 2008, its fighters seized control of several West Beirut neighborhoods and killed innocent civilians after the Lebanese government moved to shut down Hizballah's telecommunication network.
Hizballah terrorism has claimed civilian lives for decades, including a 1994 suicide bombing at Argentina's main Jewish center that killed 85 people. As the IDF notes, "Since 1982, hundreds of innocent civilians have lost their lives and thousands more have been injured thanks to Hizballah."
If world powers and the international media genuinely care about avoiding civilian casualties, they should be loudly condemning Hizballah's ongoing efforts—in flagrant violation of a UN resolution—to cause massive civilian death and destruction in Lebanon's next war with Israel.
Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East. Reprinted from InvestigativeProject.org
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See an error in this article? Send us a correctionLITTLE ROCK — The Republican candidate for attorney general said Friday she would use the office to fight against an overreaching federal government, while the Democratic and Libertarian candidates said the attorney general should focus on Arkansas, not Washington.
LITTLE ROCK — The Republican candidate for attorney general said Friday she would use the office to fight against an overreaching federal government, while the Democratic and Libertarian candidates said the attorney general should focus on Arkansas, not Washington.
The candidates, all lawyers, met for a debate held at the annual convention of the Arkansas Press Association in Hot Springs and streamed live online.
Republican candidate Leslie Rutledge said she would use her experience as counsel to former Gov. Mike Huckabee and the Republican National Committee "to combat this overreaching federal government, so that way our farmers and our businesses across the state can get the federal government’s foot off their throat so we can have more jobs in Arkansas, more opportunities for Arkansans."
Asked to cite examples, Rutledge said she would fight back against the federal Affordable Care Act and efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency to garnish wages without a court order.
State Rep. Nate Steel, D-Nashville, said he is "as frustrated with a lot of the actions of the federal government as anybody" but said his focus would be on Arkansas.
"I don’t think that the solution to an overreaching federal government is an overreaching attorney general," he said. "We send six members of Congress to D.C. every year to worry about federal politics. I don’t think we need to turn the attorney general’s office into a seventh."
Steel said the attorney general has plenty of problems in the state to handle, including the crime rate, scams against seniors and child predators.
Libertarian candidate Aaron Scott Cash said he agreed with Steel.
"The federal government may be overreaching, but there are other, more important issues that we could focus on here at home, and I don’t think we should be wasting resources in federal court," Cash said.
Steel said that if elected he will propose a package of legislation including measures to address prison overcrowding.
"I think we need to start from a law enforcement perspective to have a comprehensive criminal justice reform act that expands drug courts, focuses on alternative sentencing and creates more truth in sentencing for violent crimes and sexual predators," he said.
Rutledge said she has not ruled out proposing legislation but has no legislative agenda planned.
"I believe the role of the attorney general is to help the legislators, so
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does it mean? Hair does a lot of symbolic work. In science fiction movies, alien creatures are the hairless ones. Hairlessness marks the post-human. Yet it is also marks the divide between human and animal. The hairy ones are closer to nature, to animality. Body hair also traditionally marked manliness. Femininity was located in the hair on a woman's head, not on her body. For men, it was the reverse: Real men had chest-hair. No wonder a lot of girls find the first appearance of pubic hair unnerving, ugly, even nauseating. A lot of women who wax say they "hate" that hair.
In the sweep of Western art history of the nude, female pubic hair could not be shown. Bosch, Titian and Michelangeo each painted hairless vaginas. Even Manet, when he painted the famous prostitute, Olympia, in 1863, couldn't bring himself to show it. Pubic hair marked a woman's sexual desire, her erotic passion: To show it was beyond all bounds of modesty. When Francisco de Goya painted La Maja Desnuda around 1800 for the Spanish prime minister, it was a breakthrough: an ordinary naked woman -- neither goddess nor allegory -- with pubic hair fully exposed. Goya's model is looking at you looking at her. The prime minister kept it hidden in a private room, shown only to those he trusted. Goya was later called before the Spanish Inquisition for this work.
Pubic hair signals our capacity to make life, the way we know we are no longer girls and boys. It is an evolutionary relic, its function to conduct plumes of sex pheromones into the atmosphere that signal a female's readiness to reproduce and critical information about male and female genetic qualities. Ovulating strippers get twice the tips as those who are having their periods. Life-making and mate selection are a smelling affair. Shearing genital hair cleans up the zone. It displays free-standing sex organs, separated from reproductive sense, staging a physical encounter between erect boys and open girls in a magical garden where one can live forever.
American women are, in fact, striking a pornographic pose, one that first appeared in the hard-core porn films that have increasingly shaped the sexual imagination of legions of young men. The eye of the hard-core porn camera hovers over female body parts; it's a visual excess of physical acts with a minimum of sentiment. It is not a love story. Porn displays pubeless bodies to emphasize the organs -- the female genital slit (and the erect male shaft) -- and thereby defines the standard of erotic desirability. As nether hair disappeared on screen guys increasingly wanted sex with girls who looked like the porn stars they'd fantasized about. They asked and women struck the pose.
A porn body is not a body that loves, a body to which love adheres. It is a uniform for male fantasy. That fantasy has a history. The timing of bushless porn tells a shriveling tale. Pubic hair appeared for the first time in Penthouse in 1970. In 1974, Hustler published the first "pink shots" of labial flesh. But the porn starlets only began shaving it off in the 1980's. Until then, they cavorted on screen with full bushes. You can see the same -- but slower -- progression with the more demur Playboy centerfolds.
Two things happened just before the pubic hair disappeared. The timing is not arbitrary. I will reverse the sequence. In the 1970's the female teen body became an erotic fetish. In 1974 Larry Flynt began publishing Barely Legal, with frontal shots of eighteen year-old girls. In 1976, an underage Jodie Foster played a 12-year-old prostitute in Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver; in 1978, Brooke Shields did the same in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby. Both were underage when they played these parts.
It's what happened before this that is significant: The female teen fetish went mainstream after feminism rose to challenge male predominance. It was in 1972 that the Equal Rights Amendment, requiring that females and males be treated equally by law, passed out of Congress. Feminists were hairy. Female body hair was a feminist badge -- in arm pits, on legs, and particularly at the big V. It was the hairy girls, I recall, who were most likely to demand their pleasures. The feminist was not feminine. Just like Goya's nude, she looked; she didn't just want to be looked at. This eroticization of young girls recaptured the pure feminine, the subordinate, hairless virginal female against whom a man was clearly a man.
Feminism did something else as well: It sought to eliminate the sexual double standard, the public, pleasure-seeking man versus the private, love-seeking woman. It was now OK for a young woman to be heat-seeking flesh, looking for that spasmic flash. The paradox is that the young women who sought that kind of sex were in the vanguard of pubelessness. The Brazilian wax is part of that new erotic repertoire, a perpetual reminder that you are always ready for action. "I'm so aware of down there now," Carrie says in the episode of Sex and the City that brought it to the attention of tens of millions of young women in 2000. "I feel like I'm nothing but walking sex." In the world of the hook-up where partners exchange few words before jumping into bed, pubelessness functions as a signal of sexual readiness, not unlike lip gloss used to signal a girls' availability for kissing.
The waxed female body is a pure, ready sexual body, its sex a public fact. If you look back in our history you can see that it was not long after women showed their legs and their arm pits -- with shorter skirts, nylons and the sleeveless dress -- that these hair-coverings were shorn away. The same is now happening with the vagina. Even women who are about to deliver babies make emergency calls to their aestheticians to get waxes. "Everybody is going to be in that room," one explained to her waxer, "and I don't want to have any hair." Private space is becoming public space.
Because women could now forthrightly demand their pleasures -- if he got his, she should get hers -- they expected their sexual partners to grant them reciprocal oral favors. But there was a problem: American men tend to see the vagina as a smelly orifice. Recent surveys reveal that guys are unlikely to orally pleasure young women outside of a relationship. Some young men I talk to explain that they want their sexual partners to be shorn so they don't get smells and urine traces on their faces, so that oral contact is more direct. In a society that has banished all human odors through washing, deodorants and cleansers, tooth pastes and mouth washes, it is no wonder that the smell of a woman has also been erased as a baseline experience. Hairlessness, like the vaginal mint, advertises that a vagina has been purified for male taste.
Reading a woman's pubic hair is a tricky business. I think the disappearance of female pubic hair marks both a male disdain for a womanly body -- its look, its smell, its very nature, but also a woman's desire to look "clean," the implication being that their natural bodies are "dirty." Certainly microbes adhere to hair, but it is not really about hygiene. There's soap and water, after all. It's about becoming an instrument of pure pleasure, an active forgetting that one's body is built to birth and to love. There is a deep historical irony here: Young women are pursuing sexual pleasures that were made possible by a feminism that also asserted the beauty of the natural feminine body. For these women, their sex is no longer dirty, but their bodies are.
I have been surveying student erotics for several years now and one thing is clear: Young women who don't love and don't feel loved tend not to orgasm when they have sex. Hairlessness, which does not contribute to female pleasure, is entwined with the rise of the pornographic, with love's erosion as a believable state of grace, with women's uncomfortable capitulation to sex as a portal to fuller affection. It is a mark of female sexual availability to men on masculine terms, a regular rite of submission. It is conditioned by the fact that just as women are achieving academic predominance and breaking into field after field as the economic order increasingly seeks the verbal, social and emotional skills they have to offer, the terms of trade are turning against them in the bedroom. Educated women must increasingly submit to the sexual demands of a shrinking pool of suitable men for whom the bedroom is one of the last domains outside of a football stadium where men can be men. And reciprocally for women, it is increasingly only their bodies that set them apart. Bodily hair masculinizes them, so hairlessness becomes a way to hold on to the feminine. Clean is acceptable code for pretty, like the smooth cheeks on their faces. Clean is a form of historical forgetting.
That women are going hairless is more than another grooming practice. It means something. The question is what and to whom? Powerful vectors are at work in our underpants; unconsciously channeling our libido. The disappearance of pubic hair says something about the way we construct our humanness, how we compose our bodies and souls. The disappearing bush is a burning issue.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption David Cameron: "The fact is the two governments don't agree on Litvinenko"
David Cameron has rejected a call by Russia to restore links with its security services, which were frozen after the Alexander Litvinenko murder.
Relations between the UK and Russia have been strained since the Russian dissident's death in London in 2006.
The PM said in Moscow the UK would continue to challenge Russia's refusal to extradite the prime suspect.
But he said his one-day trip - the first talks there by a UK leader since 2005 - had improved trade links.
During a news conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, he said they had agreed to increase co-operation in areas including commerce, technology and international issues.
Mr Medvedev called for the two countries to "reconstitute the contacts not only between the law enforcement agencies but between the special services".
However, Mr Cameron responded: "We haven't changed the arrangements between our security services, which were frozen after the Litvinenko issue.
"That is not being discussed as something that is going to change."
'Difficult issues'
The prime minister later met Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, who had not held substantive discussions with a British minister or official for more than four years as a result of the diplomatic row over the Litvinenko case.
Mr Putin said trade between the nations was "developing very successfully".
Analysis Despite all the pomp and ceremony, all that has really changed is that the British and Russian prime ministers are talking again. On the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the two sides have agreed to disagree. On trade, Britain and Russia will continue to pursue what was already a vigorous business relationship. Despite all the difficulties of the last few years British companies have remained among the biggest investors in Russia. On counter-terrorism, David Cameron maintained the British position that there would be no co-operation with the FSB (one of the successors of the KGB) because of the unresolved Litvinenko poisoning. But having a proper relationship with Vladimir Putin after four years of silence is an important improvement for the British. Because many people believe he is still the most powerful man in Russia. Litvinenko murder suspect speaks out
Mr Cameron had earlier admitted in a speech at Moscow State University that there remained "difficult issues that hamper mutual trust and co-operation" between the UK and Russia.
"We still disagree with you over the Litvinenko case. Our approach is simple and principled - when a crime is committed, that is a matter for the courts," he said.
The prime minister said victims and their families had a "right to justice".
"We can't pretend these differences don't exist. We need to keep working for an honest and open dialogue to address them candidly," he said.
"But, at the same time, we have a responsibility to recognise the many ways in which we do need each other, to end the old culture of tit for tat and find ways for us to work together to advance our mutual interests."
Mr Cameron spoke in Russian when he told his audience of students: "We are stronger together."
Asked by the BBC's James Landale whether the Litvinenko issue had been "parked" in the interests of trade, Mr Cameron said: "I'm not downplaying it in any way. It remains an issue between Britain and Russia.
"But I don't think that means we freeze the entire relationship."
Mr Medvedev said the legal traditions of different countries should be respected and that under the Russian constitution it was impossible for a Russian citizen to be extradited to a foreign country to stand trial.
"This will never happen whatever the circumstances," he said.
'Not complete thaw'
BP chairman Bob Dudley is among 24 senior executives from the UK in the travelling party. The visit is expected to result in £215m of deals, creating about 500 jobs in the UK.
Mr Putin, who could take over at the Kremlin again after elections next year, told Mr Cameron: "We are very glad to see you and this is the first visit by the PM of Great Britain in the past five years.
"Trade and economic development over the past years has been developing very successfully."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Alexander Litvinenko's widow, Marina, tells BBC World Service that she is still waiting for justice
BBC Moscow correspondent Daniel Sandford said although the trip was a sign of a defrosting of relations, "it is not a complete thaw".
Mr Cameron later met six human rights activists including Oleg Orlov - a campaigner recently acquitted in a slander case against Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov - and Dmitry Muratov, editor of Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper for which Anna Politkovskaya reported before her murder in 2006.
Telling them he had raised the Litvinenko case, he added: "Having good relations doesn't mean sweeping problems under the carpet, it means talking about them."
Mr Litvinenko's widow, Marina, told the BBC's World Today programme she wanted to see those responsible for her husband's death brought to justice because until then "we will not have a normal progress of the relationship between these countries".
Mr Litvinenko, an outspoken Kremlin critic and former security official who had moved to the UK, was fatally poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in 2006. His death led to both the UK and Russia expelling diplomats.
Moscow has refused a long-standing request from the UK to extradite the prime suspect in the case, Andrei Lugovoi. He is a former KGB officer who is now a member of the Russian parliament and has always denied involvement.
Ahead of the visit, in a letter to the Sunday Times, the prime minister was urged by four former foreign secretaries to challenge President Medvedev over a perceived failure to protect business against corruption and to address the Litvinenko issue.DIGG THIS
One of my favorite Southern things is what we call a Three-B night: bullets, beer and barbecue.
Of course, the beer and the barbecue follow the shooting of the bullets at the gun range. Alcohol and gunpowder are a dangerous mix. But Three-B is a social activity I highly recommend. Good friends, a little target shooting and then a repast of spicy barbecue and cold beer is a fine, fine way to spend an evening.
God, I love the South so much I can’t stand it.
I’ve been thinking that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get one of those recreational vehicles and then just travel from one bluegrass festival to the next. Traveling around the South is like a never-ending feast. It’s jammed full of beauty and interesting folks. And down South there’s always a gun range not too far away — or, for that matter, a gun.
I’ve no doubt that God created the South for the sole purpose of the good life, and it’s too bad that the devil came along and made us all have to waste so much time working. You do remember, I hope, that when that foolish Eve listened to the snake and the even more foolish Adam listened to Eve, the punishment was that they would have to go to work. And us, too.
In the morning, when you’re hauling yourself out of bed to go to work, just remember that it is Eve’s fault. She had paradise, but, being the mother of all women, she was, of course, not quite satisfied. It’s one of those traits that is both annoying and charming at the same time.
I knew a fellow once whose wife was like that. He would buy a house and live there for no more than two years before his wife would be on him to move. Fortunately, he ran some waterfront bars and a bail-bond business and made a good bit of money. But I swear, I think the poor man must have bought six houses and moved seven times in the same city. A divorce would have been cheaper.
At any rate, true Southerners resist the curse of work as much as they can. I had some kin who just quit whatever job they had when the hunting season opened. I guess they figured they could always find another job, but a day missed hunting is a day missed forever.
A friend of mine in Louisiana who works on the offshore oil rigs said that the foreman, a fellow from Ohio, came up one morning and said:
"You guys could be earning all the overtime you want. We’ll let you work 60 or 70 hours. How come you guys only work 32 hours a week?"
"Cause," my friend replied, "we can’t get by on 24."
If you’ve ever been to Cajun Country in Louisiana, you’ll understand. Those are people who know how to enjoy life. They are famous eaters.
One of my favorite lines of history is the remark of a Virginia lady about the 10th Louisiana Regiment, which fought for Marse Robert in the War of Northern Aggression.
"The 10th Louisiana," she said, "eats everything in its path."
A more contemporary story some folks say is true is one in which two Cajuns, Mr. Hebert (pronounced "Abear") and Mr. Quibideaux, spied a flying saucer land in a swamp. The ramp came down, and a little green man walked out.
"What’s that?" inquired Hebert.
"I don’t know," said Quibideaux, "but get the rice started."
Well, actually that isn’t a true story, but it is a good example of Cajun humor.
I have to remind myself that folks up North have some fantastical ideas about the South due to those Hollywood writers who snort coke and love stereotypes. We are really the most normal people on earth, and as Hodding Carter once said, we will be polite right up to the point we get mad enough to kill you.
Note: Charley Reese is on medical leave. Until he returns, we will be running "The Best of Charley Reese."
Charley Reese [send him mail] has been a journalist for 49 years.
The Best of Charley ReeseMehdi Hasan, the host of Al Jazeera’s UpFront, hosted a conversation the other day about whether religion is to blame for violence.
Fascinating topic. Too bad the conversations were just full of facepalms.
Hasan interviewed author Karen Armstrong, who downplayed religion’s role in a number of terrorist attacks, as if it’s not the prime factor in them. She also compared religious extremists to secular extremists (whatever that means).
There was also a joint interview with writer/physicist Lawrence Krauss and Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein. Krauss, whom I generally agree with, spent much of the time defending himself for daring to criticize religion (even though it might alienate potential allies) and being very blunt about how belief in any supernatural deity is silly. Epstein shied away from criticizing religion at all, focusing on how we should all just get along… that may be easy to do when you’re working in interfaith circles, but it ignores the very real and very damaging effects religious beliefs have on the world.
What upset me the most was Epstein’s comments about how, the man who murdered three Muslims in Chapel Hill, North Carolina last year, was an anti-theist, as if being overly critical of religion led to his horrific crime. As reporters have noted, there was far more going on in that situation than mere religious differences. And it’s worth pointing out that just about every major atheist group immediately condemned his actions. It was an anomaly that didn’t speak to anything but Hicks’ own sanity.
To put a finer point on it, Richard Dawkins would never advocate violence in the name of atheism. But it’s ridiculously easy to find examples of religious leaders advocating or celebrating violence in the name of their faith.
So back to the question at hand: Is religion to blame for violence? Not by itself, no — violence would exist even if people didn’t believe in God. But when you believe God is sending you a message that cannot be questioned, and you think your eternal salvation depends on how pious you are, and you live in a world where people either don’t respect your God or actively speak out against your beliefs, don’t be surprised when True Believers freak out. We’re all better off in a world where dogmatic thinking of any kind is regularly challenged. And religion is arguably the worst example of a belief that is immune to questioning.
(Thanks to Brian for the link)I read Willis Eschenbach’s post last week on Trust and Mistrust where he posed several questions and challenged scientists to respond to the same questions. So, below is my take on these questions. There are a couple points I need to make up front. First, I’m speaking for myself only, not as a representative of the National Snow and Ice Data Center or the University of Colorado. Second, I primarily study sea ice; climate science is a big field and I’m hardly a specialist in the technical details of many climate processes. However, I will provide, as best I can, the current thinking of most scientists working in the various aspects of climate science. Except where explicitly called for, I try to provide only scientific evidence and not my beliefs or personal opinions.
Also, I use the term “climate forcing” throughout. I’m sure this is familiar to most readers, but for clarity: a climate forcing is essentially anything that changes the earth’s global radiation budget (the net amount of radiative energy coming into the earth) and thus “forces” the earth’s climate to change.
Preface Question 1: Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?
Yes. However, I’m no tree-hugger. I don’t believe the environment should be preserved at all costs. I love my creature comforts and I don’t think we can or should ask people to significantly “sacrifice” for the environment. My feeling is that the environment has value and this value needs to be considered in economic and political decisions. In other words, the cost of cutting down a tree in a forest isn’t just the labor and equipment but also the intrinsic value of the tree to provide, among other things: (1) shade/scenery/inspiration for someone talking a walk in the woods, (2) a habitat for creatures living in the forest, (3) a sink for CO2, etc. And I don’t doubt at all that Willis is an environmentalist. However, whether one is an environmentalist or not doesn’t make the scientific evidence more or less valid.
Preface Question 2: What single word would you choose to describe your position on climate science?
Skeptic. This may surprise many people. But any good scientist is a skeptic. We always need to challenge accepted wisdom, we need to continually ask “does this make sense?, does it hold up?, is there another explanation?, is there a better explanation?” – not just of the work of other scientists, but also of our own work. However, a good skeptic also recognizes when there is enough evidence to place confidence in a finding. Almost all new theories have initially been looked upon skeptically by scientists of the time before being accepted – gravity, evolution, plate tectonics, relativity, quantum mechanics, etc.
Question 1. Does the earth have a preferred temperature, which is actively maintained by the climate system?
Willis says that he “believes the answer is yes”. In science “belief” doesn’t have much standing beyond initial hypotheses. Scientists need to look for evidence to support or refute any such initial beliefs. So, does the earth have a preferred temperature? Well, there are certainly some self-regulating mechanisms that can keep temperatures reasonably stable at least over a certain range of climate forcings. However, this question doesn’t seem particularly relevant to the issue of climate change and anthropogenic global warming. The relevant question is: can the earth’s temperature change over a range that could significantly impact modern human society? The evidence shows that the answer to this is yes. Over the course of its history the earth has experienced climatic regimes from the “snowball earth” to a climate where ferns grew near the North Pole. Both of those situations occurred tens or hundreds of millions of years ago; but more recently, the earth has experienced several ice age cycles, and just ~12,000 years ago, the Younger Dryas event led to significant cooling at least in parts of the Northern Hemisphere. So while the earth’s climate may prefer to remain at a certain stable state, it is clear that the earth has responded significantly to changes in climate forcings in the past.
Question 2: Regarding human effects on climate, what is the null hypothesis?
I will agree with Willis here – at one level, the null hypothesis is that any climate changes are natural and without human influence. This isn’t controversial in the climate science community; I think every scientist would agree with this. However, this null hypothesis is fairly narrow in scope. I think there is actually a more fundamental null hypothesis, which I’ll call null hypothesis 2 (NH2): are the factors that controlled earth’s climate in the past the same factors that control it today and will continue to do so into the future? In other words are the processes that have affected climate (i.e., the forcings – the sun, volcanic eruptions, greenhouse gases, etc.) in the past affecting climate today and will they continue to do so in the future? A basic premise of any science with an historical aspect (e.g., geology, evolution, etc.) is that the past is the key to the future.
Question 3: What observations tend to support or reject the null hypothesis?
Let me first address NH2. We have evidence that in the past the sun affected climate. And as expected we see the current climate respond to changes in solar energy. In the past we have evidence that volcanoes affected climate. And as expected we see the climate respond to volcanic eruptions (e.g., Mt. Pinatubo). And in the past we’ve seen climate change with greenhouse gases (GHGs). And as expected we are seeing indications that the climate is being affected by changing concentrations of GHGs, primarily CO2. In fact of the major climate drivers, the one changing most substantially over recent years is the greenhouse gas concentration. So what are the indications that climate is changing in response to forcing today as it has in the past? Here are a few:
1. Increasing concentrations of CO2 and other GHGs in the atmosphere
2. Rising temperatures at and near the surface
3. Cooling temperatures in the stratosphere (An expected effect of CO2-warming, but not other forcings)
4. Rising sea levels
5. Loss of Arctic sea ice, particularly multiyear ice
6. Loss of mass from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
7. Recession of most mountain glaciers around the globe
8. Poleward expansion of plant and animal species
9. Ocean acidification (a result of some of the added CO2 being absorbed by the ocean)
It is possible that latter 8 points are completely unrelated to point 1, but I think one would be hard-pressed to say that the above argues against NH2.
Of course none of the above says anything about human influence, so let’s now move on to Willis’ null hypothesis, call it null hypothesis 1 (NH1). Willis notes that modern temperatures are within historical bounds before any possible human influence and therefore claims there is no “fingerprint” of human effects on climate. This seems to be a reasonable conclusion at first glance. However, because of NH2, one can’t just naively look at temperature ranges. We need to think about the changes in temperatures in light of changes in forcings because NH2 tells us we should expect the climate to respond in a similar way to forcings as it has in the past. So we need to look at what forcings are causing the temperature changes and then determine whether if humans are responsible for any of those forcings. We’re seeing increasing concentrations of CO2 and other GHGs in the atmosphere. We know that humans are causing an increase in atmospheric GHGs through the burning of fossil fuels and other practices (e.g., deforestation) – see Question 6 below for more detail. NH2 tells us that we should expect warming and indeed we do, though there is a lot of short-term variation in climate that can make it difficult to see the long-term trends.
So we’re left with two possibilities:
1. NH2 is no longer valid. The processes that have governed the earth’s climate throughout its history have suddenly starting working in a very different way than in the past.
Or
2. NH1 is no longer valid. Humans are indeed having an effect on climate.
Both of these things may seem difficult to believe. The question I would ask is: which is more unbelievable?
Question 4: Is the globe warming?
Willis calls this a trick question and makes the point that the question is meaningless with a time scale. He is correct of course that time scale is important. For NH2, the timescale is one in which the effects of changing forcings can been seen in the climate signals (i.e., where the “signal” of the forcings stands out against the short-term climate variations). For NH1, the relevant period is when humans began to possibly have a noticeable impact on climate. Basically we’re looking for an overall warming trend over an interval and at time-scales that one would expect to see the influence of anthropogenic GHGs.
Question 5: Are humans responsible for global warming?
Willis and I agree – the evidence indicates that the answer is yes.
Question 6: How are humans affecting the climate?
Willis mentions two things: land use and black carbon. These are indeed two ways humans are affecting climate. He mentions that our understanding of these two forcings is low. This is true. In fact the uncertainties are of the same order of as the possible effects, which make it quite difficult to tell what the ultimate impact on global climate these will have. However, Willis fails to directly mention the one forcing that we actually have good knowledge about and for which the uncertainties are much smaller (relative to the magnitude of the forcing): greenhouse gases (GHGs). This is because GHGs are, along with the sun and volcanoes, a primary component that regulates the earth’s climate on a global scale. It might be worth reviewing a few things:
1. Greenhouse gases warm the planet. This comes out of pretty basic radiative properties of the gases and has been known for well over 100 years.
2. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. This is has been also been known for well over 100 years. There are other greenhouse gases, e.g., methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, but carbon dioxide is the most widespread and longest-lived in the atmosphere so it is more relevant for long-term climate change.
3. The concentration of CO2 is closely linked with temperature – CO2 and temperature rise or fall largely in concert with each other. This has been observed in ice cores from around the world with some records dating back over 800,000 years. Sometimes the CO2 rise lags the temperature rise, as seems to be the case in some of ice ages, but this simply means that CO2 didn’t initiate the rise (it is clear that solar forcing did) and was a feedback. But regardless, without CO2 you don’t get swings between ice ages and interglacial periods. To paraphrase Richard Alley, a colleague at Penn State: “the climate history of the earth makes no sense unless you consider CO2”.
4. The amount of carbon dioxide (and other GHGs) has been increasing. This has been directly observed for over 50 years now. There is essentially no doubt as to the accuracy of these measurements.
5. The increase in CO2 is due to human emissions. There are two ways we know this. First, we know this simply through accounting – we can estimate how much CO2 is being emitted by our cars, coal plants, etc. and see if matches the observed increase in the atmosphere; indeed it does (after accounting for uptake from the oceans and biomass). Second, the carbon emitted by humans has a distinct chemical signature from natural carbon and we see that it is carbon with that human signature that is increasing and not the natural carbon.
6. Given the above points and NH2, one expects the observed temperature rise is largely due to CO2 and that increasing CO2 concentrations will cause temperatures to continue to rise over the long-term. This was first discussed well over 50 years ago.
If you’re interested in more details, I would recommend the CO2 page here: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm, which is a supplement to Spencer Weart’s book, “The Discovery of Global Warming”.
Of course, there are other forcings so we don’t expect an exact match between temperatures and GHGs with a completely steady temperature increase. Periods of relatively cooler temperatures, more sea ice, etc. are still part of the natural variations of the climate system that continue to occur. Such periods may last for months or years. The anthropogenic GHG forcing is in addition to the natural forcings, it doesn’t supersede them. And of course, as with any scientific endeavor, there are uncertainties. We can’t give the precise amount warming one gets from a given amount of CO2 (and other GHGs) with 100% certainty; we make the best estimate we can based on the evidence we have. And that tells us that while there are uncertainties on the effect of GHGs, it is very unlikely the effect is negligible and the global effects are much larger than those of land use changes and soot.
Question 7: How much of the post-1980 temperature change is due to humans?
Here Willis says we get into murky waters and that there is little scientific agreement. And indeed this is true when discussing the factors he’s chosen to focus on: land use and soot. This is because, as mentioned above, the magnitudes of these forcings are small and the uncertainties relatively large. But there is broad scientific agreement that human-emitted CO2 has significantly contributed to the temperature change.
Question 8: Does the evidence from the climate models show that humans are responsible for changes in the climate?
Willis answers by claiming that climate models don’t provide evidence and that evidence is observable and measurable data about the real world. To me evidence is any type of information that helps one draw conclusions about a given question. In legal trials, it is not only hard physical evidence that is admitted, but information such as the state of mind of the defendant, motive, memories of eyewitnesses, etc. Such “evidence” may not have the same veracity as hard physical evidence, such as DNA, but nonetheless it can be useful.
Regardless, let me first say that I’m a data person, so I’ve always been a bit skeptical of models myself. We certainly can’t trust them to provide information with complete confidence. It may surprise some people, but most modelers recognize this. However, note that in my response to question 6 above, I never mention models in discussing the “evidence” for the influence of human-emitted CO2 on climate. So avoiding semantic issues, let me say that climate models are useful (though far from perfect) tools to help us understand the evidence for human and other influence on climate. And as imperfect as they may, they are the best tool we have to predict the future.
Question 9: Are the models capable of projecting climate changes for 100 years?
Based on Willis’ answer to Question 1, I’m surprised at his answer here. If the earth has a preferred temperature, which is actively maintained by the climate system, then it should be quite easy to project climate 100 years into the future. In Question 1, Willis proposed the type of well-behaved system that is well-suited for modeling.
However, Willis claims that such a projection is not possible because climate must be more complex than weather. How can a more complex situation be modeled more easily and accurately than a simpler situation? Let me answer that with a couple more questions:
1. You are given the opportunity to bet on a coin flip. Heads you win a million dollars. Tails you die. You are assured that it is a completely fair and unbiased coin. Would you take the bet? I certainly wouldn’t, as much as it’d be nice to have a million dollars.
2. You are given the opportunity to bet on 10000 coin flips. If heads comes up between 4000 and 6000 times, you win a million dollars. If heads comes up less than 4000 or more than 6000 times, you die. Again, you are assured that the coin is completely fair and unbiased. Would you take this bet? I think I would.
But wait a minute? How is this possible? A single coin flip is far simpler than 10000 coin flips. The answer of course is that what is complex and very uncertain on the small scale can actually be predictable within fairly narrow uncertainty bounds at larger scales. To try to predict the outcome of a single coin flip beyond 50% uncertainty, you would need to model: the initial force of the flip, the precise air conditions (density, etc.), along with a host of other things far too complex to do reasonably because, like the weather, there are many factors and their interactions are too complex. However, none of this information is really needed for the 10000 toss case because the influence of these factors tend to cancel each other out over the 10000 tosses and you’re left with a probabilistic question that is relatively easy to model. In truth, many physical systems are nearly impossible to model on small-scales, but become predictable to acceptable levels at larger scales.
Now of course, weather and climate are different than tossing a coin. Whereas coin flips are governed largely by statistical laws, weather and climate are mostly governed by physical laws. And climate models, as I mentioned above, are far from perfect. The relevant question is whether climate can be predicted at a high enough confidence level to be useful. As mentioned in NH2, we find that climate has largely varied predictably in response
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The online Microsoft Store isn’t letting people pre-order the new device. Instead it asks that they leave their email address so they can be notified when it’s next available.
Fortunately for Microsoft, this means that there’s healthy demand for the machines. It’s a positive sign that the Surface Book, which marks Microsoft’s entry into the laptop market, has clearly piqued users’ interest. It’s more validation of Microsoft’s strategy of building its own PCs after it avoided the market for much of the company’s history.
The Surface Book was announced last week during a Microsoft press event in New York. It offers a high-resolution touchscreen and a keyboard that’s joined to the screen with a special hinge. That hinge lets people disconnect the upper part of the laptop and use it as a tablet. Users can also purchase more expensive models that come with a dedicated graphics processing unit to handle more graphics-intensive workloads.
People who want to order the device online can still get it from Microsoft’s retail partners, including Amazon, Best Buy and Fry’s Electronics, so it’s not completely unavailable for purchase ahead of its expected Oct. 29 launch date. It’s not clear when the Microsoft Store will get more in stock or if they’re still available for pre-order from the company’s physical retail locations.
Meanwhile, Microsoft fans and observers should remember the cautionary tale of the first Microsoft Band. Even though it was sold out due to “overwhelming demand,” it doesn’t seem to have set the fitness wearable world on fire. Still, selling out of pre-orders is a good first step, and very reminiscent of products from Apple, which appears to be a useful inspiration for the company’s strategy of building its own hardware devices.Jan Berenstain, who with her husband created the Berenstain Bears books for children and preschoolers, has died. Berenstain was 88. Since the first book featuring the family of bears in was published in 1962, 260 million copies have been published in 23 languages, the Associated Press reports:
The gentle tales of Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Brother Bear and Sister Bear were inspired by the Berenstain children, and later their grandchildren. The stories address children's common concerns and aim to offer guidance on subjects like dentist visits, peer pressure, a new sibling or summer camp. The first Berenstain Bears book, "The Big Honey Hunt," was published in 1962. Over the years, more than 300 titles have been released in 23 languages — most recently in Arabic and Icelandic — and have become a rite of passage for generations of young readers. "They say jokes don't travel well, but family humor does," Jan Berenstain told The Associated Press in 2011. "Family values is what we're all about."
Jan met Stan in 1941 when they were both 18 and starting art school. After he returned from World War II, they married. They worked together, publishing their first book with the help of Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss. Stan Berenstain died in 2005; they are survived by two sons and four grandchildren.
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-- Carolyn Kellogg
Photo: Jan Berenstain with two of her books. Credit: Associated PressIf there is one certainty in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), it's that John Lineker should be fighting for the flyweight title. That is, if he could consistently make weight. Currently, Lineker is one of the few men within the flyweight division that has the ability to finish fights.
And he does it violently.
This past Saturday (Oct. 26, 2013) at the Phones4u Arena in Manchester, England, Lineker finished Phil Harris in the first round with a crushing shot to the spleen. Harris doubled over and that was all she wrote. But the fight was also the third time in his UFC career that Lineker has come in overweight.
Previously, he's stated that poor training practices and traveling have been the culprit, but Lineker now has the opportunity to train at American Top Team (ATT), one of the best camps when it comes to the science of cutting weight.
And it's gotten to the point of frustration for UFC President Dana White who said that Lineker would be fighting for the title if he was able to show he can make weight.
Dan Lambert, he runs the American Top Team down in Florida. He's probably one of the best guys in the sport and has been since before we owned this company. He hit us up tonight and said "let's get this kid down to Florida for training and get him on the Dolce Diet and make sure this kid can cut weight." He's so good that if he had made weight on the three times he's missed, he'd probably have a title shot right now.
There isn't much to say about this. If you want to be a champion, you have to act like one. And champions go out and make weight every single time they hit the scales. The UFC isn't going to invest resources into a fighter whose biggest enemy is himself, especially at the highest levels.
Lineker has to make a decision: continue fighting on the undercard or be the man. He can't have it both ways.Gameplay Edit
Screenshot of the play area The player navigates Pac-Man through a maze containing dots, known as Pac-Dots, and four multi-colored ghosts: Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. The goal of the game is to accumulate as many points as possible by collecting the dots and eating ghosts. When all of the dots in a stage are eaten, that stage is completed and the player will advance to the next one. Between some stages, one of three intermission animations plays.[25] The four ghosts roam the maze and chase Pac-Man. If Pac-man comes into contact with a ghost, he loses a life. The game ends when all lives have been lost. The player begins with 3 lives, but DIP switches in the machine can change the number of starting lives to one, two, or five. The player will receive one extra life after obtaining 10,000 points. The number of points needed for a bonus life can be changed to 15,000 or 20,000, or disabled altogether. Near the corners of the maze are four flashing Power Pellets that provide Pac-Man with the temporary ability to eat the ghosts and earn bonus points. The enemies turn deep blue, reverse direction and usually move more slowly. When an enemy is eaten, its eyes remain and return to the center box where the ghost is regenerated in its normal color. Blue enemies flash white to signal that they are about to become dangerous again and the length of time for which the enemies remain vulnerable varies from one stage to the next, generally becoming shorter as the game progresses. In later stages, the enemies go straight to flashing, bypassing blue, which means that they can only be eaten for a short amount of time, although they still reverse direction when a Power Pellet is eaten. Starting at stage nineteen, the ghosts do not become edible, but they still reverse direction. There are also fruits, located directly below the center box, that appear twice per level; eating one gives 100–5,000 points. This table lists each stage, the value of the fruit that appears, and how long the ghosts are blue when a power pellet is eaten: Stage Fruit Fruit Points Ghost Blue Time (seconds) Flashes before blue time ends 1 Cherry 100 6 5 2 Strawberry 300 5 5 3 Orange 500 4 5 4 Orange 500 3 5 5 Apple 700 2 5 6 Apple 700 5 5 7 Melon 1000 2 5 8 Melon 1000 2 5 9 Galaxian 2000 1 3 10 Galaxian 2000 5 5 11 Bell 3000 2 5 12 Bell 3000 1 3 13 Key 5000 1 3 14 Key 5000 3 5 15 Key 5000 1 3 16 Key 5000 1 3 17 Key 5000 0 – 18 Key 5000 1 3 19 and beyond Key 5000 0 –
North American title screen, showing the ghost names Enemies Edit Main article: Ghosts (Pac-Man) The enemies in Pac-Man are known variously as "monsters" or "ghosts".[26][27][28] In an interview, creator Toru Iwatani stated that he designed each enemy with its own distinct personality to keep the game from becoming impossibly difficult or boring to play.[29] Iwatani described the enemy behaviors in more detail at the 2011 Game Developers Conference. He stated that the red enemy chases Pac-Man, and the pink enemy aims for a position in front of Pac-Man's mouth.[30] The blue enemy is "fickle" and sometimes heads towards Pac-Man, and other times away. Although he claimed that the orange enemy's behavior is random, in actuality it alternates from behaving like the red enemy when at some distance from Pac-Man and aiming towards the lower-left corner of the maze whenever it gets too close to him. Color Pac Man (Original)[31] Pac-Man (English version) Character
(Personality) Translation Nickname Translation Alternate
Character Alternate
Nickname Character
(Personality) Name Red Oikake ( 追いかけ ) Chaser Akabei ( 赤ベイ ) Red guy Urchin Macky Shadow Blinky Pink Machibuse ( 待ち伏せ ) Ambusher Pinky ( ピンキー ) Pink guy Romp Micky Speedy Pinky Cyan Kimagure ( 気まぐれ ) Fickle Aosuke ( 青助 ) Blue guy Stylist Mucky Bashful Inky Orange Otoboke ( お惚け ) Feigned Ignorance Guzuta ( 愚図た ) Slow guy Crybaby Mocky Pokey Clyde Level 256 Edit Level 256, unplayable under normal circumstances Pac-Man was designed to have no ending–as long as at least one life is left, the game should continue indefinitely. At level 256, a bug corrupts the entire right half of the maze with seemingly random symbols and tiles, overwriting the values of edible dots which makes it impossible to eat enough dots to beat the level.[32] The bug is caused by the calculation of the number of fruit to draw rolling over to zero. The code attempts to draw 256 fruit–236 more than it was designed for–resulting in the maze being corrupted. [33] Perfect play Edit A perfect Pac-Man game is when the player achieves the maximum possible score on the first 255 levels (by eating every possible dot, power pellet, fruit, and enemy) without losing a single life, and using all extra lives to score as many points as possible on level 256.[34][35] The first person credited with achieving this score was Billy Mitchell, who claimed to perform the feat in about six hours.[35][36] In April 2018, Twin Galaxies removed all of Mitchell's scores from their database after ruling certain Donkey Kong submissions were not achieved using original arcade hardware.[37] Since Mitchell's Pac-Man achievement, 7 other players[38] have attained the maximum score on an original arcade unit. The world record according to Twin Galaxies is currently held by David Race with the fastest completion time of 3 hours, 28 minutes, and 49 seconds for the maximum possible score of 3,333,360 points.[39][40] In December 1982, an eight-year-old boy, Jeffrey R. Yee, received a letter from U.S. President Ronald Reagan congratulating him on a worldwide record of 6,131,940 points, a score only possible if he had passed level 256.[35] In September 1983, Walter Day, chief scorekeeper at Twin Galaxies, took the US National Video Game Team on a tour of the East Coast to visit video game players who said they could get through level 256. No video game player could demonstrate this ability. In 1999, Billy Mitchell offered $100,000 to anyone who could complete level 256 before January 1, 2000. The prize expired unclaimed.[35]
Development and naming Edit
Pac-Man cabinet design (left) and the Japanese Puck Man design. The North Americancabinet design (left) and the Japanesedesign. Up into the early 1970s, Namco primarily specialized in kiddie rides for Japanese department stores. Masaya Nakamura, the founder of Namco, started to direct the company toward arcade games, starting with electromechanical ones such as F-1 (1976). He later hired a number of software engineers to develop their own video games as to compete with companies like Atari, Inc.[41][42] Pac-Man was one of the first games developed by this new department within Namco. The game was developed primarily by a young employee named Toru Iwatani over a year, beginning in April 1979, employing a nine-man team. It was based on the concept of eating, and the original Japanese title is Pakkuman (パックマン), inspired by the Japanese onomatopoeic phrase paku-paku taberu (パクパク食べる),[43][44] where paku-paku describes (the sound of) the mouth movement when widely opened and then closed in succession.[45][46] Although Iwatani has repeatedly stated that the character's shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice,[16] in a 1986 interview he admitted that this was a half-truth and the character design also came from simplifying and rounding out the Kanji character for mouth, kuchi (口).[47] Iwatani attempted to appeal to a wider audience—beyond the typical demographics of young boys and teenagers. His intention was to attract girls to arcades because he found there were very few games that were played by women at the time.[48] This led him to add elements of a maze, as well as cute ghost-like enemy characters. Eating to gain power, Iwatani has said, was a concept he borrowed from Popeye.[49] The result was a game he named Puck Man[50] as a reference to the main character's hockey puck shape.[51] Later in 1980, the game was picked up for manufacture in the United States by Bally division Midway,[47] which changed the game's name from Puck Man to Pac-Man in an effort to avoid vandalism from people changing the letter 'P' into an 'F'.[50][51][52] The cabinet artwork was also changed and the pace and level of difficulty increased to appeal to western audiences.[50]
Reception Edit
Ports Edit
Legacy Edit
Remakes and sequels Edit
Notes Edit
References EditHONG KONG — The Heavenly Palace, the first module in China’s permanent space station, will be launched next year, a senior aerospace official confirmed Wednesday.
The official, Qi Faren, said the craft, an orbiting laboratory known in Mandarin as Tiangong-1, would initially serve as a docking station for other spacecraft. His remarks were carried by Xinhua, the official news agency. A model of the module was unveiled during New Year celebrations last year. The 8.5-ton laboratory is expected to be 30 feet long, with a crew of three.
The China National Space Administration said it planned three docking missions with the lab next year. The space agency’s long-range plans include a permanent space station that will incorporate the Tiangong-1, and a lunar mission by 2022.
China’s space program has made major inroads since it launched its first satellite in April 1970, a craft called Dong Fang Hong-1, or The East Is Red. In October 2003, China’s first manned spacecraft made 14 orbits of the Earth. The country’s first spacewalk took place 18 months ago. Aerospace experts and military officials say the Chinese military space program has made significant advancements in recent years, notably when it tested an antisatellite system in 2007, using a ballistic missile to shoot down one of its own weather satellites 540 miles up.
Charles P. Vick, a senior analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, said in an authoritative study that China’s “space station programs have clearly won out in government planning priorities over the lunar aspirations.” China has long insisted that its intentions in space are peaceful, although the head of the Chinese Air Force, Gen. Xu Qiliang, appeared to have gone off-message when he said in November that international “military competition has shifted towards space.”
“Such a shift is a major trend now, and such expansion is a historical inevitability,” he said, in remarks quoted by state-run news media. “To some extent, if you control space you can also control the land and the sea, and you will be in an advantageous position.”Reporters attempting to grill Stephen Harper about the Wright-Duffy affair were heckled and later called "lying pieces of shit" by a supporter at a Conservative Party event in Toronto on Tuesday.
Top Tory campaign spokesman Kory Teneycke has already apologized to the journalists for the "unacceptable" behaviour.
CBC News' Hannah Thibedeau, a veteran journalist covering the Tory campaign, is among those who have asked a number of tough questions lately about Harper's office, his chief of staff Ray Novak, and Nigel Wright's $90,000 cheque to Mike Duffy.
While increasingly rejecting "the premise" of such questions in recent days, Harper has mostly responded by stating Wright and Duffy were the "two individuals" responsible, despite evidence in court that several people in the Prime Minister's Office were aware of the plan.
As Thibedeau rose to ask her question Tuesday, a heckler shouted out that she should "ask questions on the topic at hand." Harper was announcing Tuesday that a re-elected Tory government will reintroduce its "Life Means Life" legislation when Parliament resumes.
Harper gestured at the man to stay quiet, even saying, "it's okay."
Thibedeau stated that Wright and others concocted a "deliberately deceptive" tale about Duffy's repayment that Canadians believed.
"You don't want to comment on the ongoing court matter and specifics of the court case. I understand that," Thibedeau said. "So, let’s talk about your personal feelings about this.
"Are you embarrassed by the way the Duffy issue was handled by the top people in your office, in the Prime Minister's Office of Canada?"
Harper responded by saying he was told years ago that the role of a leader is "not to go around expressing … feelings" but to take action. The Tory leader said he did just that by telling Duffy to repay his unjustifiable expenses.
"Because of the actions of Mr. Wright, he did not repay those expenses. And that’s why these two individuals have been held accountable by me and are being held accountable by the system."
After Harper finished up, an irate Tory supporter let Thibedeau, CTV News' Laurie Graham, and other reporters have it.
CBC News has video of the exchange:
Thibedeau later took to Twitter to highlight Teneycke's apology.
Cons spksperson Kory Teneycke apologizes for supporters shouting at reporters.Says not acceptable & doesn't represent Cons party #elxn42 — Hannah Thibedeau (@HannahThibedeau) August 18, 2015
The outbursts also sparked a rebuke online from Andrew MacDougall, Harper's former top spokesperson.
To the people booing reporters: they're doing their job. The PM is a big boy and can handle their questions. (Exemption for Milewski *S) — Andrew MacDougall (@AGMacDougall) August 18, 2015
The playful "exemption for Milewski" jab was related to an incident in 2011 in which CBC News' Terry Milewski was also heckled at a Tory event.
Milewski repeatedly asked Harper if he would respect the right of a Governor General to call on a second place party to form the government if Tories failed to win a majority. Tory supporters tried to drown out the journalist by clapping, but Milewski pressed Harper to answer the question.
"Defund the CBC," someone shouted, to applause.
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Photo gallery Nigel Wright Emails In Mike Duffy Case See Gallery Reporters Called 'Lying Pieces Of Sh*t' At Tory Campaign Event, Spokesperson Apologizes 1 / 28
Nigel Wright Emails In Mike Duffy Case 1 / 28
Like Us On FacebookA two-term Republican from a rural district in Tennessee, Rep. Phil Roe, became a magnet during the last election for more than $90,000 in contributions from medical professionals from across the country, including thousands of dollars from political action committees representing ear and foot doctors in October and November.
The funds weren't urgent: Roe's Democratic opponent did not report spending anything, and Roe's seat has been in the hands of the GOP for more than a century. Roe even sent $4,500 back because he has long refused PAC contributions.
But the congressman, a physician who is now chairman of a House labor and health subcommittee, is considered a kindred soul by the medical industry, partly because he has twice introduced legislation to remove a provision in President Obama's health care law that is meant to rein in the growth of Medicare payments.
While it is well-known that health-care and health-insurance providers and companies donated heavily while the bill was being drafted, a new study of campaign spending makes clear that the health-care and health-insurance industries continued to give steadily after its approval, an apparent effort to influence its fate this year.
Roe's late-arriving contributions were part of a windfall of more than $42.7 million in health-care and health-insurance industry funds that have flowed to current Republican and Democratic lawmakers after each chamber voted on the Obama bill, according to the study of spending for that period.
That investment reflects the conviction of those affected by the bill that the fight over its consequences and key provisions is not over - it is just beginning. The steady spending late last year makes the donors well-positioned now to call on the members they helped reelect to assault or defend elements of the reform that matter to their bottom line.
The study, conducted for The Washington Post by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, also shows that Republicans have been heavily favored in this period. While Democrats got just more than half of the industries' money before the bill was approved in spite of uniform Republican opposition, the Republican attracted 60 percent after the votes were counted. The Republican total for that period was $25.7 million, while the Democrats was $17 million.
Of the more than 60 bills introduced in the current session on health care and related insurance, most have come from Republican lawmakers; at least 19 of the bills use the term "repeal."
It demonstrates that the industry "found a better date for the prom," said Sheila Krumholz, the center's executive director. "This is the party that showed they were clearly willing to go to bat for the industry's agenda.... I'd say they are going steady now."
After March 2010, when then-House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) failed to block Obama's bill, he collected $386,665 from the two industries; as the current House speaker, he is in a powerful position to influence any changes. The new House majority leader, Eric Cantor (R-Va.), a key legislative gatekeeper, did even better, collecting $477,750 in the same period, according to the center's tally.
On the Senate side, after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) failed to stop the bill in December 2009, he collected $137,500 from the two industries. Of this amount, $95,650 came after Obama signed the bill. All three Republican leaders distributed substantial chunks of the money to other candidates before the election.
Spokesmen for Boehner, Cantor and McConnell declined comment, as did a spokeswoman for Roe.robot, then see Sleepy-Time. If you were looking for the article about the, then see
"Sleepy Time" is a SpongeBob SquarePants episode from season one. In this episode, SpongeBob visits the dreams of others.
Characters
Synopsis
After settling in for the evening, SpongeBob has a strange dream, where he is driving a hot rod in a Krabby Patty-themed location and he has his driver's license then crashes into a rock. However, Mrs. Puff appears and tears up SpongeBob's license and he is then propelled out of his own dream.
He appears as a small, glowing version of himself in the outside world, where he sees himself sleeping. SpongeBob realizes that he has no dream to go to until he sees Gary's dream cloud. He jumps in, frightening Gary.
In his dream, Gary has a humanoid body who can speak English and resides in a huge library. Gary tells SpongeBob some limericks before SpongeBob goes out of Gary's dream cloud and into Patrick's. Patrick's dream is completely empty, except for a kiddy ride that he is riding on and a door resembling that of SpongeBob's front door that leads out of the dream. SpongeBob explains to him that in a dream, he can do whatever he wants, which he demonstrates by changing size and creating a million copies of himself. Patrick says he's already satisfied, and SpongeBob goes out of Patrick's dream cloud. The ride then stops and Patrick takes out a quarter but drops it in a sewer grid.
Next, he goes into Squidward's dream, where Squidward is playing his clarinet for a king in a theater. SpongeBob distracts the king by telling him a limerick that Gary recited in his dream, and Squidward stops, and the king growls at him for not playing. After this happens several times, Squidward becomes so angry that he snaps his clarinet, but SpongeBob saves him by turning into a clarinet. It produces no sound, and SpongeBob just sings horribly, which surprisingly everybody applauds at. A crowd then picks up SpongeBob while throwing Squidward into a fruit cart, wondering how he can make such music. He then transforms back into his normal form and runs out the exit doors at the back of the theater. Squidward is knocked into the fruit cart by the audience and the king, while they chase SpongeBob as he exits the dream.
SpongeBob goes into Sandy's dream, where they are skydiving, and have to land on a painted target. SpongeBob asks if it's "kind of dangerous", and Sandy says "Not as long as you got a big ol' parachute." SpongeBob misunderstands her twice (such perceiving "pair of shoes" and "parakeet"), and while trying to explain to him, Sandy fails to open her own parachute in time and lands in a truck filled with clam manure. SpongeBob falls out of Sandy's dream and says to himself "All right, that's it. No more messing with people's dreams."
However, he then goes to what he thinks is Mr. Krabs' dream but actually is Pearl's dream, where she is having a tea party with her stuffed animals in a very childish and girlish setting.
After realizing this, he immediately goes to Mr. Krabs' dream, where he's fishing for money. Mr. Krabs instructs SpongeBob to pull out his money net from his back pocket, which turns out to be Mr. Krabs's wallet. SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs manage to catch Moby dollar, but it escapes and Mr. Krabs shoots SpongeBob out of the dream via a harpoon gun tied to SpongeBob.
He is launched directly into Plankton's dream. Plankton, in his dream, is a giant monster and can shoot lasers from his eye, and is destroying the city. SpongeBob realizes that it isn't a dream, but a nightmare. Once Gary is about to be crushed by Plankton, SpongeBob pricks his foot by turning into a pushpin, and Plankton deflates. The angry Bikini Bottomites close in on him and Plankton tells them that he guesses he has some explaining to do, but gets his punishment by being stepped on by everyone else. Plankton then wakes up in terror.
SpongeBob then goes back to his own dream cloud, where the angry faces of everyone who's dreams he entered appear around him. When he wakes up, everyone is in his house complaining that he's messed up their dreams and tell him to stay out. Patrick then appears and asks "Does anyone have a quarter?" then everybody looks at Patrick in confusion and the episode ends.
Production
Art
Music
( ‣ ) Associated production music
( • ) Original music
( ◦ ) SpongeBob music
‣ Island Romance - Jan Rap [title card]
‣ Vibe Link (a) - Richard Myhill [SpongeBob falls asleep]
‣ Happy End - Gerhard Trede [start of SpongeBob's dream]
‣ Custom Cruiser - The Mel-Tones [SpongeBob driving]
‣ Bring Back [#18] - Lars-Luis Linek [Mrs. Puff takes away SpongeBob's license]
‣ Orchestral Effect (f) - Dick Stephen Walter [SpongeBob enters Gary's dream]
‣ Vibe Link (b) - Richard Myhill ["Gary?"]
‣ Mozart Concerto 21 In C, 2nd Mvt. - Jonathan Starkey, Wolfgang Mozart [Emily Dickinson poem]
‣ The Foot of the Hill - Miloslav Verner [man from Peru]
‣ Mozart Concerto 21 In C, 2nd Mvt. - Jonathan Starkey, Wolfgang Mozart [SpongeBob leaves]
‣ Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (b) - Brian Gulland, Richard Harvey [Patrick asleep]
‣ Dombummel - Gerhard Trede [Patrick's dream]
‣? - Brad Carow [Squidward playing clarinet]
‣ Royal Entrance - Dick Stephen Walter ["Why do you stop playing, Wolfgang Amadeus Tentacles?"]
‣? - Brad Carow [Squidward continues playing clarinet]
‣ Majesty - Dick Stephen Walter ["Hey! I have not instructed you to stop!"]
‣ Dramatic Cue (d) - Ronald Hanmer [Squidward breaks his clarinet]
‣ Elemental Power - Gerhard Trede ["I came here to hear beautiful music!"/King glares down at Squidward]
‣ Sleeping Beauty - David Farnon ["Why have you stopped playing that wonderful music?"]
‣ Mersey Mania [#26] - Ian Henry Marsh, Phil Pickett [audience chases SpongeBob]
‣ Dreaming of Paradise (b) - Helene C.E. Muddiman [Sandy asleep]
‣ Metal Boost - Mac Prindy [skydiving]
‣ Hawaiian Link (b) - Richard Myhill ["Hey! Mr. Krabs!"]
‣ In the Cradle (a) - Dick Stephen Walter [Pearl's dream]
‣ The Jovial Buccaneers [#32] - John Fox [Mr. Krabs' dream]
‣ Invincible Armada - Gregor F. Narholz [chasing Krabs' wallet]
‣ The Rake Hornpipe - Robert Alexander White ["This'll make a great fish story, eh, Mr. Krabs?"]
‣ Hawaiian Link (a) - Richard Myhill [Plankton's dream]
‣ Muscovite Rebellion - David Arnold, Paul Hart [giant Plankton zapping everyone]
‣ On the Beach - Kapono Beamer [SpongeBob returns to his own dream]
‣ Killer Birds [#36] - Gregor F. Narholz [SpongeBob surrounded by floating heads]
‣ On the Beach - Kapono Beamer [ending]
Release
Reception
As of February 1, 2019, The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) gives this episode a rating of 8.8/10 based on 504 ratings by users. [1] TV.com users give this episode a rating of 8.9/10 based on 213 votes. [2]
TV.com users give this episode a rating of 8.9/10 based on 213 votes. "Sleepy Time" was ranked #70 during the Best Day Ever event on November 9–10, 2006.
Trivia
General
The dreams that were seen in this episode: SpongeBob's dream: SpongeBob is driving a racecar through a world filled with Krabby Patties. He gets his driving license, but Mrs. Puff appears and rips it up, destroying his confidence. Gary's dream: Gary is the humanoid keeper of a vast library. Patrick's dream: Patrick is riding a kiddy ride in an empty white room. Squidward's dream: Squidward as Wolfgang Amadeus Tentacles performs at a clarinet recital for a king. Sandy's dream: Sandy is skydiving from an airplane to land on a red target. Pearl's dream: Pearl is having a tea party with stuffed animals in her fantasy world. Mr. Krabs' dream: Mr. Krabs is at sea during a storm, trying to catch a giant dollar bill named "Moby Dollar." Plankton's dream: Plankton is a giant causing destruction in Bikini Bottom. SpongeBob's second dream: When SpongeBob tucks himself into his bed in his dream bubble, he is surrounded by all of his angry friends' heads.
This episode premiered in Canada on November 11, 2000.
Patrick is the only one who doesn't get angry at SpongeBob for entering his dream.
" My leg!: " In Plankton's dream, just as he is destroying a building.
" In Plankton's dream, just as he is destroying a building. This is the first episode to premiere in 2000. Although this episode aired in 2000, it was made in 1999 according to the credits.
This was the first episode to air on a Monday.
This is the second episode of season one to use the Crowd Scream sound effect, the first one being "Scaredy Pants."
In the Polish dub, the episode's title is "Sennik," which translates to "The Dream Book."
In the Norwegian dub, the episode title is "Besøk av drømmer," which translates to "Visit of Dreams."
In the Croatian dub, the episode title is "Slatki Snovi," which translates to "Sweet Dreams."
This episode heavily uses the concepts of lucid dreaming, astral projection, and out of body experience.
Gary says "Beware of your wandering eye, you little poriferan" in his dream. The scientific name for a sponge is the phylum Porifera.
. This and its sister episode were written by exactly the same people. The same applies to the storyboard directors, storyboard artists, animation director, and creative director.
In the video game Battle for Bikini Bottom, there is a stage based on this episode: SpongeBob's Dream, where it takes place in the dream world and allows SpongeBob to visit the dreams of other characters. Also, one of the robots that appears in the level is called a Sleepytime, which is behind the Krusty Krab.
, there is a stage based on this episode: SpongeBob's Dream, where it takes place in the dream world and allows SpongeBob to visit the dreams of other characters. Also, one of the robots that appears in the level is called a Sleepytime, which is behind the Krusty Krab. The video game Creature from the Krusty Krab is very similar to this episode. The game's third act, in which SpongeBob and Patrick battle a giant Plankton, is directly based on Plankton's dream in this episode.
is very similar to this episode. The game's third act, in which SpongeBob and Patrick battle a giant Plankton, is directly based on Plankton's dream in this episode. In this episode, it is revealed on SpongeBob's and Mr. Krabs' driver's licenses when they were born. SpongeBob's driver's license: A1356021 Expires: 12-14-03 Address: 124 Conch St. Bikini Bottom Class: S Sex: M Hair: Yellow Eyes: Blue HT: 0-04 WT: 1oz DOB: 07-14-86 Mr. Krabs' driver's license: A5265661 Expires: 11-30-02 Address: 3541 Anchor Way Bikini Bottom Class: S Sex: M Hair N/A Eyes: Green HT: 0-07 WT: 5 DOB: 11-30-42
According to a picture of a workprint of the episode posted by storyboard artist Adam Paloian on his Twitter account, SpongeBob's license was originally going to look a bit different, with a different picture of SpongeBob and a different signature, signed "S. Squarepants" instead of "SpongeBob SquarePants."
This is the first episode SpongeBob is seen with a driver's license.
Plankton's dream is very similar to what happened at the end of a much later episode, "Wishing You Well." He grows big and starts destroying the town, although in that episode he doesn't have lasers.
This episode's opening is similar to its sister episode's opening, "Suds," as both episodes start with SpongeBob having a dream.
There is a PowerTouch book based on this episode.
Gary and Pearl were annoyed at SpongeBob, but SpongeBob didn't do anything in their dreams that caused trouble in any way.
Cultural references
SpongeBob tells Gary, "Curiosity salted the snail," a reference to the classic line, "Curiosity killed the cat," as sea snails are portrayed as the cats of the sea.
SpongeBob tells Gary "Mind your wandering eye, you little mollusk." This is a reference to a line from the song "The Mollusk" by Ween.
Moby Dollar is a parody of Moby Dick.
. The name that Squidward has in his dream, Wolfgang Amadeus Tentacles, is a parody of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Coincidentally, the Andante from his Piano Concerto No. 21 is playing in the background while SpongeBob is in Gary's dream.
Sandy crashing into a truck of clam manure is a reference to the running gag from the Back to the Future movies where Biff Tannen crashes into a truck of manure.
movies where Biff Tannen crashes into a truck of manure. In one scene, when Gary and SpongeBob are walking along the library, a book is shown close up. On the cover, the title reads Of Snails and Men, a parody of John
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Thisbe cleavage by blowing up multi-coloured latex balloons and taping them under her dress; furthermore, during Thisbe's death scene, I shall not tape a safety pin to the end of Pyramus' sword and allow Thisbe to pop said balloons for comic relief as she tragically stabs herself. (234. I shall not allow teenage students out of Washington D.C. to end their already shoddy performance ofby humping each other during their curtain call. (235. I will never allow the unnecessary pause between "to be" and "or not to be" to last more than ten seconds, no matter how much the actor playing Hamlet believes it will transform him into Olivier. If he draws it out for more than twenty seconds during any rehearsal, I will recast the part. However, for the good of the production, should an actor decide he must surprise me with this behaviour in front of an audience, I will wait a full minute for him to continue before giving in to the urge to humiliate him by feeding him his line in a loud stage whisper. (236. I will not setin World War Two era garb, leave Hecate on stage -- in a rocking chair -- for the entire fourth and fifth act, and then have the Weird Sisters perform the killing blow to Macbeth. There is also no need to make Hecate a sexually ambiguous goth with a walking stick. (237. The "Man of Wax" Paris will never be an ugly fat man. (238. The Nurse will not face the audience with every line, no matter how much musical theatre experience she has. (239. Romeo will not be the best sword fighter in my production. (240. I will not allow Mercutio to accidently stab Tybalt in the arm on the night of first preview in warmups. (241. If an actor cannot convincingly cry on stage I will not force them to state the lines bo ho ho bo ho ho in their place (Lady Capulet in particular). (242. I will not cut Romeo's "O brawling love" monologue... ever!!! (243. I will not allow, no matter how tempting or how realistic, the production's Romeo to drink warm soy sauce as poison... It is unneccesary and unpleasent to him and those all around him (including Juliet who then must kiss his lips). (244. I will not have a menacing looming evil Tybalt with a very soft voice... He should always be an anal, violent, proud metrosexual who kicks ass with a rapier. (245. I will not put real vodka into one's grape-juice (doubling as wine) when the actor had just been in a car accident and is surviving through the show on hydrocodone. (246. I will never allow the Prince to ad-lib/paraphrase his opening monologue. (247. When in rehearsal I will not force my Romeo to perform the "banished" scene at performance level 8 times in a row... he will die. (248. I will not allow the fight choreographer to give acting notes. (249. Romeo's tunic will not be covered in ORANGE flowers. (250. While in a period production, even a low budget production, Romeo's boots will not have an "Adidas" visibly in sight. (251. If I must give in to my need to modernizeI will not set the entire play in an art gallery, and make Benedick attempt to hide by pretending to become part of the paintings. (252. I will not give the part of Bottom to a drunken frat boy who gets aroused at the mere touch of a woman. This is doubly important if the girl playing Titania is especially attractive. (253. If I ignore the above, I will never let Bottom lie on his back, no matter how amusing the actor might insist it would be. (254. Titania/Bottom sex scenes are never necessary. This is especially true when using an actor who's clearly very proud of his braying abilities and wants the whole world to know it. (255. Casting a black Desdemona alongside a black Othello is kind of missing the point a bit. (256. The Montague clan are not aliens. No, really, they're not. (257. No matter how much homoerotic subtext has been built up over the course of the play, I will not endby having Henry pull Richard's dead body out of a pool of water, having him proceed to lie on top of it, and then roll, the one over the other, all over the stage in complete silence until the curtain comes to hide them from the audience's bleeding eyes. (258. In a production ofI will not portray the banished Duke and his followers as a community of Mennonites simply because I have an excess of those costumes in the costume storage shop. (259. I will never cast Hamlet as a horse just so I can have characters ride around on his back during the so-called sexually tense scenes. (260. Never setin a 1950's Bakersfield Bowling Alley, complete with Bianca in a poodle skirt, Petruchio with Elvis hair and a motorcycle, and especially not with Kate belting out "You Don't Own Me." (261. Also, it would be wise to avoid ever stagingas if it wereespecially if the witches are going to be homeless people clinging to chain link fences. (262. I will not put homosexual text intoespecially not between Brutus and Cassius. It's called subtext for a reason. (263. If I must stageas set during Nazi-era Germany, I won't let Macbeth wear a kilt and a red swastika armband. (264. As thematically interesting as it may be, the Nurse fromshall neither be younger and prettier than Juliet, nor having some kind of on-stage affair with Romeo. (265. Do not set fire to the actors to emphasise their emotions. It never helps. (266. If I am staging a high school production and I know there aren't any black actors in the school, I will not do267. I will not cut the entire Fortinbras storyline fromto save time, only to have him pop up at the end. (268. I will not endwith a shower of "gold" foil coins and a-esque umbrella dance while the cast sings "Pennies from HeThe identity of the people who influenced ancient Greek civilization has been the subject of an intense debate. On the one hand, the ancient model suggests that the indigenous population of Greece was civilized by the Egyptian and Phoenician colonists. On the other, the opposing Aryan model suggests that Greek culture arose as a direct outcome of the conquest by Indo-Europeans of the pre-hellene natives. Lately, in an attempt to reconcile the two models, Martin Bernal has added the ‘Revised Ancient Model’. Interestingly, the people who had exerted an influence on the civilization of the Greeks left behind, both linguistic evidence as well as specimens of the instruments of their labour. Specifically, they left behind the names of the gods they worshipped and the types of musical instruments they played. This paper is an intervention into the debate on the identity of the people who exerted some considerable influence on the foundation of Greek civilization. It presents an argument to show that the African people known as the Luos had settled in the Aegean region and exerted the civilizing influence on the ancient Greeks.
Introduction
Martin Bernal (1987) noted that racism was a significant source of hostility towards the Ancient Model which considered Egypt to be the original source of Greek civilization. From the late 18th to early 19th century, the hostility was intensified by Christians who challenged and dismissed the contribution of Ancient Egypt towards Greek civilization. During the same period, the Phoenicians were even de-linked from Ancient Egyptians and considered as Semites and Jews of the Ancient World.
The denigration of the Ancient Model followed the triumphant European colonialism in the Africa Asia and the so-called New Worlds. Colonial conquest and domination was seen as the progress of the most advanced and dynamic people over those who were static and of a lower racial status. Coincidentally, as opposition towards the Ancient Model increased in Europe, the same paradigms of ‘race’ and ‘progress’ were being applied by Euro-American scholars to explain the origin of the Ancient Egyptian civilization. In his explanation Seligman (1903) suggested that pastoral Europeans known as ‘Hamites’ were the very builders of the Egyptian civilization. Seligman and like minded Africanists of the time were vehemently opposed to the idea that the Nilotic-Luos were the founders of the Itiyopian and Egyptian civilisations. The paradigms of ‘race’ and ‘progress’ through which the Aryan and the Hamitic models were developed and promoted at the expense of the Ancient and the Nilotic models were a major impediment to the identification of the people who influenced the Greek civilization. Consequently, Maas and Snyder (1989) in their search for the origins of the varieties of Greek musical instruments lamented that, “…. how they came to be known in Greek lands have thus far proved unanswerable” (Maas and Snyder, 1989, p.XV). The answer to the question posed by Maas and Snyder is quite easy once the Ancient model is reconsidered.
In this paper, we argue that the people who influenced the emergence of Greek civilization were the Nilotic Africans commonly known as the Luo. The Luos had founded the Itiyopian kingdom which expanded its rule into lower- Egypt. Colonization and expansion of Ancient Egypt brought Luo influences and civilization to Greece. It will be argued that the Luos left a widespread linguistic marks as well as physical artifacts in instruments of labour in Ancient Greece. The paper is divided into five parts. In the second part we examine the Luo in Greek historiography; section three looks at a variety of stringed instruments in Ancient Greece with the view to tracing their origins to the Luos; the Gods worshipped in Ancient Greece is discussed in section four, where it is pointed out that the Gods bore Luo names. In section five the Luos will be identified as the Phoenicians. This section is followed by conclusions.
2.0 The Aryanists on the ‘Hellenization’ of the Luo
Diop (1974), Houston (1985) and others have argued that the Cushitic kingdom of Meroe and Napata was the origin of Egyptian civilization. From an early period, the Greeks were quite familiar with its power and influence. Houston (1985), noted that “Ethiopia was the source of all that Egypt knew and transmitted to Greece and Rome” (Houston, 1985, p.17). Similarly, Baldwin wrote of the Ethiopians that,
“ at a period equally remote, they glimmer in Greek mythology. When the Greeks scarcely knew Italy and Sicily by name, the Ethiopians were celebrated in the verses of their poets; and when the faint gleam of tradition and fable gives way to the clear light of history, the luster of the Ethiopians is not diminished” (J.D. Baldwin 1869, p.62).
In other words, prior to the Itiyopian incursion, the ancient Greeks had hardly travelled beyond their borders. According to Bernal, the Greeks were particularly familiar with influence of Kushitic priests and their religion, “The cult of Ddwn was very closely related to that of Imn/Amon who himself had strong Nubian, Ethiopian and Southern Egyptian connections, seen in Greek tradition in Zeus’ special relationship with the Ethiopians” (Bernal, 1991, p.260). The Itiyopian/Luo origin of Greek religion will be discussed further down. However, it has must be noted that the terms Nubian and Ethiopian when used interchangeably tended to obscure the identity of the ancient Itiyopians (Ethiopians). The name Nubia is a modern invention for old Ethiopia. Houston (1985) particularly pointed out that, “The term Nubia was unknown to the ancients. Everything to the south of Egypt was called Ethiopia, the land of the dark races. ….” (Houston, 1985, p.63). Elsewhere, this writer has suggested that the founders of the Cushitic kingdom were the Itiyopians or Luos. Once Nubians are confused with Ethiopians, then a linguistic historical analysis is jeopardized as the Luos could be lined up as Nubians who were unknown to the ancients.
Despite an abundant wealth of credible linguistic, documentary and archaeological evidence which the Luos left in Greece, their influences on Greek civilization has neither been recognized nor specified. Instead, owing to the triumph of the Aryanist in the 19th century, the Luos/ Itiyopians were portrayed as having been ‘Hellenised’, having absorbed most of Greek culture. For example, in ‘Philhellene Ergamenos’ J. Leclant (1990), wrote, “ After writing of the all-powerful position of the Kushite priests, who could even constrain the king to commit suicide if he had ceased to please the people, Diodorus of Sicily relates how a sovereign steeped in Greek culture, Erogamenos, dared fight back and had a number of priests put to death ….” (Leclant, 1990, p.165). Philhellenism developed in the early 19th century as the atheist and a radical political wing of Europe’s Romanticist movement. Followers expressed great love for and considered Greek states as models of liberty. In Germany, Hegel and later, the young Hegelians including Marx, expressed great love and affection for Greece. Their love for ancient Greece was only matched by their hatred of ancient Egypt. Bernal explained the ambiguous position of the Philhellenes when he wrote, “It should be noted, however that the idea of Greece emerging from Egypt implies an acceptance of the Ancient model which later Philhellenes were unwilling to concede.” (Bernal, 1987, p.290). Though he wrote about ‘Philhellene Ergamenos’, Leclant neither identified the monarch nor explained the meaning of the term ‘Ergamenos’. He later confessed that, “Doubts nevertheless subsist as to the identity of Ergamenos” (Leclant, 1990, p.165). The existence of doubt about the monarch’s identity can be attributable to the fact that a Luo-based linguistic analysis has not been conducted. Consequently, the etymology of the term ‘Erogamenos’, has never been examined. For a correct understanding of the meaning of the Luo term ‘Ergamenos’ it is necessary to revisit the Theban system of thoughts.
According to the Theban Cosmogony, the process of self-evolution transformed ‘Nu’, the primordial watery mass into ‘Ra’ which then completed the creation of the universe (Diop, 1981). Ra then created the opposing principles or pairs in nature:
Kwik + Kuek = primordial darkness and its opposite light
In the Luo dialect of the Acholi, the darkest object was likened to the Ox pecker bird known as O’Kuik (Crazzolara, 1938, p.349). At the same time they use the terms ‘piny kuek’ to describe an activity that goes on throughout the night until day light.
Nono + Nune = void/emptiness and its opposite matter/primordial water
In their salutation which centers on the universe, the Kavirondo Luos make reference to the opposing principles in nature that were created by ‘Ra’
Oyaure + Oyimure = spatial infinite opening and its opposite finite spatial closure
Atum + Amen= (‘the closer’, ‘finisher’ or the conception of sun after creation and its
Opposite the master of eternity and of everlastingness)
The Luos usually conclude a salutation by saying ‘Ero-ka-ma-no’. ‘e- ro’ is an adjective which means there (is). ‘Kama-no’ is also another adjective which means, like that, so, thus, in this very manner’ (Creider, 1994). Ero kameno simply refers to the dialectical process of infinite spatial opening and finite spatial closure that shall continue ‘in that very manner’. Thus, ‘Ergamenos’ was a mis-pronounciation and mis-spelling of ‘E-ro kameno’, uttered so often by the Luos at the closure of salutations and used as a nick name for the ancient royals. A similar phrase was used by the prince of Mendes in lower Egypt. During the reign of Pharaoh Petoubastic, a prince known as ‘Kameno-Phis’, likened himself to Apis the symbol of valour, virility and might in battle (Lewis Spence, 1919, p.240-245). He had seized the shield of a rival chief Pakrourou and provoked a civil war in the delta region. ‘Kameno’ became a common phrase in the Ancient Egyptian dialect.
As Leclant (1990) suggested, a monarch bearing the nick name ‘Ergameno’ ruled Itiyopia between 250 – 125 BC. That was the period when the Macedonian-Greeks ruled over Egypt. It was the period the Nilotics had lost control of Egypt and Meroe their original grant court of civilization was being threatened by the foreign rulers in Egypt. It was during this period that, ‘Ergameno’ was credited with bringing about a ‘constitutional’ reform. He specifically brought to an end, the practice of royal suicide where Pharaohs were killed after a period of about 10 to 20 years of rule. In ‘Philhellene Ergamenos’, Leclant suggested that, ‘Ergamenos’ had learnt, adopted, appreciated and was full of love for Greek culture. More precisely, he would want us to believe that the Greeks had influenced cultural development in the Kushitic kingdom of Meroe and that the entire Kushites were beneficiaries of Greek culture under “ the renaissance which appears to mark the succeeding decades ….” (Leclant, 1990, p.165). Leclant seems to have adopted a rather ‘Extreme Aryanist’ position, ignoring the accounts of earlier writers. For example, Herodotus pointed out that it was the Egyptians and the Phoenicians who introduced civilization to the Greeks and not the other way round. Referring specifically to religious ceremonies, he asserted that, “I will never admit that the similar ceremonies performed in Greece and Egypt are the results of mere coincidences – had that been so, our rites would have been more Greek in character and less recent in origin. Nor will I allow that the Egyptian ever took over from Greece either this custom or any other” 1. In any case, the guiding ideological principle of governance was ‘MAATI’ (or MAAT) the principle of the perfectibility of man in society. According to E.A. Wallis Budge, “There is no one word which will exactly describe the Egyptian conception of Maat both from a physical and from a moral point of view; but the fundamental idea of the word is “straight”, and from the Egyptian texts it is clear that maat meant right, true, truth, real, genuine, upright, righteous, just, steadfast, unalterable, etc.” (Budge, 1994, p. cxix). Coincidentally, MAAT is Luo in origin. The word ‘ATI’ in Luo means, right, straight, just, true’. ‘MA’ is a prefix meaning ‘which is’. Therefore, ‘Maati’ was used to depict; righteousness, justice and the truth. Ironically, in modern times, the young Hegelian Marx later became the leading champion for justice amongst the working class. Even if electoral democracy was not practiced, individual and property rights were respected (J.R.Harris, 1988) and the rule of law based on maat was strictly observed. If anything, the Hellenes had negligible impact in Lower Egypt in which they were entrenched.
According to J.R. Harris,
“Egypt was ‘made use of’ by the Greeks rather than that she was ‘Hellenized’, for although there were several areas of contacts it can, I think, be shown that the Egypt which, through its Greek kings and immigrants, realized some of the aims of the classical city states and that other Egypt which remained centred upon its temples and villages existed side by side without mixing at all closely” (J.R.Harris, 1988, p323).
In other words, the impact of Greek intrusion was negligible and non beneficial to the Egyptians. Further south, beyond the second cataract in Itiyopia, Hellenist intrusion had been fiercely resisted from the on-set by “Queen Candace, world famous as a military tactician and field commander (Williams, 1987, p.118). Therefore, the alleged ‘Hellenisation’ of an Ethiopian monarch was an Aryanist creation. It was calculated to weaken the ancient model even though ‘dialectics’ the philosophical system that Philhellenist Frederick Hegel promoted, had its origin in ancient Egypt. Above all, the alleged ‘Hellenisation’ was intended to de-link the Nilotics/Luos from ancient Egypt and obscure their influence on the Greeks.
Available historical evidence suggests that Luo influence in Greece did not start during the Hellenist period (the last three centuries BC). It dates back to the Archaic period (8th to the 6th centuries B.C) and the Classical (5th and 4th centuries) archaic period. Their influence on the Greek is visible in the stringed instruments they left on the island and will be discussed below.
3.0 Luos and the Stringed instruments of Ancient Greece.
Djait (1981), a Tunisian historian who participated in the drafting of aGeneral History of Africa pointed out that history leaves marks in a variety of forms: written documents (drawn or printed in conventional signs on support such as papyrus, parchment, bone, wood, paper) archaeology, linguistics and oral tradition. Similarly, McNeal (1972), had specifically suggested that the Ancient history of the Aegean be studied through: archaeological artifacts, language, skeleton material and myth and legend (McNeal, 1972, p.20). One of the most important archaeological artifacts are the instruments of labour and was acknowledged byMarx who wrote that, “Relics of by gone instruments of the labour process has the same importance for the investigation of extinct economic forms of society as do fossil bones for the determination of extinct species of animals” (Marx, Capital 1:179). The instruments of labour I have picked on to shed light on the identity of those who influenced ancient Greece history are the musical instruments. Though in an inconclusive manner, an investigation on the subject has been undertaken by M. Maas and J. M. Snyder who wrote that,
“No ancient culture has left us more tantalising glimpse of its music than that of the Greeks, whose art and literature speak to us again and again of the role of music, its power, and its importance to their society…. The ancient Greeks, and their fore forerunners and neighbours in the land surrounding the Aegean sea, knew three types of stringed instruments: the lyre, the harp and the lute. …. we cannot attribute the origin of any of these instrument types to people living in the Aegean area, for the evidence indicates that lyres, harps, and lutes all existed in Mesopotamia and Egypt even earlier than in the area that was to become Greece, the questions about how they came to be known in Greek lands have thus proved unanswerable”. (M. Maas and J. M. Snyder, 1989. P. XV).
An instrument which produces sound by way of vibrating string or strings stretched between two points is known as a chordophone. In practice, the strings could be set into motion through plucking (like a harp), strumming (like a guitar) or rubbing with bow (like a violin). In ancient Greece chordophones included the lyre, the harp and the lute. Of the three instruments, the lyre remained the most popular instrument in the ancient Greek world. Lyra is a generic term used to describe any instrument of the lyre family such as the kithara, chelys-lyra and barbitos. As pointed out by Maas and Snyder, the harp, lute and lyre existed in both Egypt and Mesopotamia before appearing in Greece. This writer has argued elsewhere that the Luos were the founders of the Ancient Itiyopian and Egyptian civilizations. In addressing the question that proved unanswerable to Maas and Snyder we will present the evidence to support the contention that it was through Luo colonization that musical instruments such as the kithara, chelys-lyra and barbitos became known to the Greeks. Luo basis of the origin of each instrument will be discussed below starting with the Kithara.
0.1 The Kithara
The Kithara was (is) a musical instrument with strings of equal length attached to a cross bar supported by two arms. The two arms enter a sound-box and rest against the edge or rim of the box. In design, the arms and the yoke may or may not be arranged in a symmetrical way. The strings which may number from five to eight are fixed to a tail piece. The evidence of the prevalence of the kithara in ancient Greeks is recorded in vase paintings. They mostly appear in scenes in which the god Apollo was depicted. According to Maas and Snyder,
“…. Kithara was primarily the professional’s lyra i.e. it had a significant role in state religious festivals and contests, and that it was played exclusively by male performers. …. As to the origins of the word kithara and kitharis however, we have no conclusive evidence. …. the name was probably borrowed into Greek from some oriental language, a few scholars have attempted to make a case for a connection with specific Indo- European or Semitic roots” (Maas and Snyder, 1989:53).
In other words the Kithara players were often high performance instrumentalists who earned a living out of their artistry and skills. They performed during state functions, religious ceremonies, contests, and private functions such as weddings and other occasions. Maas and Snyder lamented that there were no archeological remains of the kithara thus hampering knowledge of the materials out of which the Kithara were constructed. Nevertheless they pointed out that the basic material was wood “There was practically no other suitable material available, and we can point to similar instruments of which remains have been found in Egypt that were of wooden construction” (p.66). Thus, the material required could have been imported and the instrument assembled in Greece or the instrument imported into Greece as a unit. Interestingly, an instrument with a similar name had existed in Ancient Egypt. According to J. Gardiner Wilkinson, “ …. The Egyptians had a sort of guitar with three chords ……..The guitar consisted of two parts: a long flat neck, or, and a hollow oval body, either wholly of wood or covered with parchment, having the upper surface perforated with holes to allow the sound to escape. Over this body, and the whole length of the handle were stretched three strings of catgut. ….” (J. Gardiner Wilkinson, 1996, p.123). In reference to the Egyptian guitar, he added that, “ It is from an ancient instrument of this kind, sometimes called kithara …, that the modern name guitar (chitarra) has been derived” (Wilkinson, 1996, p.124). Wilkinson was of the view that whereas the Kithara in Greece was a lyre, that in Egypt was some kind of a ‘lute’. Nevertheless Wilkinson suggests that the Egyptian origin of the kithara should be taken seriously.
Yet for Maas and Snyder, the origin of the word kithara was inconclusive. The inconclusiveness only arose due to a deliberate distortion about the founders of Egyptian civilization in which the influence of the Luo has been ignored. We can reveal that, the same word ‘kithara’ is found in the Nilotic-Luo language spoken in Eastern Africa today. For example, the Luos named their kingdom in the Great Lakes region as the ‘Kitara’. In recognition of this fact that Rev. Roscoe wrote, “The country of Kitara, which is now generally known as Bunyoro, was at one time the largest and most powerful of all autocratic kingdoms in the Lake regions of Central Africa …..” (Roscoe, 1923, p.1). He added that, “ …..in the days of its power, the kingdom bore its rightful name, that is Kitara, but of late years it has unfortunately been known by the name of Bunyoro ….” ( Roscoe, 1923, p.2). The Rev. J. Roscoe (1923) gave a precise location, stating that the empire lay between the longitude 30 to 50 degrees East and latitude 1 degree to 2.5 degrees North (Roscoe, 1923, p.1).
Furthermore, in his description of the identity of the people who founded the kitara empire in the Great Lakes region, renounced historians B.A. Ogot and J.A.. Kieran (1968) wrote, “ The number of Lwoo who went over to Kitara must have been few, for they soon gave up their Lwoo language for the language of the Bantu-speaking peoples they ruled” (Ogot and Kieran, 1968, p.152).
May I confirm that the word kithara, often mis-spelled as kitara is of Luo origin and becomes apparent when the word is de-constructed. In the Luo language, ‘ki’ or ‘gi’ is a preposition placed before certain nouns and employed to emphasise and indicate the direct object. In the Luo dialect spoken by the Acholi, the seven- stringed musical instrument, the angular trough Zither is known as ‘kitara’ or ‘Nanga’. It was in this context that Fr. Crazzolara wrote, “taara, n. same as nanga, stringed instrument” (Crazzolara, 1938, p.390, My emphasis in italics). To emphasise the noun ‘ki’ is added to ‘tara’ to form ‘kitara’. The same word ‘kitara’ has been used by J.P. Ocitti (1973) to describe some longitudinal arrangements in parceling and apportioning land when he wrote, “Once the Aker area had been cultivated (usually sown with simsim or beans mixed with sorghum for the first time), its name changed to Kitara, which signified the neat arrangement of the gardens” (J.P. Ocitti, 1973, p.4)
British reconnaissance officer, Major Hannington Speke, held a long conversation with Rumanika, one of the regional governors of Kitara empire and reported,
“This conversation, diversified by numerous shrewd remarks on the part of Rumanika, led to his asking how I could account for the decline of countries, instancing the dismemberment of the Wahuma of Kitara, and remarking that formerly Karagwe including Urundi Ruanda and Kishakka, which collectively were known as the kingdom of Meru governed by one man” (Speke, 1863,p.226).
Consciously or unconsciously, Rumanika had put the question ‘what factors contribute to the decline of countries?” to an agent of the forces plotting the destruction of his country. Nevertheless, Rumanika suggested that Kitara had fragmented and was no longer the powerful kingdom it once was. He also confirmed that Kitara was a successor of the once powerful State known as Meru or Meroe. In other words, the founders of Kitara had relocated to present-day Uganda following the collapse of the Meroitic State in the Sudan. As we have argued elsewhere, Meroe was the Luo kingdom of Koch (Kush) which had expanded into Egypt. Kitara is thus a Luo word loaned to the Greeks. Tortoise-Lyra, another instrument that the Luos introduced to the Greeks is discussed below.
3.0.2 The Chelys-Lyra (Tortoise – Lyra)
The Chelys-lyra is a six or seven stringed instrument with a sound-box made of tortoise shells, or in the shape of tortoise shells. Like the kithara, the Chelys-lyra was known in Greece during the archaic period through to the Hellenic period. The Chelys- lyra was popularly played during libation and was considered to be Apollo’s instrument. It was played by both men and women from small children to the elderly. In their description of the construction of the sound box, Maas and Snyder noted that, “the underside of the tortoise shell, which becomes the belly of the instrument, was apparently covered with thin hide, as are instruments of the lyre type in Africa today” (Maas and Snyder, p.95). They added that,
“Like most of the other names for stringed instruments in the Greek language, the word lyra appears to be a loan word borrowed into Greek from some other, probably non-Indo-European, language. Linguists are generally hesitant to connect the word with any known Indo-European roots and prefer to describe it as a term borrowed from some language of the Mediterranean area” (Maas and Snyder, p.80).
Whereas Mass and Snyder had difficulties in linking the instrument to a particular Mediterranean culture, J.G. Wilkinson, a British Egyptologist was able trace the inventor of the instrument and how it was invented:
“Mercury has always obtained the credit of its invention, both among the Egyptians and the Greeks; and Apollodorus gravely explains how it came into his head; “The Nile”, he says, after having overflowed the whole land of Egypt, returned once more within its banks, leaving on the shore a great number of dead animals of various kinds, among the rest a tortoise its flesh was quite dried up by the hot Egyptian sun, so that nothing remained within the shell but nerves and cartilages; and these being braced and contracted by the heat, had become sonorous. Mercury walking by the river side, happened to strike his foot against this shell, and was pleased with the sound it produced, that the idea of a lyre presented itself to his imagination” (J.G. Wilkinson, 1996, p. 114-115).
Mercury was the Roman name of the Greek god Hermes, who was considered an inventor and the quick messenger of god. The same Hermes was the very son of Zeus. In Egypt, Hermes was known as Thoth, the moon god and one credited with authoring the sacred books and being the master of magic. Thus, it is apparent that Mercury, Hermes and Thoth are one and the same god. In both Egypt and Greece, Mercury is credited with the invention. However, from the account provided by Wilkinson and other writers, it would appear that the instrument was first invented in Egypt. The lyre’s Egyptian origin was confirmed by Manniche’s who noted “Thoth is claimed to have invented the lyre, and its strings were said to have been made of the gut of seth. …. The decoration of some lyre with the head of a goose may again suggest a connection with Amun” (Manniche, 1975, p. 91). As for the period when the instrument first appeared in Egypt, Manniche maintained, “In the old kingdom, the end-blown flute was important, whereas in the New Kingdom the harp was joined by lutes and lyres” (Manniche, 1991, p. 25). The eighteenth dynasty begun which started in around 1580 BC developed the New Kingdom of Pharaonic Egypt. However, if Thoth was the inventor, then the instrument must have appeared in Egypt much earlier. From the accounts provided by Wilkinson and Manniche, it is safe to conclude that the Tortoise-lyra was exported to Greece from ancient Egypt.
Coincidentally, the same instruments and names associated with them have also been found to exist in Eastern Africa. According to Trowell and Wachsmann (1953) who were curators of the Ugandan museum “The modern instrument in Uganda corresponds to the ‘lyra’ in Greece, the plain and unsophisticated type ….” (Trowell and Wachsmann, 1953, p.400). Elsewhere, they noted that, “The use of the ‘lyre’ as solo instrument is especially noticeable in migrating companies of Luo labourers from Kavirondo, who are very fond of it and whose musical life it seems to dominate” (Trowell and Wachsmann, 1953, p.404). The Kavirondo Luos are the Kenyan Luos of Nyanza province who provided labour to the colonial industries of Uganda. The Luos who had founded the Itiyopian and Egyptian civilization migrated to East Africa and must have brought the tortoise-lyra with them. Apart from the Kithara and the tortoise-lyra, the Greeks imported other instruments from the Egyptian/Luos.
The Barbitos
Besides the kithara and the Chelys- lyra, the other popular stringed instrument of ancient Greece was the barbito. Most barbitos were seven-stringed, though some had five or six and others had even eight. The barbito was played by both men and women to pass time at home. It was associated with festivities and was also “linked in the Greek mind with the pleasurable combination of wine and song” (Maas and Snyder, p.121). Like the kithara and the tortoise-lyra, the barbito was not an indigenous innovation. In confirmation, Maas and Snyder had this to say: “Despite its exotic status, as a recent foreign importation, the babirtos is mentioned many times in Greek literature of the Classical period, often with allusions to its function as the chief instrument (besides the aulos) of the symposium” ( Mass and Snyder, p.113). At musical festivals, the barbito was one of the most indispensable instruments. However, like kithara, the origin of the loan word ‘barbito’ has been muddled Aryanist scholars. Again, the work of Maas and Snyder is quite revealing:
“…. In discussing the Asiatic background of Greek music, the first century B. C geographer Strabo, speaks of the Influence of Phrygian and other such peoples in connection with the kithara and the aulos and includes the Barbitos in a list of Greek instruments that bear foreign names. This remark, along with lack of related word in any Indo-European language, has led to the conclusion that the instrument’s name is unknown
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that I had to split my post about coming out into two parts so I could fit all of them.
Should you choose to come out, hopefully you will find this useful.
The following is advice on coming out from other asexuals.
“If you don’t feel safe or comfortable coming out and you can avoid doing so, then that may be the best until things changes. Realize that it isn’t a simple binary between being out and being closeted. You can be honest about something, or give a true indication by your behavior, without advertising it. Not everybody wants to or has the right personality to be really open or to advertise their sexual orientation a lot, even in ideal circumstances. Each person should decide based on their situation and their personality what the best place on this spectrum is for them.”
“If you want to come out as asexual, make sure that’s what you want, and that you’re ready. Consider, if possible, taking a friend who already knows with you. If that’s not possible, I strongly recommend having some sort of support system where you can access it quickly if necessary. If things go badly, I always want a hug and a willing ear to hear me rant and cry. Personally, I tend to emotionally distance myself from the conversation, because I’ve learned that the people who are closest to me are the most likely to blurt out something accidentally hurtful, and that pretty much anyone will ask you anything. Try to equip yourself with as much patience and words as you can; you’ll possibly need plenty of both. Good luck.”
“Have tough skin. Especially if the person you’re telling isn’t very well versed in issues such as these. If you’re generally young, like me (18) you’ll probably find telling your friends a smoother process than telling your older family members, therefore tell your friends first.”
“Be prepared to get a negative reaction, because there’s a good chance you’ll be met with doubt, incredulity, or (depending on how old you are) condescension.”
“If someone gives you flack or sees you as a freak, don’t ever believe that. You are who you are and, no matter what happens, you are the pilot of your life. Don’t let words discourage you in any way.”
“Generally, if you don’t make a big fuss about it, other people won’t either.”
“It’s not as bad as it might seem. People will say what they say. The ones that truly love you won’t give a damn, they’ll love you no matter what.”
“Start with the easy ones and work up to the difficult or important people.”
“Never come out as an expression of guilt. Many people are in circumstances where coming out isn’t necessary and would only add undue confusion/strain on their relationships. Really think about it and weigh things out before doing it. If you’re in a religious community that is disapproving (like I am), make sure you have a support system in place should shit hit the fan, because it’s likely that it will.”
“Everyone’s experience is different and everyone’s situation is different. No one should take one person’s experience as evidence of what it will be like for them. But I would say that you want to tailor your approach to the person you’re talking to. If it’s someone who loves you but who might not respond well to the idea of asexuality, it might be a good idea to try coming out to them *first* and *then* educating them. If you do it the other way around and they react badly to the education, you might end up feeling really hurt and not telling them — but if it’s someone who loves you, they might have been much more open and accepting if they had known from the start that you were telling them about *yourself*.”
“I would probably recommend sending letters or emails if a face-to-face talk seems too daunting. This will give you an opportunity to explain everything without interruption, and give links to resources where questions can be answered correctly.”
“Only do it when you want to. But when it’s forced, bite that bullet and get it out. There will be people who slander and completely disbelieve you, and they may dismiss you, but you won’t be lying to yourself. I tried to kid myself for years that I was just denying that I was gay, but it just wasn’t working. Actually telling somebody helped cement it in my own mind that this is me.”
“I think it’s best to only come out to people you trust, initially. Especially when you’re “new” to identifying as on the ace spectrum. Talk to them in a calm and collected manner and try not to yell – make them see you are serious about what you are saying and that they will not change your mind. You are telling this so they know who you are. I found it’s helpful to read other aces’ coming-out stories and read up on witty responses and explanations so you don’t go into a possible battle unarmed. And it’s probably best not to choose a moment when they’re stressed, angry or otherwise in a mad mood.”
“You should be proud of who you are and know that there are people who will support you, especially if you have lgbt-friendly people in your life. There may be people who call you names, pressure you to have sex, or pretend to be supportive while actually being ignorant bigoted assholes. Some people may get irritated or angry when you come out, because they think you’re just trying to be different. Some lgbt people and their allies may even be bigoted towards you. Defend yourself and draw positivity from your support system. If you don’t have a support system, then it may be time to get new friends.”
“Know your feelings inside out and be able to articulate them easily. It’s hard to convince someone that your orientation is legit if you can’t explain yourself properly. If you have access and time, reading some of the scientific articles or one of the academic books (like Understanding Asexuality, which is a great read) is also a great help. That way if anyone says that asexuality doesn’t exist, or you’re broken/have a hormone imbalance/inhuman/repressed/traumatised from sexual assault, you can throw the science at them. Most people change their minds pretty quickly once there’s proof that their ideas are incorrect. The people who are stubborn and still don’t believe or accept you, they’re not worth your time. Browse the AVEN forums or the tumblr asexual tags too, there’s always some good coming out stories on there.”
“First, it’s never as bad as you think it will be, your mind exaggerates to incredible degrees. Second, test the waters first, see how that person reacts to statements typical of the group you find yourself a part of (ex: oh, hey, those homo-/bi-/asexuals, those transgenders, those transsexuals, etc.) Really, it’s not so bad as you think it will be. If people you like react poorly to it, those are not people you want to be around and it’s better to find out sooner rather than later.”
“Coming out is personal, moreso as an asexual in how it is regarded by the public at large. Whether the outcome is a positive or negative experience, always stay true to yourself and your feelings. If your friends discuss engaging in sexual behaviors with people and characters, but you’d rather not, don’t try to pretend that you would to fit in. If you test out sexual acts with other partners and you do not enjoy them, that is entirely okay. If your family or friends make fun of asexuality in ways that make you uncomfortable, attempt to use neutral “I feel” statements to broach the subject. Most of all never project negative labels onto yourself such as “frigid” or “broken” and more. There is absolutely nothing wrong with how you feel.”
“Relax. People will probably be understanding. If they know you well, they’re probably at least somewhat aware of the fact that you’re asexual; they just may or may not have a name for that. And if you’re unsure about how people will react, start by talking about the asexuality of other people. When I came out to my friends, it started with a conversation about the sexuality of Abed in the show Community, and that helped me figure out how much explaining I’d have to do and how understanding they’d be. I also like gauging reactions by telling people about Tim Gunn being asexual.”
“Tell those that you trust first. They can be there for support while you come out to people who you are not as comfortable with.”
“Take it slow. And only tell one person at a time. People listen better one on one, and if it’s a group one person who doesn’t believe you, or who has negative views or bad information on asexuality might sway others who individually may have been more receptive.”
“Have resources on hand, bear up for rejection but always hope for the best.”
“Choose who you come out to, make sure your comfortable with them knowing, be ready to explain, explain, explain, and have some facts and links as well. Also, be prepared for some rather intrusive questions and possibly revealing more about your intimate life than most people would ever feel comfortable with doing. Also be prepared for some insensitive comments as well.”
“Be prepared to answer questions. There might be misinformation to correct. For the most part, people tend to be accepting, if not somewhat confused. Don’t feel pressured to come out if you don’t want to. Don’t feel pressured to “fit” the label. The only person who can decide your sexuality is you; it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.”
“Bring along lots of sources to back you up. Also, patience is key. Asexuality is a strange concept to sexuals.”
“Time and place is key. Think of the questions they might ask and be prepared with the answers. Trust that your judgement of the person is sound and that they’ll at least listen to you. Put your courage to the sticking place and just do it.”
“The best advice I was ever given came from the asexual vlogger Swankivy, who pointed out that coming out doesn’t have to be one conversation: numerous hints over time can culminate in an eventual coming out.”
“Be confident. Don’t let anyone tell you who you are, or tell you it’s just a phase. Most people are just unaware of what asexuality really is.”
“Choose who you come out. You can do it little by little. You don´t need to go on national television or anything.”
“Don’t submit your orientation for approval. Bring up asexuality in advance, just to see how people react to it. If they react badly, perhaps rethink your plan to come out. Don’t come out unless you feel comfortable coming out. Being out is not worth compromising your safety or well-being. Don’t do Asexuality 101 unless you want to. It’s not your job to educate everyone in the world; people can respect your privacy and use basic search engines. That said, be polite about turning down questions, and direct people to other (good) resources. Expect people to bring the topic up again. Some people won’t ask questions when you first come out, but will instead do some basic research before asking you questions. You’re still not obligated to answer anything you don’t want to. Be aware that if you come out, people may assume that you are out to everyone, and may out you without your permission. If this is a problem, pull them aside and politely ask them not to do so. Most people are pretty good about respecting your privacy.”
“You don’t have to come out to everyone at once – it’s a process. Pick a time and place where you feel comfortable to have the conversation. If there’s a chance the other person will actually be violent, pick a public place, maybe a coffee shop. Otherwise, maybe somewhere more private, with a hot drink, and lots of comfort food available? Be prepared for lots of awkward questions.”
“The most important thing is to not come out to someone that you think will respond in a negative way that could hurt you. Probably the second thing to watch out for is people who might put you in a dangerous situation by outing you. If you’re nervous, email, instant messaging and texting work great to give you time to think about the conversation and your responses, as well as giving you the opportunity to easily walk away if you need to get out. It might also help to have a friend with you who can provide support. mediate, or step in and help explain if you’re having trouble.”
“Make sure you can explain the terms you choose to use.”
“Tell them as simply as you can. Address confusion or objections as they’re made clear. Pre-emptive defence is likely to make things messy. People have the right to be unhappy about your sexuality, but not to blame you for it. Don’t take objections to the concept of asexuality personally. If people have made assumptions about your sexuality, then any false conclusions they may have come to are not your fault. If you have unintentionally misled people about your sexuality, then that’s also not your fault. If you’ve intentionally misled people about your sexuality, then before you talk to them, think about that, about your reasoning for doing so and about the degree (if any) to which you owed them honesty in this area.”
“Do your research before you come out. When your friends/family come to you with questions you should know the answers and be ready to defend them. You should already know the things that people might say so they are prepared.”
“Being out is better.”
“Come prepared with background knowledge, know the bingo and don’t try to do too much at once. That means, leaving stuff like non-binary trans* people to another conversation, if you’re not trans*.”
“Prepare. Get a definition and some links, be ready to educate people, even though ideally you shouldn’t have to. I realize a lot of people have had worse experiences than I have, so maybe you should be emotionally prepared for some real issues; definitely be prepared for people not to know what you’re talking about and possibly not even to believe you.”
“Stay strong. Hold on, and find a good metaphor. A good metaphor/analogy goes a very, very long way. People will tell you it’s not a real sexuality, that’s you’re just pretending, but hold strong. People are there for you, and they love you for you. Find your LGBT community, they are usually great people who will embrace you for who you are. ”
“You need to decide how much of your life, sexual or otherwise, is anyone else’s business. Let that guide you in how much, or not, you want to come out.”
“Think about why you want to come out, and if the reasons are good, for you, then do it!”
“Be prepared for questions you don’t want to hear. You will hear them.”
“Ideally to have scouted the waters first to see what they said when asexuality came up as a topic or possibility. Other than that, just go for it and be firm that no, you really know yourself best and whatever they think is not relevant. At all. Once you’re out it’s really nice not to feel you have to hide to fit in.”
“Explain as well as you can and answer sensible questions or comments. If they start asking silly questions or making offensive comments, just walk away – they’re not worth your time.”
“Don’t let anyone tell you that what your feeling is wrong or that you are too young to know how you feel! Only you can decide how you feel, not anyone else. Also be prepared to answer questions that people might have or if you don’t want to do that, direct them to some helpful resources!”
“Before you do it, think about how much information you’re willing to share with this person, what questions you’re comfortable answering and what you want to be off-limits. You’re going to end up answering questions, and you don’t want to go into it unprepared. Have an idea of how you’re going to explain asexuality if they just don’t get it. You don’t want to feel like you’re scrambling for an explanation, or like you’re on the defensive. And be proud of yourself, because it’s not an easy thing to do.”
“I think the most important thing is to live honestly with yourself and to be honest to others. Sometimes being honest to others may require explicitly “coming out” to them. Sometimes you can just live your life how you choose and they can think of that what they want to. Don’t feel that you need to come out or to do so in a specific way if that isn’t the right thing for you and your circumstances.”
“From my experience, you don’t necessarily need to come out as asexual in order to be accepted as one.”
And I think this one says it best:
“Don’t be afraid.”
(Also take a look at the companion post about the experience of coming out as asexual.)The HBO boxing season has a good chance to end the year with a bang. Heavyweight knockout artist Luis Ortiz and top contender Bryant Jennings will meet in a toss-up fight Dec. 19 in the main event of a "Boxing After Dark" card at the Turning Stone Casino Resort in Verona, New York.
Ortiz's promoter, Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy, and Jennings' promoter, Gary Shaw, made the deal Wednesday, just days after Ortiz scored a one-sided, third-round knockout of Matias Ariel Vidondo to win a vacant interim title Saturday night at New York's Madison Square Garden on the Gennady Golovkin-David Lemieux undercard.
Ortiz's interim title will be on the line against Jennings.
Top Rank has the opening fight on the telecast (10:15 p.m. ET/PT) and made a 10-round junior lightweight bout between former featherweight titlist Nicholas "Axe Man" Walters, who is moving up in weight, and big puncher Jason Sosa.
"With a mix of speed, power and amateur pedigree that is second-to-none, Luis Ortiz has quickly established himself as a force in the heavyweight division," De La Hoya said. "Luis is so hungry to continue his rise in the division that he has agreed to fight an enormously talented opponent in Bryant Jennings just two months after Luis' destruction of Matias Vidondo."
Said Shaw, "It's my pleasure to bring another great heavyweight showdown to the boxing fans, with Bryant Jennings taking on an undefeated fighter like Luis Ortiz. The fans know that I have always, and will continue, to put on real, competitive fights."
Heavyweight Luis Ortiz, left, scored a third-round knockout of Matias Ariel Vidondo last Saturday on the Gennady Golovkin-David Lemieux undercard. Al Bello/Getty Images
Ortiz, 36, said he was anxious to get back into the ring as soon as possible following Saturday's win.
"To headline an HBO event and fighting a former world title contender like Jennings is what I have been preparing my whole career for," said Ortiz, a southpaw and former Cuban amateur standout. "I know that after this fight people will know that I deserve a shot at becoming the heavyweight champion of the world. I think Jennings doesn't even know what he's stepping into on Dec. 19.
"I'm coming to make a statement. This fight is going to be an exciting stepping-stone to achieve my dream."
In September 2014, Ortiz (23-0, 20 KOs) knocked out Lateef Kayode in brutal fashion in the first round to win the same interim title in Las Vegas. However, Ortiz tested positive for a banned steroid after the bout. He was fined and suspended, the result was changed to a no-decision and the belt was taken away from him. He has won two fights in a row since, but because of his history with performance-enhancing drugs, he and Jennings will both undergo random drug testing by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association.
"Great matchup. Big puncher versus very athletic boxer who can take a punch and has very good movement," Shaw said. "I don't believe that Ortiz has fought anyone like Jennings, and he will be moving up to a different level.
"Ortiz has never faced a challenge of a Philadelphia fighter like Bryant Jennings, and he's going to find out real quick that this is another level. Jennings is ready to continue his quest to become heavyweight champion with VADA testing agreed to by both promotional companies for this fight."
Jennings (19-1, 10 KOs), 31, had a shot at the heavyweight championship on April 25, going 12 hard rounds in a decision loss to champion Wladimir Klitschko. Although Jennings lost a one-sided fight, he fought better than many thought he would.
"I'm excited to be getting back in the ring against Luis Ortiz, another big heavyweight," Jennings said. "He's coming off an impressive win, and he thinks he's at the top of his game. These are the typical type of opponents I like to showcase my skills against.
"I've come a long way since my last fight against Klitschko, and I have continued to train with a fierce intensity. When you suffer defeat for the first time, you learn things about yourself you never knew. I've improved a great deal on all aspects of my game, both mentally and physically. The world will see a great fight when I square off against Ortiz. That I can guarantee you. I'll be driving the WBA [interim] belt back home to Philly.
"The Klitschko fight was a good learning experience. To me the 'L' wasn't' for 'loss.' It was for 'learn.'"
Said Shaw, "[Jennings] showed in his last fight versus Klitschko that he belongs with the elite heavyweights and understands the challenges that lie ahead. Ortiz, who brings a high knockout ratio to the ring, will have his hands full, and Jennings is nothing like the fighter he just fought, whom he knocked out in the third round."
Jennings was offered an opportunity to face Ortiz on the Golovkin-Lemieux card but turned it down, a decision he said he does not regret.
"The money wasn't that good," Jennings said. "They gave us a number, and we said no, and they didn't budge. Then, they brought him up again, and I said, 'Oh, yeah? Well all right, what are they talking about?' My manager [James Prince] did his thing, and he came back with what I was satisfied with.
"I'm glad I turned down the fight before. It makes more sense for me now and for him. It's bigger now."
Former featherweight titlist Nicholas "Axe Man" Walter, right, here beating Miguel Marriaga in their June fight, moves up in weight to fight Jason Sosa in a 10-round junior lightweight bout on Dec. 19. Mikey Williams/TopRank
Jennings said he has seen only a brief clip of Ortiz knocking out Kayode but that he expects a competitive fight. He said he won't see anything he hasn't seen before, considering he has been facing quality opponents in recent fights, including Klitschko, Mike Perez and Artur Szpilka.
"I'm not cocky, but I'm confident in my ability to find ways to win," Jennings said. "I've been in with some stiff competition. I don't think I'll see anything new, but every heavyweight has power, and, you know, he's an older guy. I do have the youth advantage. Who knows why he needed to take the steroids, but hopefully, he learned his lesson."
Walters (26-0, 21 KOs), 29, of Jamaica, was stripped of his featherweight title for failing to make the 126-pound weight limit the day before what was supposed to be a defense against amateur nemesis Miguel Marriaga. The fight went on anyway, with Walters winning a lopsided decision in a non-title bout and electing to move up 130 pounds.
Sosa (18-1-3, 14 KOs), 27, of Camden, New Jersey, hasn't lost since a first-round knockout in his fifth pro fight in 2010.
"It's an explosive match of styles," Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti said. "The 130-pound division is interesting, and this will make it even hotter. It's a step up for Jason, but it's a big opportunity. Walters needs to come back with a strong performance because of the weight issues in his last fight. He won, but the weight hurt him, and it was a disappointing performance. We'll see how he looks at the new weight. This is a chance on a big card for both guys to make a statement."
Said Hall of Fame promoter Russell Peltz, who co-promotes Sosa with Top Rank, "Sosa's trainer [Raul 'Chino' Rivas] said grab it when we were offered the fight. He's not doing it for the money. He's doing it to prove he's in the league with the top guys. He believes anyone he can hit, he can get out of there. It's a big step up, but he feels he can do it. And how do you turn down a fight on HBO?"At Republican presidential debate
“Wages are too high,” declares billionaire Trump
By Patrick Martin
12 November 2015
Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate began with something rare in American political life: an open expression of class policy, in which the billionaire who leads the Republican field declared his opposition to any pay increase for the tens of millions of workers making poverty wages, on the grounds that low pay was necessary to make American capitalism more competitive.
In the first question posed to the field of eight Republican candidates, Donald Trump was asked whether he was sympathetic to demands for an immediate hike in the minimum wage to $15 an hour. He replied, “I can’t be … and the reason I can’t be is that we are a country that is being beaten on every front economically.”
He went on to add that in his view, taxes were “too high, wages too high, we’re not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave it [the minimum wage, now $7.25 an hour] the way it is. People have to go out, they have to work really hard …”
The candidates currently second and third in polls of likely Republican voters gave similar responses. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson claimed, “Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases. It’s particularly a problem in the black community. Only 19.8 percent of black teenagers have a job … and that’s because of those high wages. If you lower those wages, that comes down.”
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was asked a different question, but insisted on responding on the minimum wage issue. “If I thought that raising the minimum wage was the best way to help people increase their pay, I would be all for it,” he said, “but it isn’t. In the 20th century, it’s a disaster. If you raise the minimum wage, you’re going to make people more expensive than a machine. And that means all this automation that’s replacing jobs and people right now is only going to be accelerated.”
These statements, which took up less than 10 minutes, revealed more about the nature of class relations in America than all the debates and campaign speeches, and all the campaign commentaries that have filled up countless hours on broadcast and cable television and endless column inches in the national press.
Wages are “too high,” says the capitalist Trump, and make it more difficult for American companies to compete in the world market. The solution to unemployment is to “lower those wages,” says Dr. Carson, a multi-millionaire Christian fundamentalist now tied with Trump in many polls. If you raise the minimum wage, “it’s a disaster,” says Senator Rubio, who is increasingly viewed as the consensus choice of Wall Street and the Republican Party establishment for the nomination.
None of the other Republican candidates raised any objection to these sentiments, which make nonsense of all their posturing in the remainder of the debate about defending the “middle class,” fighting for “good jobs,” or bemoaning the growth of poverty, food stamp use, small business bankruptcies and other indicators of the deepening social and economic crisis of American capitalism.
The question to Trump was provoked by the nationwide demonstrations Tuesday by fast food workers demanding a $15 an hour wage, which culminated in a rally of several thousand workers outside the Milwaukee theater where the Republican debate was held. The “Fight for 15” campaign has been organized by a section of the trade unions, led by the Service Employees International Union, with the backing of pseudo-left groups like the International Socialist Organization and Socialist Alternative.
These organizations are trying to channel the legitimate anger of the young workers participating in these protests into the dead end of support for the Democratic Party in the 2016 elections. Bernie Sanders addressed one of the Fight for 15 rallies, while Hillary Clinton—who only backs a raise in the minimum wage to $12 an hour—tweeted her support.
The Democratic Party in power, however, in the person of President Barack Obama, has pursued the same basic economic program outlined by Trump, Carson and Rubio. The Obama administration forced through a 50 percent wage cut for new hires in the auto industry, to as little as $14 an hour, as part of its bailout of GM and Chrysler (now FCA) in 2009. This was necessary, the White House declared, in order to make the auto industry competitive with its foreign rivals.
Outright wage-cutting was combined with Obama’s phony health care “reform,” aimed at cutting the cost of benefits for American employers, and the refusal of the administration, with a Democratic Congress in 2009-2010, to raise the minimum wage or index it to inflation. As a result of this inaction, the federal minimum wage has been frozen at $7.25 an hour for more than six years. Considering inflation, low-paid workers have taken a severe wage cut under Obama.
Cutting US wage levels in order to boost the profits of American companies and make them more competitive in the world market is the axis of Obama’s policy of encouraging “in-sourcing” by US corporations. As Obama boasted in his 2014 State of the Union address, “for the first time in over a decade, business leaders around the world have declared that China is no longer the world’s number one place to invest; America is.” A major element of this “success” is the slashing of US production costs to near Chinese levels.
There is a cynical irony in the promotion of the “Fight for 15” slogan by the unions and the Democrats. It is not low-wage workers who will be lifted up to $15 an hour, but those at higher wages, like first-tier workers at GM, Ford and FCA, who are being reduced to that level. $15 an hour is not to be the floor under the living standards of the working class, but the ceiling.
What the Republicans demand in brutally reactionary terms—cut wages, cut benefits, boost profits—the Democrats actually implement, even while disguising the effect of their policies under a cloud of populist rhetoric, with the political assistance of the unions and the pseudo-left. The contradiction between words and actions is so stark that in the 2016 election campaign, the Democrats have had to resort to a self-proclaimed “socialist,” Senator Sanders, to give their pro-Wall Street program a left cover.
The political lesson for the working class is clear. The defense of living standards and decent-paying jobs requires a break with both the parties of big business, the Democrats as much as the Republicans. The working class must build an independent mass political movement of its own, based on a socialist program. Workers must fight for a drastic redistribution of wealth and income: the confiscation of the vast wealth of the super-rich, and the reorganization of economic life to serve the needs of the vast majority of working people, not private profit.
The author also recommends:
Obama’s low-wage “recovery”
[31 January 2014]
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.More developers use Google Cloud Platform to run their containerized applications (52 percent) than either Microsoft Azure (49 percent) or Amazon Web Services (43 percent), according to a a freely downloadable infographic released today by Seattle container-acceleration firm Shippable.
The survey of 300 developers found that though only 14 percent are now using containers in development or test environments, 89 percent are likely to increase their use of containers within the next year. Those not using containers most often cited as reasons their lack of in-house skills, the technology’s immaturity, inappropriate infrastructure, fear of security risks and unclear ROI.
Google also led as a container registry, with 54 saying they use it, versus 45 percent for Amazon’s EC2 and 34 percent for Docker Hub. Fully 58 percent of respondents said they use GitHub as a resource or tool, while 27 percent use Atlassian, 23 percent each use Jenkins and Puppet and 19 percent use Chef.
Nearly three-quarters (74 percent) said they’re shipping new software faster because of container technology.We can’t wait to catch up with little Gizmo (Picture: Allstar/WARNER BROS)
Director Chris Columbus has revealed some exciting developments for the new Gremlins film.
Although 31 years since the first flick hit the big screen, Chris, who helmed the original, is back on board along with Steven Spielberg and sounded confident when speaking at CinemaCon in Las Vegas recently.
Confirming that a ‘writer’ was attached, the 56-year-old told MTV News: ‘I know what the take is, I can’t talk about it, but I was approached to do the sequel to Gremlins way back when.
Filmmaker Chris Columbus has a clear vision of what he wants from a new film (Picture: Michael Buckner/Getty)
‘That was before the power of the franchise. I was like, “Nah, the first movie exists, it’s great the way it is. Why spoil it with a sequel, or a bunch of sequels?” ‘
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Yeah, why Chris?
‘Well, time has passed, and I’ve seen what happens when sequels can actually work… So I was open to the idea, and I think we have a really good take.’
Could original bad guy Stripe make a return? (Picture: Allstar/WARNER BROS)
1984 dark comedy Gremlins starring Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates was a box office hit and has since become a cult classic. 1990 follow-up Gremlins 2: The New Batch… meh, not quite so much, choosing more of a spoof-comedy route.
For those worried that this will be just another remake, fear not, with Chris assuring: ‘It’s a completely different direction… it’s not a remake of the first movie at all … It’s the same universe, the same rules, same Gremlins, but not the same.’
MORE: Goonies 2: Is the most anticipated sequel of all time now off?
MORE: Oh my Star Sprinkles – a new retro style Rainbow Brite doll is on the way
MORE: Gremlins reboot is happening and original star Zach Galligan wants a roleLet’s assume that you wish to call a method that has a return value and also accepts an out variable, but you do not wish to use the contents of the out variable that will be returned.
So far we were creating a dummy variable that will later not be used, or discarded.
With C# 7 you can now use Discards
Discards are local variables which you can assign a value to them and that value cannot be read (discarded). In essence they are “write-only” variables.
These discards do not have names, but rather they are represented with a _ (underscore).
So let’s go with the following example.
Assume we have a ConcurrentQueue of integers, from which we wish to dequeue something, without actually using that something.
What would we do?
int outDummy; if(m_myQueue.TryDequeue(out outDummy)) { //do something here } else { //do something else here } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 int outDummy ; if ( m_myQueue. TryDequeue ( out outDummy ) ) { //do something here } else { //do something else here }
Now, with C# 7 we can utilize discards.
if(m_myQueue.TryDequeue(out _)) { //do something here } else { //do something else here } 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 if ( m_myQueue. TryDequeue ( out _ ) ) { //do something here } else { //do something else here }
And the value that has been dequeued will not and can not be used.
For example the following piece of code
int x = 0; if(m_myQueue.TryDequeue(out _)) { x = _; } 1 2 3 4 5 int x = 0 ; if ( m_myQueue. TryDequeue ( out _ ) ) { x = _ ; }
will not compile, nor will it appear in IntelliSense.
Please remember though, that since _ is a contextual keyword, if you declare a variable with the name _ the variable will be used.
int x = 0; int _; if(m_myQueue.TryDequeue(out _)) { x = _; } 1 2 3 4 5 6 int x = 0 ; int _ ; if ( m_myQueue. TryDequeue ( out _ ) ) { x = _ ; }
In the above code, the value that will removed from the queue will be assigned to the variable x, as in the above case the underscore is used as a variable and not as a discard.
Conclusion
The discards in C# enables a way to ignore some local variables, it is a design time feature.
At runtime a variable may be required and the compiler may generate a name for it.
Since the _ keyword is a contextual keyword, you need to set a code policy to avoid declaring local variables with the name _ to reduce confusions.
This feature is compatible with previous versions of.NET platforms as it does not require a CLR change.9th November 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine
This afternoon in al-Khalil (Hebron), ISM activists witnessed a Zionist settler push a 10-year-old child to the ground. The settler was driving close to Salaymeh checkpoint, through a group of Palestinian schoolchildren walking home. He suddenly stopped, exited his car, and violently pushed the young boy.
ISM activists who saw the incident tried to speak to nearby Israeli border police, who stated that they had not seen anything, so were unable to take action. The ISM’ers pointed out that the settler was still present, and the young boy was crying and bleeding, and then the officers
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is totally hidden at the end so the transition DIV doesn't interfere with the rest of the document.
Checking for browser support for @keyframe animations, hiding document scrollbars
Our page transition makes use of CSS transitions, keyframe animations (for the spinner), and the CSS classList API (for adding/removing CSS classes), all of which come with their own mixed bag of browser support. For our purpose we want to make sure the browser supports @keyframe animations and the classList API before giving the transition any screen time; otherwise it should just be dismissed ASAP.
To check for CSS3 @keyframe animation support, we can simply turn to this snippet by MDN, while making sure the browser supports Element.classList is even simpler. The following final JavaScript code incorporates the aforementioned checks to hide the page transition immediately if any one of them fails. It also hides the document scrollbars while the transition is visible:
;(function(){ // Final page transition code var animation = false, animationstring = 'animation', keyframeprefix = '', domPrefixes = 'Webkit Moz O ms Khtml'.split(' '), pfx = '', elm = document.createElement('div'); if( elm.style.animationName!== undefined ) { animation = true; } if( animation === false ) { for( var i = 0; i < domPrefixes.length; i++ ) { if( elm.style[ domPrefixes[i] + 'AnimationName' ]!== undefined ) { pfx = domPrefixes[ i ]; animationstring = pfx + 'Animation'; keyframeprefix = '-' + pfx.toLowerCase() + '-'; animation = true; break; } } } var minloadingtime = 100 var maxloadingtime = 3000 var startTime = new Date() var elapsedTime var dismissonloadfunc, maxloadingtimer if (animation && document.documentElement && document.documentElement.classList){ document.documentElement.classList.add('hidescrollbar') window.addEventListener('load', dismissonloadfunc = function(){ // when page loads clearTimeout(maxloadingtimer) // cancel dismissal of transition after maxloadingtime time elapsedTime = new Date() - startTime // get time elapsed once page has loaded var hidepageloadertimer = (elapsedTime > minloadingtime)? 0 : minloadingtime - elapsedTime setTimeout(function(){ document.getElementById('pageloader').classList.add('dimissloader') // dismiss transition }, hidepageloadertimer) setTimeout(function(){ document.documentElement.classList.remove('hidescrollbar') }, hidepageloadertimer + 100) // 100 is the duration of the fade out effect }, false) maxloadingtimer = setTimeout(function(){ // force dismissal of page transition after maxloadingtime time window.removeEventListener('load', dismissonloadfunc, false) // cancel onload event function call document.getElementById('pageloader').classList.add('dimissloader') // dismiss transition setTimeout(function(){ document.documentElement.classList.remove('hidescrollbar') }, 100) // 100 is the duration of the fade out effect }, maxloadingtime) } else{ document.getElementById('pageloader').style.display = 'none' } })();
At the top we include the code for checking @keyframes support, which sets the animation variable to true if the browser supports CSS3 animations. The main body that dismisses the page transition after a certain length of time is then only executed if the browser supports both CSS animations and the classList API ( element.classList ). Otherwise, the transition DIV is hidden immediately.
Notice inside the main BODY how we're also adding a CSS class " hidescrollbar " to the document root while the transition is visible just for good measure; as the class name implies, this is to hide any document scrollbars while the transition is in session. Here is the corresponding CSS definition that makes that happen:
html.hidescrollbar{ overflow: hidden; } html.hidescrollbar body{ overflow: hidden; }
Here is the end result again, a lightweight page intro transition!
Bonus- implementing an "outro" transition when the page unloads
Here's a bonus for the page transition we just looked at- adding an "outro" effect that kicks in when the user leaves the current page. A common outro effect entails fading out the current page before the browser loads a new one.
Recall that we utilized window's onload event as a trigger for the original, "intro" transition. For an outro, another one of window's events comes in handy- the beforeunload event. It fires just before the page is about to be unloaded. Using this event, we can add a CSS class to the document BODY that applies a transition just before the user is whisked away to another page, such as fading the page out. Here is the additional CSS and JavaScript that accomplishes this:
/* Outro BODY fadeout CSS class */ body.fadeout{ opacity: 0; transition: all 1s; }
/* JavaScript to add.fadeout class to page just before it unloads */ window.addEventListener('beforeunload', function(){ document.body.classList.add('fadeout') }, false)
We've defined the.fadeout class to fade out the BODY element over the course of 1 second when dynamically added to that element. In reality the transition may not reach the finish line before the page is unloaded and a new page takes its place, as the " beforeunload " event doesn't wait for any transition to finish before kicking in. In general, however, it takes around.5s to 1s after clicking on a link before the current page is overwritten, hence the 1s setting. The result is an easy outro effect, albeit slightly unrefined. Here is the original page transition demo with such an outro transition added:
Page Transition Demo with additional outro added
Click on one of the links at the bottom of the page above to exit the page and see the fade out effect.
Lastly, for those of you who cannot accept an outro transition that can be cut short at times, a more precise approach would be to use JavaScript to hijack outgoing links so they don't trigger immediately, but rather, after the desired outro transition has finished running. But that's for another day and another tutorial.
End of TutorialThis goes 17 minutes, and it was put out by Keep The Promise, which is a pro-Ted Cruz PAC. It’s a biographical film on Cruz and how he came about his Christianity and his embrace of constitutional conservatism – which come together in a cogent philosophy he expresses perhaps better than any Republican politician since Ronald Reagan.
The first five minutes is really worth your time if you don’t have the whole 17, as it tells the story of Gaylen Wiley, the pastor who led Cruz’ father Rafael to God and subsequently baptized the Cruz family. Wiley later retired to Tennessee, and Ted Cruz hadn’t seen him in nearly four decades until Wiley turned up at a rally he held in Murphreesboro, outside of Nashville.
For whatever reason, there are people calling themselves conservatives who are throwing in with Donald Trump now, and the outcome of a lot of the early primaries – at least according to the media wisdom – seems to be settling that Trump will be the winner of the Republican nomination. If this is true, it’s a waste and a missed opportunity.
Donald Trump isn’t a conservative, and Donald Trump – for the admitted good he’s done in laying waste to the idiocy of political correctness and changing American politics into a much more open forum for the discussion of ideas that a year ago were all but forbidden – is not the champion of the little man he purports to be. Trump is a faux-populist who practices Politics For Dummies by throwing out red-meat sentiments to rile up a mob. But if you pay attention to Trump he’s not using his demagogic talents in service of any cogent philosophy; they’re little more than rhetorical diarrhea.
To endorse Trump over Cruz is a surrender. It’s the easy way out. Polls of people who may or may not even vote show Trump in the lead, largely because of low-information voters who haven’t a clue what they’re actually supporting and have no concept of what conservatism is. If you sign on to that, you’re either a sellout or a groupie. And no, this line of rhetoric saying Cruz can’t win the general election and Trump can is not remotely true. It isn’t supported by polling, and it isn’t supported by history.
Does that mean Trump is unsupportable against Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? Of course not. Anyone calling himself a conservative who prattles about how they’d cross the aisle if he were the nominee, or vote 3rd party, or stay home is little more than a drama queen.
But you can’t see Trump’s rhetorical jumble and reality-TV road show as anything other than inferior to the presentation of a cogent philosophy. That’s what Cruz offers, and the video above shows where it comes from.MOGA: Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday accused the ruling SAD (Badal) of promoting drug addiction among youth during its rally in Moga. AAP leaders said that as against the Akali Dal policy of protecting people involved in drug peddling, their party would eliminate the menace from the state in two months if it came to power.Central and state leadership of the party asserted that saving Punjabi youth from drug addiction would be their main agenda. A massive crowd had assembled at Moga grain market for the rally.Addressing the rally, Punjab affairs in-charge Sanjay Singh said, "Ruling SAD is not only promoting drugs, but is highly corrupt and irresponsible, which has economically ruined the state that once boasted highest per capita income." He said due to wrong policies of SAD and Congress, Punjab had reached the 17th spot in governance and economic conditions with a high debt.Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann said, "Once, scales of SAD (its party symbol) stood for justice, but now they weigh falsehood, smack and heroin. Akali Dal, which claims to be farmer friendly, is proving to be the biggest enemy of farmers."Punjab AAP convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur said candidates with clean image would be given party tickets and clean administration would be provided to people of the state. He advised police and administrative officials to not become party to SAD diktats and provide justice or they would be taken to task if AAP formed the government in 2017. Faridkot MP Sadhu Singh, Delhi MLA Jarnail Singh, Himmat Singh Shergill and AAP women wing state convener Baljinder Kaur were also present.The follow-up novel titled "Doctor Sleep" will go on sale in September 2013.
Stephen King revealed the release date for his novel Doctor Sleep, a sequel to The Shining, will be Sept. 24, 2013.
The author posted the news on his website this morning.
The Shining was published in 1977 and served as the basis for the hit 1980 movie starring Jack Nicholson.
King previewed a portion of the book during a reading at George Mason University on Sept. 23, 2011.
A recap of the event said the book will follow Danny Torrance, the son from the original, into adulthood.
According to i09, "Danny is a hospice worker who uses his powers to help ill patients to pass away without pain. Unfortunately, he runs afoul of a gang of wandering psychic vampires who feed on people's energy."
See a video of King's reading here.The 2012 Chicago Pipe Show Report May 11th, 2012
Ethan Brandt
How to describe the Chicago Pipe Show? A lot of different words come to mind: pipes, of course, but great times with friends, some that you never even knew before you arrived, wonderful conversation, and one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. I was warned by Brad Pohlmann before I even attended the show that it would be Sunday night before I knew it. He was right, but after looking forward to the show for months, I enjoyed every moment of it and formed some memories that I know will last a lifetime, not to mention acquiring some really gorgeous "memorabilia".
Officially, the show is known as The 2012 Chicagoland International Pipe and Tobacciana Show, but if everyone said that every time their talked about it, it would be too much of a mouthful, so it is lovingly known as the "Chicago Pipe Show". This year, just as in past years, it was held at the Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, IL, a little less than an hour from Chicago proper. The show itself took place on Saturday, May 5th, and Sunday, May 6th; there were however, plenty of fantastic events going on for a lot of the week beforehand!
Before getting into the show itself, I have to give credit for their choice of locale. The Pheasant Run Resort is a great place to stay and an even better choice for a pipe show. Not only is the resort itself beautiful, equipped with both an indoor and outdoor pool, a golf course, and a fully-functioning spa, but the accommodations that they made to support us pipe smokers were really outstanding. I’m really glad that such a fantastic show has the support of the community that benefits from it.
I arrived at the resort late Thursday night, which, despite the fact that the show did not officially start until two days later, made me one of the late ones. As soon as we arrived—my girlfriend, Lauren, was kind enough to come to the show with me—we checked in, dropped our things off in our beautiful room, and set out to discover where the smoking tent was. I had been getting phone calls for the last hour from Dustin Babitzke, Nick Miller, and Adam Davidson wondering what was taking me so long, so I knew I shouldn’t delay.
By the time I got there, it was after eleven in the evening and I expected the place to be deserted: O, ye of little faith! At my estimate, I would say there were still over sixty people in the tent, some smoking cigars, most smoking pipes, but everyone was smiling. That night I was able to meet people whose work I had long admired, like Michail Revyagin, Alex Florov, Adam Remington, Steve Morrisette, and Brad Pohlmann.
As soon as I sat down next to Dustin B., I was hauled up from the table by Adam Davidson, literally by my ponytail, as he took me around the tent introducing me to more people and showing me a plethora of beautiful pipes, contained in metal cases, which made me feel like I should be delivering the pipes to some country’s ambassador through the cover of darkness. I ended up spending the rest of Thursday evening in the smoking tent with Lauren, Nick Miller, Steve Morrisette, Adam Remington, and John Crosby, and a number of others, sharing laughs, drinks, and pipes.
Friday morning is the unofficial start of the Chicago Pipe Show. From 9:00 AM until 4:00 PM that day is what was previously known as the "Pre-Show", but is now called the Smoke and Swap. Let me tell you, there was a lot of both going on in the smoking tent that morning!
The way the Smoke and Swap worked this year was that anyone, even if you were not an official vendor, could sign up for use of a half-table to show your wares, make and receive offers, and trade. From what I saw, there was a lot of buying going on during the Smoke and Swap, as there had been the previous evening. By the time I got down to the tent, which was just half-an-hour after all the fun had started, Steve Liskey already had two pipes with a SOLD sign below them. "People saw the bamboo and just went crazy," he told me. After seeing the bamboo myself, I can’t say that I blame them.
Adam Remington’s table was right next to Steve’s, with Bruce Weaver’s right next to Adam’s. With the three of these incredibly talented and fun guys in such close proximity, it was difficult to drag myself anywhere else in the tent. I did, though, and I saw a lot of great pipes for sale and met a lot of class acts. One group of people that I ran into was the Order of Collegiate Pipe Smokers, a group of younger guys all with matching t-shirts and a common interest in pipes. It did my heart proud.
Also that evening, the Chicago Pipe Show had a first ever occurrence: a wedding. The beautiful wedding ceremony brought together Seattle Pipe Club member Tom Wolfe and his lovely bride, Lennea. I know everyone at the show and everyone reading this now wishes them both continued happiness (and many more pipe shows)!
After getting cleaned up that evening, it was time to head down to the Welcome Buffet Dinner, a seven-course dinner topped off with a complementary tin of Sutliff Private Stock. There were a couple brief welcome speeches, shortly after which our table was joined by five gentlemen from Sweden, including Martin Vollmer and Anders Nilsson.
After dinner and some bottles of a nice red wine, we headed over to the smoking tent to listen to a talk given by none-other than Kevin Godbee, the man behind this very magazine. Jokingly, but very accurately, he said that he initially thought about titling his speech, "Ask not what the pipe hobby can do for you, ask what you can do for the pipe hobby". Kevin discussed, in-depth, the state of the pipe hobby today, including the resurgence of the younger pipe smoker, and the legislative challenges that it faces with RYO cigarette tobacco, the FDA and flavoring issues. Mr. Godbee also discussed what we as pipe smokers can do to help our beloved hobby flourish and survive for generations to come.
After testing out the blends for this year’s John Cotton Throwdown, of which there is separate coverage, and having a deep discussion with Martin Vollmer over gin and tonic, it was around one in the morning and time to get some rest for what I expected would be a very full day.
I was right.
There was so much going on at the show that it is difficult to convey through just words and pictures. The energy that took place in the Mega Center was palpable; the sounds of excitement were everywhere. Even making it down into the Mega Center early, as I was helping Dustin set up his incredible collection of blowfish pipes, it was still difficult to get everywhere and see everything. As Kevin has specifically instructed me to be brief, no easy task for me, especially when describing such a mind-bogglingly incredible event, I will do my best to describe a select few exhibitors present at the 2012 Chicagoland International Pipe and Tobacciana Show.
Educational Displays
Right when you walk through the door of the Mega Center, you are greeted by four glass cases filled with pipes. Above each one is a sign reading, "Education Display", followed by the name of the collector responsible for amassing such an amazing agglomeration.
Two of the cases were devoted to Bobby Eichorn’s collection of Charatan pipes, which contained a variety that was a true pleasure to behold. Sadly, I was unable to speak to him, as he was constantly surrounded by such a flock of admirers that Gene Simmons would have been envious.
On the other side of the aisle were two collections: the first was entirely devoted to the bulldog and rhodesian shapes. When I spoke to Paige Simms, the gentleman who had spent so much time collecting one of my favorite shapes, he pulled out one of the pipes and said, "This is the one that started it all." It was a perfect Dunhill that had clearly been loved and appreciated for many years. "It really doesn’t get much better," he said.
The last collection was Dustin Babitzke’s aquarium of blowfish. While helping set up this display, I was able to see exactly what it takes to pull together a collection like his and like those belong to the other men: the variety of shape and size, the intricate details captured perfectly by different pipes, the way one pipe would complement another. It was truly a treat to see these collections up close.
Cornell & Diehl New Blend - Crooked Lane
At this year’s show, Cornell and Diehl officially introduced Crooked Lane to the world, a tobacco that sung beautifully in my Rubens Rhodesian and did everything a good English should do. According to the tin, "Cornell and Diehl harkens back to Old London with Crooked Lane, a rich and full English blend of Virginias, Latakia, a dose of Oriental and a whisper of Perique. We like to think something similar was a favorite of the artisans who for centuries have made Crooked Lane a world-wide destination for their fishing gear and bird cages. Fill your bowl and join us for a stroll!" A walk down a London market place with this in my pipe sounds like heaven.
Also officially introduced at the show, though some of you might have gotten your mitts on it beforehand, was G.L. Pease’s Sextant. You can read the pre-release teaser for Sextant here, but Mr. Pease himself describes the new blend as something that "defies categorization somewhat. While it has many similarities to a conventional, traditional mixture, the infusion of dark rum, and the addition of fire-cured Kentucky, especially when combined with the pressing and fermentation that occurs as a result, give it a unique sweetness and aroma." [Source:http://glpease.com/Tobacco/OldLondon/ - follow the link for more info.]
Neat Pipes
Hailing all the way from Rozzano, a municipality in the Province of Milan in the Italian region of Lombardy, is Neat Pipes, the brain-child of Luca Di Piazza. Along with displaying a phenomenal collection of pipes, from carvers all around the world, the table also featured Luciano Pipes, another creation of Luca’s. The display was lovely and it was really a pleasure to see so many people dedicated to the pipe from around the world in one place at one time.
Lee Von Erck - Von Erck Pipes
I also got the chance to talk with Lee while at the Chicago Pipe Show, though it took me a little hunting to find him; he always seemed to be off somewhere, shaking hands and sharing a laugh.
Being a pipe smoker himself for over fifty years, Lee knows exactly what a pipe smoker is looking for in a pipe and aims to deliver every time. He told me that he now makes around a hundred pipes a year, mostly because his oil curing and blasting process are both extremely time consuming. "It takes a long time," Lee said, "I could do a lot more pipes if I used a simpler blasting technique. But just look at it." Lee gestures towards one of the few remaining pipes on his table. "It’s worth it."
I couldn’t help but agree with him. Lee also told me that he is now closely working with Tsuge pipes on a collaborative project, for which he provides his oil curing and shaping expertise. Of the over a dozen pipes he brought with him to the show, all but a couple were gone by Sunday morning. Lee told me that he had even sold one pipe that had not been finished yet.
SmokingPipes.com
A presence very difficult to miss at almost any pipe show is the SmokingPipes.com table. This year, as in years past, they came out with a sizeable staff that was both knowledgeable and helpful. staff, including Tony Saintiague who came back just to help with the show and share his passion. [ Editor's note : Tony is "Vice Chairman, VP Emeritus" at SPC. He left daily operations to pursue his studies"]. Master Pipe carver Hiroyuki Tokutomi was at the table, as well, along with fellow master Kei-ichi Gotoh. Through the help of a translator, I was able speak with both of these men and, with Tokutomi’s assistance, found a pipe of his the perfect size for Lauren to enjoy: a beautiful, black, sandblasted pipe with a bamboo stem that weighs about as much as a feather.
PipesAndCigars.com
PipesAndCigars was represented by the owner of the company, Scott Bendett, E-Commerce Manager, Bob Gates and other staff. Russ Ouellette was unable to attend the show due to illness, but a huge free sampling of his plethora of delicious Hearth & Home tobacco blends were available for smoking. They told me that the new Cerberus blend (that came out for International Pipe Smoking Day) was so popular that it sold out, but will soon be back in stock. The new New York Pipe Club Tobacco Blends were also being sampled, and a very impressive brand new print catalog was being handed out.
Maxim Engel - Pipes2Smoke.com
With a name like Pipes2Smoke, it’s pretty easy to figure what Maxim Engel is selling, but when I saw the pipes he brought with them, all I could do was stare. Clearly noticing my drool, Maxim approached me with a smile and took the time out of his clearly busy routine to talk pipes and ask me which ones I liked in particular. It was honestly hard for me to pick one and luckily I didn’t have to, as I would have just politely asked to be able to take them all home with me for a little test.
Mac Baren Tobacco Co.
Following in their recent tradition of releasing a new blend at the Chicago Pipe Show, Mac Baren Tobacco introduced HH Old Dark Fired. Much like everything this company releases, Old Dark Fired has been highly anticipated and will surely be just as appreciated. After snagging one of the first tins of this new blend, I got a chance to look at the back label: A bold flake of dark-fired burleys in a well balanced unity with Flue-cured Virginias. This flake is Hot Pressed, meaning that during the pressing, heat is added by steam to the tobaccos which causes the tobacco to intensify the marrying process giving us a bolder tobacco. The robust, earthly flavour of the dark-fired burleys shines through in the taste, and you will experience a deeply satisfying smoke indeed.
One of the most fascinating parts about this tobacco that will be sure to confuse a lot of American pipe smokers is that, despite the fact that HH Old Dark Fired contains zero Latakia, Mac Baren still considers it an English because of the method used in its production, specifically the steam press. According to Per Jensen, Mac Baren Product Manager, the steam press makes it so that the "tobaccos marry faster and in a completely different way than what we normally produce. In short, they alter the taste. This blend is a heavy/strong tobacco with a lot of vitamin N."
The 2012 Chicago Show was a stupendous, exhilarating, and unbelievably fun time. Leaving was a downer, but I am already looking forward to the next pipe show and next year in Chicago.
Photos by Ethan Brandt and Kevin Godbee
Ethan Brandt is a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, majoring in Religious Studies and English with a Pre-Law focus. He picked up his first pipe his Freshman year in college and never looked back. Recently, he has start up a pipe-focused blog called Pipe School.
2011 Chicago Show ReportFreddie Freeman entered the record books Wednesday, hitting for the cycle in Atlanta's 9-8 extra-innings victory over the Reds at Turner Field. Freeman's cycle is the first in the Majors since the Padres' Matt Kemp did it against the Rockies on Aug. 14 last season.
Freddie Freeman entered the record books Wednesday, hitting for the cycle in Atlanta's 9-8 extra-innings victory over the Reds at Turner Field. Freeman's cycle is the first in the Majors since the Padres' Matt Kemp did it against the Rockies on Aug. 14 last season.
Here's are 10 facts and figures from Freeman's rare feat:
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• Freeman is now the seventh player in Braves franchise history to hit for the cycle and the third since the team moved to Atlanta. He's the first to do it since Mark Kotsay on Aug. 14, 2008. The other Braves to accomplish the feat are Albert Hall (1987), Bill Collins (1910 Boston Doves), Johnny Bates (1907 Doves), Duff Cooley (1904 Boston Beaneaters) and Herman Long (1896 Beaneaters).
Video: CIN@ATL: Freeman ties up the game on a solo tater
• Kotsay is the only other player to hit for the cycle at Turner Field. It's possible he and Freeman go down as the only two to ever do so at that ballpark as the team will no longer play its home games there after this season.
• Players who have hit for the cycle
• This was the 12th cycle completed against the Reds since 1913 and the fifth since 2004. The last to do it against Cincinnati was Michael Cuddyer for the Rockies in the second game of a doubleheader on Aug. 17, 2014.
• This was the first cycle at a National League ballpark other than Coors Field since Arizona's Aaron Hill did it at Milwaukee's Miller Park on June 29, 2012. Since then, the last three cycles at NL parks had occurred in Denver.
Video: CIN@ATL: Freeman laces a triple to right field
• Freeman is the first player to hit for the cycle when starting at first base since Aubrey Huff for the Orioles on June 29, 2007.
• Freeman completed his cycle in the 11th inning, becoming the first player to do so in extras since the A's Mark Ellis on June 4, 2007. Ellis collected the last hit he needed, a single, in the 10th, an inning before his A's beat the Red Sox, 5-4, on a walk-off home run.
• Freeman got most of the difficult work out of the way early, collecting his double, triple and home run in regulation, saving his single for extra innings. The last player to cap his cycle with a single was the Rangers' Adrian Beltre on Aug. 24, 2012, vs. Minnesota.
Video: CIN@ATL: Freeman singles in 11th to complete cycle
• Freeman's cycle is the 248th in the Majors since 1913. The NL has the slight edge with 125 of those, but Freeman is just the third NL player out of the last 10 to hit for the cycle.
• The last player to record five hits while completing a cycle was the Astros' Brandon Barnes on July 19, 2013. Barnes went 5-for-5 with two singles against Seattle.
• Freeman entered Wednesday with only nine triples in 814 career games. The last player to have fewer triples in at least 250 career games before hitting for the cycle was Bengie Molina on July 16, 2010, for the Rangers (five triples in 1,313 games).Overview
SHARP is a consumer information initiative that was launched by the Department for Transport (DfT) in 2007 following research that revealed real differences in the safety performance of motorcycle helmets available in the UK. SHARP’s objective is to provide:
clear advice on how to select a helmet that fits correctly and is comfortable, and secondly
consumers with clear, impartial and objective information about the relative safety of motorcycle helmets available to riders in the UK.
Why was SHARP introduced?
Motorcyclists represent one of the most vulnerable road user groups. Typically in the UK they represent 1% of traffic but 19% of the casualties. Significantly, around 80% of all motorcyclist fatalities and 70% of those with serious injuries, sustain head injuries. Research also shows that, statistically, head impacts are distributed uniformly around the circumference of the helmet.
Research has also highlighted that helmet detachment can occur during the accident sequence with reports indicating a frequency varying from 10% to 14% of casualties. Separately, there was concern that there may be poor knowledge concerning the best practice when choosing a properly fitting helmet.
Research and Evidence base
The SHARP programme is based upon the findings of the European Research activity “COST 327” which reported in 2001 (the most comprehensive study of motorcycle crashes ever conducted in Europe). Two significant recommendations from this study were that:
The temporal fossa (temple) is particularly vulnerable to injury and helmet design should provide more protection, and
An increase in helmet energy absorbing capabilities of 30% would reduce 50% of the critical/unsurvivable casualties (AIS 5/6) to moderate/severe (AIS 2‐4).
Building upon this work, the DfT commissioned the Transport Research Laboratory to consider the potential to improve helmets to deliver this higher level of protection. The DfT also undertook a survey of helmets to understand the differences in protection that were available at that time. This revealed variances of up to 70% in the protective capability of different helmets at selected impact sites; reinforcing the need for a scheme, like SHARP, to provide consumers with objective advice.
SHARP impact tests Each model of motorcycle helmet undergoes 30 linear and 2 oblique impact tests in order to achieve a SHARP rating. To complete these 32 tests, a minimum of 7 individual helmet samples, in a range of sizes, are subjected impacts at three speeds (6, 7.5 and 8.5 metres per second) as follows: Helmet Velocity Impact type and location on helmet Impact surface 1 6.0 m/s Linear impacts to Front, Left, Right, Crown and Rear Flat anvil 2 6.0 m/s Linear impacts to Front, Left, Right, Crown and Rear Kerb anvil 3 7.5 m/s Linear impacts to Front, Left, Right, Crown and Rear Flat anvil 4 7.5 m/s Linear impacts to Front, Left, Right, Crown and Rear Kerb anvil 5 8.5 m/s Linear impacts to Front, Left, Right, Crown and Rear Flat anvil 6 8.5 m/s Linear impacts to Front, Left, Right, Crown and Rear Kerb anvil 7 8.5 m/s Oblique impacts to the Left and Right sides Abrasive anvil For the linear impact tests, helmets are impacted against both flat and kerb shaped surfaces which represent the surfaces likely to be impacted in real world road accidents. The impact anvils are as specified in UN ECE Regulation 22.05. The oblique impact test is carried out to assess the surface frictional properties of the helmet that can lead to rotational acceleration injuries. For this test SHARP follows the requirements of Regulation 22.05 completely. Given the COST 327 recommendations concerning the benefits of improved energy absorption, SHARP tests at a higher impact velocity than required by regulation (8.5m/s). This represents approximately 30% more energy input than required by UN ECE Regulation 22.05. Please view the animation to find out more.
Facial protection (chin guard / lower face cover)
All of the major helmet test standards include a test to determine whether the chin bar on Full‐Face or System (Flip-Front) helmets have sufficient mechanical strength to protect the face and jaw from injury during an impact.
Although it is not included in the overall rating for a helmet, SHARP recognises the importance of this protection. SHARP believes the tests conducted during assessment under UN ECE Regulation 22.05 to be appropriate and compliance with this optional element of the Regulation forms part of the SHARP assessment. Any helmet that has not been shown to deliver the necessary level of protection is identified in the helmet’s entry on the SHARP website with the illustration below.
% scores for System (flip-front) helmets.
For System (Flip‐front) helmets, SHARP also includes a reference to the robustness of the locking mechanism for the chin bar during impact testing. Whilst regulatory standards require an impact test to be performed to the chin guard as part of their approval, no specific consideration is required as to the performance of the locking mechanisms for the face guard of flip front helmets. Given the possible safety effects that could arise from a failure of the face guard locking mechanism on flip front helmets, SHARP provides motorcyclists with a percentage score latch rating alongside the SHARP safety (star) rating so that they make an informed purchasing decision.
The percentage score latch rating relates to the number of times the lower face guard remains fully locked after each of the linear impact tests. For example, if the lower face cover stays completely closed in every one of the thirty impacts the score would be 100% but if it should open on nine occasions, the score would be 70%. SHARP is not currently able to apply an objective measure to the safety effect of a failure of the chin bar locking mechanism and the percentage score is not therefore factored into the safety rating. Similarly, we are unable to quantify the safety difference between a helmet that achieves a score of 63% and one that achieves 90% but clearly the risk of injury increases with lower latch reliability.
Calculation of SHARP safety (Star) ratings In order to derive the safety rating, the test results are weighted according to the best motorcycle accident data available. This weights the likelihood of impacts occurring to different regions of the helmet, of impacts occurring at different speeds, and of impacts with different surfaces, based upon the accident studies carried out as part of the COST 327 study. This found the side and rear of the helmet to be commonly impacted and a strong correlation between impact location on the helmet and injury. The side of the head was also found to be particularly vulnerable to injury. The weighting of test results during the calculation of the SHARP safety ratings to real world accident data aims to highlight those helmets that will make the most difference to motorcyclist safety. Calculation of the safety rating is complex so to enable the identification of those helmets likely to offer the highest level of protection, the ratings are expressed as a simple star rating with 5‐stars being the highest and 1‐star the lowest. A 5-star helmet offers good levels of protection right around the helmet. That’s not to say a lower rated helmet will not provide protection; regardless of its SHARP rating every helmet on sale in the UK must meet at least one regulatory standard, ensuring it offers at least a minimum level of protection. Our tests have shown that not all helmets offer the same level of impact protection. Motorcyclists can all judge the price, extra features and build quality of a helmet but SHARP provides independent advice on how much protection it can offer in the event of crash – which cannot be assessed at the point of sale.
Impact Zone diagrams To provide information about the performance of helmets in our tests and in particular those areas where a helmet has performed well or could be considered as lacking protection, an Impact Zone Diagram is included in each helmet data page. In each diagram, the SHARP test point has been attributed a colour to show the level of performance measured against a flat surface in the high speed test (8.5m/s) against the flat anvil. The images show the performance of the helmet at each test point to give a better understanding of the all-round protection offered by each helmet. For example: The impact zones have been graded in six colours which are marked as being from ‘Very good’ to ‘Poor
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you want to send e-mails concurrently, or just not block in a HTTP handler, you can encapsulate the above functionality in a function and invoke it with go sendMail(/* params... */).
Conclusion
"net/smtp" gets the job done, but specifically for the task of sending e-mails from Gmail it takes a little bit of setup. I may take a whack at making a simple, clean implementation of a library for this purpose (also providing support for boilerplate templating).
Hope this article has been useful and you have a Merry Christmas. And as always, stay sassy Internet.He noted, for example, that a senior Abbas aide had paid a call to the families of three Fatah militants killed by the Israeli military, conveying condolences from Mr. Abbas. Israel held the three responsible for the fatal shooting of a rabbi in the West Bank in December 2009. In addition, Israeli officials note, streets, summer camps and youth tournaments in the Palestinian Authority have been named for people who committed terrorist attacks.
The new focus on incitement against Israel, together with Israeli dissatisfaction over the Palestinian response to the brutal attack, seemed to pose a question about the Israeli government’s readiness to deal with Mr. Abbas as a serious peace partner — even though Mr. Abbas and Mr. Fayyad are widely considered moderates who have repeatedly said they would never resort to violence.
Mr. Abbas rejected the claims about incitement in mosques, telling Israel Radio that the Palestinian Authority mosques have adopted a unified text for sermons, written by the minister of religious affairs. He called for a joint Israeli-Palestinian-American working committee to investigate claims that Palestinian Authority school textbooks incited violence.
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Mr. Fayyad was the first Palestinian official on Saturday to condemn the deaths in Itamar, saying, “We utterly reject violence, and nothing justifies it.”
Mr. Abbas’s office issued a statement later that day, through the Palestinian news agency Wafa, saying that he “stressed his rejection and condemnation of all violence directed against civilians, regardless of who was behind it or the reason for it.”
Mr. Abbas also called the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Saturday evening to express sorrow over the killings. But Israel said the Palestinian condemnation was hesitant and nonspecific. “The weak and noncommittal condemnation of the Palestinian leadership is insufficient and unacceptable,” Mark Regev, a Netanyahu spokesman, said Sunday. “What is required is unequivocal language.”
Mr. Netanyahu told a meeting of his Likud Party members of Parliament on Monday that he attached great importance to Mr. Abbas’s words of condemnation on Israel Radio, but that it was more important he say such things on Palestinian radio, Israel Radio reported.
Mr. Kuperwasser suggested that Mr. Abbas’s condemnation on Israel Radio still fell short. The Palestinian leader emphasized the horrific nature of the killing of the young children and the baby in Itamar, Mr. Kuperwasser said. But he criticized Mr. Abbas for not showing “the same enthusiasm” in condemning the deaths of the parents.
“His words hold great importance in my eyes,” he said, “but it is more important that he say these things on Palestinian radio, not just Israel.”The Tacoma Arts Commission recently awarded $50,000 in 2015 Arts Projects funding to 18 Tacoma organizations in support of public outreach projects in the fields of music, dance, theater, literary, visual, cross-disciplinary, and cultural arts. The awards ranged in value from $1,000 to $4,600.
“Grassroots arts programming consistently reflects Tacoma’s diverse neighborhoods and interests with an emphasis on accessibility,” said Tacoma Arts Commission Chair Traci Kelly. “We are proud to support this outstanding group of high quality, community-based projects.”
Funded projects include the production of five diverse cultural and arts festivals, historical arts and crafts demonstrations, visual art programs for families, contemporary and classical dance performances, a theater production, a variety of music performances, poetry readings, arts components to a cultural event, and a community-wide guerrilla art project.
Funded organizations include the Asia Pacific Cultural Center, Children’s Museum of Tacoma, Elements of Education, Fort Nisqually Foundation, Hilltop Business Association, King’s Bookstore, Metropolitan Glass, Northwest Repertory Singers, Old Town Business and Professional Association, Puget Sound Poetry Connection, Puget Sound Revels, Second City Chamber Series, Tacoma City Ballet, Tacoma Concert Band, Tacoma Maritime Fest, Toy Boat Theatre, University of Washington, and the Washington State Historical Society.
The Arts Projects funding program supports high quality community projects with a strong focus on arts that are accessible and affordable to the public. Arts Projects is one of three funding programs administered by the Tacoma Arts Commission. For a complete listing of funding programs and information about the Tacoma Arts Commission, visit cityoftacoma.org/funding.
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LAS VEGAS -- More than two dozen puppies were trapped in their cages, left helpless, while two accused arsonists made their way through a pet store, torching the place.
That is what can be seen on an incriminating surveillance video released Tuesday. The video was taken the night of the fire at the Prince and Princess Puppies Boutique.
The release of the video came on the same day as the debate over the ownership of the 27 puppies continued in court. The puppies are caught in a legal limbo as the estranged husband of one of the accused arsonists tries to stop a plan to raffle them off.
Judge Says No to Puppy Adoption Raffle -- For Now
The nearly half-hour video shows someone pouring what is believed to be flammable liquid around the store and near the cages holding the puppies. That person then lights the liquid.
Eight cameras around the pet shop recorded the video. Prosecutors showed the video to a grand jury last month. Jurors decided there was enough evidence to go ahead with an indictment against store co-owner Gloria Lee and her alleged co-conspirator Kirk Bills.
Prosecutors say it is Lee seen entering the store near Rainbow Boulevard and the 215 Beltway on Jan. 27. About two minutes later, Lee is at the back door letting in a man who investigators say is her accomplice, Kirk Bills.
The store is dark and the 27 puppies are in their cages along the wall. The work of torching the shop starts in the back room.
Investigators say it is Bills who starts by dousing the shelves with what looks like lighter fluid. While that is going on, the person prosecutors identify as Lee is working in the office, gathering files and other paperwork.
At 12:53 a.m., cameras catch the first splashes of the liquid being thrown onto store merchandise. The gas is poured throughout the main store and in front of the cages where the puppies are held.
Moments later, Lee leaves through the front door. About three minutes later, investigators say, Bills finishes pouring the flammable liquids and begins to lay down newspapers.
Then, just one minute past 1 a.m., the store is ignited. The flames creep along the floor, spreading right in front of the puppies cages. The puppies can be seen moving away from the intense heat as more and more of the store is engulfed.
Just seconds later, police say Bills is at the back door lighting a few more items on fire before leaving. Within seconds, the store is beginning to fill with intense heat and smoke.
Within two minutes of the first sign of flames, the fire alarm starts to sound and the sprinklers come on.
The sprinklers contained the fire, saved the lives of 27 puppies, and preserved the cameras and video evidence.
Lee's alleged accomplice Bills is set to go before a judge for his arraignment Wednesday morning. Lee is set to be in court Wednesday for a motion to set bail.
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New Details in Grand Jury Transcripts in Pet Store Arson Case
Former Customer 'Sickened' by Pet Store FireTornado destroying a woman's house (Shutterstock)
A Texas woman says her Christian faith gave her the power to redirect a tornado away from her home.
Sabrina Lowe, of Rowlett, said 10 family members were visiting her apartment Saturday when they heard the distinctive train noise of the approaching tornado, reported NPR.
“We actually went outside and started commanding the winds, because God had given us authority over the winds, the airways,” Lowe said. “And we just began to command this storm not to hit our area. We spoke to the storm and said, ‘Go to unpopulated places.’ It did exactly what we said to do, because God gave us the authority to do that.”
The EF4 tornado, with wind speeds up to 180 mph, was among nine confirmed tornadoes that swept through the Dallas area, killing 11 people and destroying more than 1,000 buildings.
The tornado killed eight people and destroyed about 600 buildings in nearby Garland as the storm barreled north from Sunnyvale to Rowlett, where Lowe lives.
No one was killed in Rowlett, but the tornado damaged or destroyed about 450 buildings.
Listen to the entire report posted online by NPR:The death of crocodile hunter Steve Irwin and the promotion of an Australian mythology
By Laura Tiernan
7 October 2006
The death last month of wildlife adventurer Steve Irwin, aged 44, in a stingray attack off the coast of Port Douglas was a personal tragedy for his family and friends. But for the population at-large it has been transformed into a media and political event of mind-numbing proportions. Day after day, page-one spreads, special tributes and television retrospectives have bombarded the Australian public. Most striking of all, politicians and right-wing commentators have seized upon the crocodile hunter’s untimely demise as part of their campaign to promote “Australian values”, with critics of Irwin vilified as “urban elites” and “politically correct whingers”.
Foremost among those who, within hours, made a headlong rush to publicly mourn Irwin and elevate his image to hero status was Prime Minister John Howard, joined by a chorus of Labor leaders. Queensland Labor Premier Peter Beattie stepped in to offer a state funeral, while Howard opened federal parliament’s September 5 sitting with a eulogy. “The crocodile man Steve Irwin was the Australian many of us aspire to be”. “He epitomised,” said Howard “to so many people around the world what they saw to be uniquely Australian characteristics.” Opposition leader Kim Beazley gave praise to “a quintessentially Australian icon”, “a great ambassador for this country...and for Aussie values, some of them somewhat larrikin values.”
The flags over Sydney Harbour Bridge were flown at half-mast while on-line media outlets promoted calls for office workers to don khaki for a day in Irwin’s honour.
A public memorial service, broadcast live from Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast to an estimated global audience of 300 million people, was entitled, ludicrously, “He Changed Our World”.
How is one to explain this public outpouring? More particularly, what is it about the late Steve Irwin that so attracts the prime minister’s attention and has met with a unanimous attempt by media proprietors and editors—from the tabloid press to ‘liberal’ broadsheets—to promote his image?
Of course, Howard’s public grief-act has nothing whatsoever to do with interest in Irwin’s various wildlife protection efforts. It is not crocodile research, or conservation of endangered cheetahs, elephants or koalas that motivates the prime minister, but rather definite political considerations bound up with fostering a climate conducive to the prosecution of deeply unpopular policies, from criminal wars of aggression to deepening social inequality.
Steve Irwin died in the midst of a bi-partisan campaign for “Australian values”, including vilification of Muslims and the planned introduction of English-language tests and loyalty oaths for all new citizens. Speaking in his Australia Day address on January 26 this year, Howard foreshadowed this campaign calling for “a root and branch renewal of the teaching of history in our schools.” “We expect each unique individual who joins our national journey to enrich it with their loyalty and patriotism.”
This campaign, the PM explained, had a very clear purpose: “a sense of shared values is our social cement”.
The prosecution of militarism abroad and the suppression of democratic rights at home cannot simply be enforced by the brute action of the state. As sociologist Judith Kapferer explained in her 1996 study on the formation of Australian national identity, “the moulding of wills, the manufacturing of consent and embracing of the ideals of others as one’s own, can only be achieved through constant ideological suasion. Not beating into submission, but seduction, captivation and enchantment are the most successful devices in effecting the capture of passion and imagination.” [1]
It is precisely in this respect that the image of Steve Irwin has been seized upon by the political elite. Under conditions in which Howard has unveiled plans for the largest expansion of the Australian military since Vietnam, and committed Australia lock, stock and barrel to wars of aggression and permanent occupation, from the Middle East to the South Pacific, an ideological campaign aimed at constructing a popular national mythology has commenced in earnest.
In times of fundamental crisis, with society riven by mounting economic and social contradictions, the ruling classes of every nation engage, almost by reflex action, in such patriotic myth-making, seeking to channel the tensions and uncertainty of broad masses behind their own predatory imperialistic appetites. As a statement published last week by the Socialist Equality Party pointed out, such efforts are now underway in Japan, the Netherlands and many other countries.
Irwin contributes to an Australian mythology on many levels. His persona harks back to key nationalist icons: the bushman, the drover, the larrikin, the egalitarian individual who thumbs his nose at authority and who demonstrates his natural abilities in physical exploits, which supposedly negate divisions based on class and wealth.
These nationalist icons were forged during the 1890s as part of attempts by the nascent bourgeoisie to counter the influence of Marxism among the colonies’ burgeoning working class populace. From a demographic standpoint, the outback motifs associated with the names of writers Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson were obsolete in a country that was, even then, among the most highly urbanised in the world. But the purpose of national myths is precisely to conceal social reality. The symbols of Australian national identity cultivated during the late nineteenth century, including those of the larrikin and bushman, were soon wielded against “Asian hordes” and “the hun”, used in recruitment posters that sent young men to kill and die in the trenches of World War I.
Irwin is held up repeatedly as “an ordinary bloke”, but exactly how many multi-millionaire crocodile wrestlers are there in Australia? The overwhelming majority of working people face growing financial insecurity, with 50 percent of households earning less than $450 a week. And the closest most ever come to large amphibious reptiles are the enclosures at Taronga Park or Royal Melbourne zoos. But the alleged ordinariness is central to the myth’s purpose. As Kim Beazley declared to right-wing shock-jock Alan Jones during a recent interview, “Australian values are about the mainstream”.
Nationalist ideology takes shape via the depiction of an external threat, but also through the invocation of an allegedly familiar, unchanging past. Part of this process is the establishment of what Kapferer calls “symbolic types” which, she explains, “do not exist, and have never existed in concrete and pristine ‘reality’. They appear in myth, like Ned Kelly, or Peter Lalor of Eureka, or Simpson of Gallipoli, and in legend like the Man from Snowy River or The Sentimental Bloke or Ginger Meggs or, more recently Crocodile Dundee...” [2]
If these “symbolic types” flew in the face of demographic and social reality in the 1890s, in 2006 they are positively absurd. National identity is a fiction. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 23 percent of current residents and citizens were born overseas and one or both parents of a further 26 percent was born in another country. Less than 15 percent of Australians live in areas classified as “remote”, 70 percent live in cities and 80 percent live within 50km of the coast. Those who do live in the outback “are more likely than city people to be in poor health, unemployed, without post-school qualifications, unemployed and in the lowest fifth of incomes.” As statistician David Dale comments, these figures are a far cry from the image of the “sun-bronzed outback pioneer”.
Irwin was an open supporter of the Howard government and the Bush administration’s “war on terror”. In 2003 he was special guest at a $12 million BBQ held at the Lodge—the Canberra residence of the Australian prime minister—for the visiting US president. Later that year he declared that Howard was “the greatest leader Australia has ever had and the greatest leader in the world”.
Irwin’s TV programs, including the self-styled “Crocodile Hunter” series, “Croc Files” and “Croc Diaries”, along with his 2002 feature-length film Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, do not enlighten so much as mindlessly entertain. His loud, kamikaze-style confrontation with nature’s deadliest creatures was the particular aspect of his persona that sold.
Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of famous ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, was among the few willing to offer criticism of Irwin’s documentary style. While he mourned the crocodile hunter’s death, Irwin would, said Cousteau “interfere with nature, jump on animals, grab them, hold them, and have this very, very spectacular, dramatic way of presenting things”.
“Of course, it goes very well on television. It sells, it appeals to a lot people, but I think it’s very misleading.”
This “dramatic way” of presenting issues was often, frankly, stupid. In 2002 he told reporters that “We need to stand proud of what is Australia... the greatest grazing nation on the face of the Earth! The whole joint is grazing land... and by crikey we’re good at it! We should be... [eating] beef and lamb, not kangaroos and crocodiles. They’re why tourists come to Australia. They are tourism icons!” It is difficult to reconcile this statement with any serious approach to environmental issues, although as an ambassador for the tourism industry, he was undoubtedly an asset.
In 2002 Irwin provoked media controversy when, as part of a live performance at Australia Zoo, he held his one month-old son Bob within disconcerting range of a 3.5 metre saltwater crocodile. Irwin was forced by Discovery Channel executives to apologise to fans, but he maintained his son was in no danger.
On ABC television’s “Enough Rope” the following year, Irwin told viewers “I don’t read much”.
Andrew Denton: You don’t read? How come you don’t read?
Steve Irwin: Well, I do read, but, you know, not for 14 hours. You know, surf mags take a good 20 minutes.
It is just such unthinkingness, along with Irwin’s willingness to subject himself to danger, that lends itself to the current requirements of Australia’s political elite. Is it really too much of a stretch to point to the name of Irwin’s conservation fund “Wildlife Warriors”, to the khaki uniform and to the crocodile hunter’s role in fronting the government’s Quarantine Matters campaign as suggestive of points of support for the broader climate of nationalism and militarism which is being actively stoked?
Speaking on September 5, Howard said that Irwin “believed passionately in a strong, protected Australian environment” and that he had made “a great contribution to the quarantine cause and the clean green protected image that this country wants to continue and represent to the rest of the world.” The words “green” and “environment” are just a threadbare cover for unabashed patriotism and racial politics.
Irwin’s brand of wildlife conservation exerts special appeal to capitalist politicians of all stripes. “Whenever we get enough cash and... a chunk of land that we are passionate about” Irwin explained in an interview with Andrew Denton in 2003, “bang, we buy it. What we are trying to do is set an example to the world that every single person can make a difference, particularly those in the political arena, those that have zoological facilities, any multinationals, any millionaires, they can all make a difference by buying chunks of land.”
In other words, the preservation of biodiversity and the world’s ecology is not a social question, requiring the combined efforts of scientists and marshalling the ingenuity and labour of the world’s population, rather, the self-made man, a multi-millionaire naturally, is cast as saviour. No wonder that Howard, who along with George W Bush is the only politician in the world to argue against ratification of the Kyoto protocol on global warming, has been so fulsome in his praise for Irwin’s conservation record.
On September 6 an article by expatriate academic Germaine Greer appeared in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, igniting furore in the Australian media and political establishment. Irwin, wrote Greer, was “a 21st century version of a lion tamer, with crocodiles instead of lions.” “There was no habitat, no matter how fragile or finely balanced, that Irwin hesitated to barge into, trumpeting his wonder and amazement to the skies... Every creature he brandished at the camera was in distress.” “The animal world,” she concluded, “has finally taken its revenge”.
Within hours her comments had provoked a media feeding frenzy. Queensland Premier Beattie denounced what he described as “extreme radical rubbish” and warned her to “back off”. Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd told reporters Greer’s remarks were “a bucket load of politically correct pap... she should put a sock in it.” Murdoch’s tabloid Daily Telegraph launched a vicious personal attack on the 67-year-old writer, calling on readers to send hate mail to her UK email address and purchasing a dog muzzle which they photographed for the newspaper, before having it couriered to London.
Germaine Greer’s Guardian piece, a relatively tame critique of the crocodile hunter’s celebrity persona, was now under siege as something akin to treason. Not only that, her article was itself seized upon to deepen the now long-running campaign against “political correctness” (read independent critical thought).
A particularly foul opinion piece by author John Birmingham published in the Australian on September 7—entitled “Expat’s feral attack reflects elitist conceit”—took to this theme with particular glee. The “childless” Greer “would be easy to dismiss as some unwashed and wretched bag lady who had somehow stumbled on to the opinion pages of the Guardian,’ wrote Birmingham, ‘were it not for the fact that this feral hag does actually speak for a significant minority.”
The enemy in question was an “inner urban elite” who “found Irwin’s cartoon imagery uncomfortable”.
Who is Birmingham kidding? While much is now being made of Irwin’s popularity in Australia, the reality is somewhat different. He was never able to secure the viewers needed to sustain a slot on local free-to-air television. It is no secret that Steve Irwin’s super-hyped Aussie persona was regarded as something of a put-on. Even among pay-TV subscribers, the numbers tuning into “Crocodile Hunter” were tiny. Figures provided by the Australian Film Commission show that in 2004 only 0.5 percent of all pay-TV watchers tuned into Animal Planet. By comparison, the list of top rating documentaries on free-to-air television in the same year was headed by “Seven Wonders of the Industrial World—the Panama Canal”, watched by 20.7 percent of the viewing public. And while Irwin has previously joked that David Attenborough appeals to a slightly narrower demographic, a documentary entitled “Life on Air: David Attenborough’s 50 years in Television” saw 14.8 percent tuning in the night it was screened.
John Birmingham, it should be mentioned parenthetically, has a long-standing fascination with Australia’s “ocker” (i.e., backward) culture. His 2001 compilation of essays entitled Off One’s Tits is, according to the publishers, “an exploration and celebration of the wonderful world of men and the things they hold dear: booze, badness, bachelorhood, boxing, grog, misbehaving, masculinity, alcohol, footy, pork, piss and women.” His most recent book, Dopeland “is for anyone who’s ever fired up a choice fatty, wondered whether you can drink the bong water, gone on a Mars Bar run, or just considered watching daytime TV a worthwhile way to spend your twenties.”
By month’s end, right-wing commentators were making clear the political agenda at work. An opinion article by David Chalkie in Melbourne’s Herald Sun openly derided “the knockers, the whingers, the Lefties, the chardonnay socialists, with intellectual tickets on themselves” who had “sneered and derided the event and the man”.
The public tribute to Irwin “was about Australian values and how we express them”.
These “values”, according to Chalkie, include: “Decency”, “Honesty”, “Self-Reliance”, “Hard Work”, “Tolerance” and “Family”. Why these values should be specifically Australian, as opposed to say, Canadian or Fijian, was not elaborated, “but” Chalkie asserts, “the way we express them is uniquely Australian”.
Each of Chalkie’s “values” carries with it either the vicious tail-whip of exclusivism or the assertion of cultural norms that conceal the fundamental class divisions wracking Australian society. Opponents of the “true blue” and “dinki di” are, he writes, “affectatious... bludgers”. Transgressors against “Honesty” are refugees trying to “barge in through ‘the back door’”. And “Self Reliance” means that “Contrary to the egalitarian myth, we are great believers in people taking responsibility for their own actions. Those who ‘put in’ and ‘make a go of it’ should reap the rewards of their effort and skill.” All in all, an Australian version of Social Darwinism, justifying on the one hand the concentration of vast amounts of wealth in the hands of a tiny minority, and ‘mutual obligation’ or detention centres for those who can’t, or won’t, ‘fit in’.
The very public mourning for Irwin by Howard, Beazley and the entire corporate-controlled media, and their vilification of even the slightest criticism, is a warning to all working people. A repressive climate, based on fear, intimidation and ignorance, is being established. In its resort to “Australian values” and by its invocation of a national identity, the political establishment aims to weaken and divide the working class and establish a cultural norm conducive to the requirements of the ruling elite, from which only enemies—deemed ‘un-Australian’—will deviate.
Notes:
[1] Kapferer, Judith, Being All Equal, Identity, Difference and Australian Cultural Practice, Berg, Oxford, 1996, p. 38.
[2] ibid, p. 41.From Internet Movie Firearms Database - Guns in Movies, TV and Video Games
Jack Reacher is a 2012 thriller directed by Christopher McQuarrie (The Way of the Gun). The film is an adaptation of the novel One Shot by Lee Child (who does a cameo in the film as a cop), who created a series of novels featuring the title character. Tom Cruise stars as Jack Reacher, a former US Army investigator living off the grid who emerges after being called upon by a former Army sniper who is accused of a seemingly random shooting of five people in Pittsburgh. The film also co-stars Rosamund Pike, Jai Courtney, David Oyelowo, Robert Duvall and director Werner Herzog in a rare acting role. The film was followed in 2016 with the sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.
The following weapons were used in the film Jack Reacher (2012):
WARNING! THIS PAGE CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Handguns
Glock 19
Detective Emerson (David Oyelowo) uses a third-generation Glock 19 as his sidearm. He carries it in an IWB (Inside the Waistband) holster. Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike) also briefly handles the gun in the film, when she hands it to Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise).
3rd Generation Glock 19 - 9x19mm. Note the finger grooves, thumb reliefs, and accessory rail on the frame, which differentiate it from the older model.
Detective Emerson with his Glock near the beginning of the film.
Det. Emerson draws his third-generation Glock 19 in a confrontation with Reacher.
Det. Emerson holds his Glock 19 from behind Helen Rodin while waiting for Reacher.
Helen holds the Glock.
Jack Reacher with the Glock 19.
M1911A1
A distraught father of one of the shooting victims has a M1911A1 with Rampant Colt grips sitting on his table when he speaks with Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike). Close inspection reveals the standard spur hammer has been replaced with a Commander-style ring hammer.
Colt M1911A1 -.45 ACP
A Colt sitting on the father of one of the shooting victims' table.
Colt Government Model
A thug tries to shoot Jack Reacher with a slightly customized Colt Government Model with a skeleton hammer before being disarmed by him.
Colt Government Model M1911A1 -.45 ACP
A thug gets disarmed by Jack. The trigger and rear sight aren't visible here, so it can't be determined if it's a National Match.
Ruger 22/45 Lite
Charlie (Jai Courtney) uses a Ruger 22/45 Lite pistol in the film.
Ruger 22/45 Lite -.22 LR
Charlie pulls out his sidearm.
Charlie fires his Ruger.
Smith & Wesson Model 442
Detective Emerson (David Oyelowo) carries a Smith & Wesson Model 442 as his backup gun.
Smith & Wesson Model 442 Airweight -.38 Special
Det. Emerson holds his 442 Airweight on Helen Rodin.
Rifles / Carbines
M4A1 Carbine
Pittsburgh PD SWAT officers use M4A1 carbines with various attachments in the film. Private Military Contractors in a flashback to Iraq are also seen with M4A1 carbines. Charlie (Jai Courtney) also uses a heavily customized M4A1 fitted with an angled vertical foregrip, dual optics, side-mounted back-up holosight, tactical flashlight, Magpul PMAG, and a laser designator as his back-up rifle during the climax. Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) also uses this rifle at a later point. Reacher takes off all the aiming devices before entering a close-quarters situation, having no use for them.
Colt M4A1 Carbine with M68 Aimpoint scope and RIS foregrip - 5.56x45mm
SWAT officers arrive at the scene of the shooting. Note the selector is on Safe.
SWAT officers secure the parking garage behind Detective Emerson.
A PMC with an M4A1 in flashback in Iraq.
Charlie chambers his back-up rifle.
Charlie searches for Reacher.
Charlie wields his rifle.
Jack detaches the optic devices from the rifle.
Reacher holds the M4A1.
M16A4
One of the Pittsburgh PD SWAT officers uses an M16A4 fitted with a bipod and a scope when responding to the shooting.
M16A4 rifle with RIS foregrip, AN/PEQ-2 IR designator and ACOG scope - 5.56x45mm
The SWAT sniper with his M16A4.
SIG P556 SWAT / SG 550 hybrid
All of the henchmen employed by the Zec (Werner Herzog) use SIG P556 SWAT hybrid rifles during the finale. Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) uses one with an Aimpoint sight after taking out a henchman with a rock. The rifle used by Reacher has been previously seen in the film Salt, and is a custom rifle that has a SIG SG 550 series lower receiver not seen on the actual P556.
Salt provided by SIG P556 SWAT / SG 550 hybrid (Screen used weapon from the filmprovided by The Specialists Ltd ) - 5.56x45mm.
One of the henchmen aims his SG rifle at Reacher.
A henchman holds his SIG hybrid.
The henchman fires at Cash.
Reacher fires the P556/550 hybrid.
Reacher holds one of the hybrid rifles on Charlie.
Springfield M1A (Scoped)
The Springfield M1A is the main rifle seen in the film. A scoped M1A in a woodland camouflage scheme with a rail mount is used in the shootings in Pittsburgh, and is handled in various scenes by James Barr (Joseph Sikora), Charlie (Jai Courtney), Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) and Detective Emerson (David Oyelowo). Barr is also seen using an M1A in desert camouflage and a makeshift suppressor (standing in for a M14 DMR) in a flashback to his experiences as an Army sniper in Iraq. U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant, and gun range owner Cash (Robert Duvall) uses an M1A with a wooden stock to provide covering fire for Reacher in the finale.
Springfield M1A -.308 Winchester. Note the notch where the fire selector would be.
Charlie aims an M1A near the beginning of the film.
James Barr prepares to fire a M1A in Iraq. Note the rolled-up blanket used as a makeshift suppressor.
James Barr chambers his rifle during Reacher's interpretation of the shootings.
Reacher examines Barr's rifle.
Reacher hands the rifle back to Emerson after examining it.
Former U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Cash holds his rifle.
Cash provides covering fire for Reacher.
Cash fires his rifle, and manages to hit Charlie's magazine well.
Remington 700
Cash (Robert Duvall) challenges Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) to shoot three rounds into the center of a target at 700 yards with a Remington 700 before speaking with him about James Barr.
Remington Model 700 (1970s Production) -.308 Winchester
The Remington is seen on the counter as Cash gives Reacher an extra round for "practice".
Reacher rolls with the Remington 700 in hand before shooting.
PWS MK216
Charlie (Jai Courtney) uses what appears to be a PWS MK216 during the final confrontation with Reacher.
Primary Weapons Systems MK216 - 7.62x51mm
Charlie mentally preps himself, with his MK216 rifle in front of him.
Charlie aims his rifle at Reacher.
Charlie aims his rifle, moments before it takes a bullet.
Other
Cash's Shooting Range
Former USMC Gunnery Sergeant Cash (Robert Duvall) has several handguns on display at his shooting range store. Several hunting rifles can also be seen on the upper left corner, and pictures of Remington shotguns next to them. A crossbow is also visible when Reacher first visits Cash's store.Rush: Feminism shrinks penises A study finds male genitalia has gotten smaller and the radio host knows who to blame
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Rush Limbaugh characteristically stressed the power and importance of feminism on his Thursday show. The firebrand host attributed to feminists ("feminazis" as he puts it) the power to determine the size of male genitalia.
An Italian study found that penises are on average around 10 percent smaller today than 50 years ago. The study cited weight gain, pollution, stress and smoking as possible factors in the shrinkage, but Rush suggests otherwise.
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Scoffing at the idea that air pollution might influence our physical constitution, he stated, “I think it’s feminism... it’s tied to the last 50 years — the average size of [a male's] member is 10 percent smaller than 50 years — it has to be the feminazis, the chickification and everything else.”
Listen to the audio, via Media Matters:An East Bay man is dead after the car he was riding in was struck by a speeding driver who was on the run from police.Police pursued Epigmenio Perez, 20, who allegedly drove a black Chevrolet Corvette recklessly in a residential neighborhood in Richmond shortly before 9:30 p.m.Police said the pursuit lasted a couple of minutes and when the vehicle turned on 23rd Street, officers lost sight of the vehicle. A short time later, more officers arrived and found the Corvette had crashed into a vehicle with three people inside at 24th Street and Gaynor Avenue on Saturday night.Anthony Nguyen, 24, was a passenger in the other car and pronounced dead at the scene."I heard the impact, like i said it was like a cannon," Davone Sripukdee said.Sripukdee was two blocks away when she heard the crash, which took the life of her cousin, Nguyen.There's a small memorial at the spot where he died. "He has a 3-year-old daughter. I mean what can you say when someone has a child," Sripukdee said.Authorites say the chase was called off minutes before the crash. "He chased the vehicle throughout the neighborhood until he lost the vehicle when it turned southbound onto 23rd Street," Richmond Police Department Capt. Bisa French said.But some dispute that, claiming the chase never ended. "For them to say they stopped the chase two blocks away, that doesn't make sense if I have my brother-in-law was standing at the Valero getting gas with his kid and the Corvette is going by they were still after him," Sripukdee said.Neighbors tried to help those trapped inside the Honda. The driver and a second passenger were critically injured."I thought the car was going to catch fire, so I came over to my truck and grabbed a knife and cut the seat belt off of him," Arturo Ramirez said.The driver of the Corvette, Perez, called police after the crash to say his Corvette was carjacked, but that story turned out to be false.He was charged with DUI and vehicular manslaughter.The case is being investigated jointly by the Richmond Police Department's homicide unit,
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seem to have a legitimate impact on sensor performance and behavior with various surfaces. In the demo, Pate ‘tuned’ the sensor for a sheet of white paper, a black mousepad (hard surface), and a bumpy/black table (dubbed “Thing” in the mouse profile).
Logitech’s default setting has the mouse performing adequately on all surfaces, though as expected, it underperforms on white paper and the sub-optimal table. When tuned for each of these surfaces, we saw fairly significant improvement in tracking accuracy and speed for the respective material. Tuning for white paper meant the mouse moved with much more precision on the paper, but sacrificed its performance on the black mouse pad. If nothing else, this at least gives the impression that it’s doing something. I’ll have to play more with it once we have our review sample.
The mouse stores all tuning settings, DPI settings, multikey macros, the report rate, and button mapping locally, so software is not required once programmed and the device can be moved to Linux installs and retain its functionality. All the buttons use micro switches, which give a bit more of a click-y response when pressed and ensure longer life of the buttons (as opposed to dome and tac switches). The individual keyplates (as opposed to the usual monolithic keyplate) for LMB and RMB theoretically give us a more perpendicular switch press when using the buttons; the usual monolithic keyplate on mice (one button split between LMB and RMB) tends to apply a more sheer / angular force to the switches, which can impact overall feel of the mouse. When asked what pro gamers found to be the most important feature, Logitech told us that the responsiveness of the buttons mattered most.
We’ll be reviewing and tearing apart the mouse in the near future. Check back for the full review shortly (subscribe on YouTube to stay updated) and we’ll let you know if it’s worth buying. MSRP is $80.
- Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke.If America's newest war is the fight against ISIS, then a new front may be opening up in Egypt.
Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, a militant group that's staged attack in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, announced this week that it's swearing allegiance to the so-called Islamic State. That makes it the first major extremist group outside of Iraq and Syria to join up with ISIS.
The group's move shows ISIS’ growing influence, says David Kirkpatrick, The New York Times' Cairo bureau chief
"The big fear is that Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis will start acting more like ISIS," he says. "ISIS is famous for its indiscriminate violence and its truly careless, gratuitous mass killing of civilians."
By contrast, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis has been a "remarkably disciplined and focused insurgent group" so far. They've portrayed themselves as protectors of people in the Sinai Peninsula who often feel neglected by the government, and their attacks have almost exclusively targeted soldiers and police. But that may change if ISIS provides the group with money and weapons.
The Egyptian government has responded to the growing threat by creating a buffer zone around the Sinai. The military has evacuated more than 1,100 families living in the northern part of the Sinai, close to the border with Gaza.
The worry is that the crackdown could backfire, Kirkpatrick says: "If it turns out the checkpoints aren't as effective as the government thinks they are, then you've got to think about the possibility that eradicating these homes, this kind of heavy-handed, brute force approach... might actually radicalize more young people."WOMEN across the UK are being forced to attend a one-day thermostat awareness course to learn how they work.
The courses, run by the Department of Energy, are compulsory for anyone who has committed two or more thermostat misuse infractions in a 72-hour period and are projected to save the UK millions of pounds in bills.
Instructor Dr Thomas Booker said: “This is a thermostat. It can sense the temperature.
“When set to, for example, 21 degrees, it will regulate the temperature of your home at 21 degrees by turning the heating off or on without – and this is important – any need for manual adjustment.
“If you are feeling a little cold and adjust it upwards to, say, 30 degrees, it will not provide a short-term boost of heat but will begin heating the entire home to tropical temperatures. The opposite will happen if adjusted down, though that’s of course entirely theoretical.
“The way to operate a thermostat is simply to choose the temperature you’re most comfortable with and to leave it alone and not touch it. Let me repeat that: pick a temperature, do not touch it and leave it alone.”
Attendee Donna Sheridan said: “Nah. I still don’t get it.”(CNN) The City of Flint filed a letter of intent to sue the State of Michigan, with the city's top lawyer saying the already cash-strapped municipality lacks funds to defend itself against lawsuits filed amid the water crisis.
The city's newly appointed chief legal officer, Stacy Erwin Oakes, said Friday the city filed a notice of intention to file suit for damage to the municipal water system and for associated costs, which are mainly legal.
The move was immediately criticized by some state lawmakers and the governor's office, who said it would hinder collaboration with the city to fix Flint's problems.
Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said in a statement the notice to sue was more of a legal maneuver than an actual threat, because the city "would have forfeited its right to file a lawsuit in the future if I had not filed an official 'Notice of Intention to File a Claim' by the March 25 deadline."
She said, "I have no intention at this point of having the City of Flint sue the state."
Weaver went on to say, "I need to preserve the city's right to pursue legal remedy if its determined a lawsuit is necessary in the future."
More than 50 lawsuits against city
More than 50 lawsuits have been filed since January, accusing the city of being complicit in the water crisis for not doing enough during the 18 months in which Flint was getting its drinking water from the polluted Flint River.
That move was a decision made by the state, and it turned out to be a terrible one. The river's highly corrosive water wasn't treated properly by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, and the water corroded lead service lines, which then caused lead to seep into the drinking water and poison families.
The poor water quality also caused brown water and high levels of E. coli, carcinogens and other toxins to thrive in the water. Residents reported painful rashes after showering. Several ongoing investigations are looking into whether the bad water also led to an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease that killed 10 people.
Although the city had no control over decision-making at the time the switch was made, its employees were involved in treating the water at the plant, and involved in testing residents' water for the state.
Weaver, who was elected after running a campaign to address the water crisis, has criticized the former administration for not asking enough questions.
Several current and former city employees are named in the various lawsuits.
City facing lawsuits
In the letter of intention, the city says that as a result of the switch "the city has suffered or will suffer damage to its municipal water distribution system, emergency response costs arising out of the declaration of a state of emergency" and "attendant ongoing medical claims."
The switch in drinking water, the letter says, also caused the city to suffer lower property values, damage to its reputation, loss of business and "significantly increased civil liability" for the city and city employees.
Oakes said the city is under pressure to answer to lawsuits.
"I have 50-something cases that have been filed civilly against the city and city employees," Oakes said. "That is a cost."
The office also needs to provide an attorney for anyone being deposed in a criminal investigation into the Flint water crisis, Oakes said. She says the city is facing mounting legal woes "that it did not bring upon itself."
"That's the injustice," Oakes said. "Let's stop the politics and think about the people."
Oakes said she hopes to strike an agreement with Gov. Rick Snyder, and "it is our goal to work with the governor in every way possible."
Governor critical of a lawsuit
The state sent the city a letter requesting it withdraw the suit.
So far, much of the public outrage has been lobbed at the governor, because it was the branches of his administration that caused the problems, and it was members of his staff who raised some of the earliest concerns -- without action being taken.
But Snyder's office criticized the city Friday, with spokesman Ari Adler telling CNN, "Once the city sues the state, communicating officially will be much more difficult as every conversation will need to involve questions about whether or not lawyers need to be present. And, of course, an open dialogue is more difficult with anyone who has decided to take you to court rather than work together as partners to solve a problem."
Adler said Michigan's speaker of the house has already criticized the city's decision to sue, calling it "unfortunate" and "reckless," which will make it even harder for the governor to convince the state that more money is needed for Flint.
While the mayor and governor often stand together at news conferences, the city and state have been at odds since the start of the crisis, bickering both in public and behind closed doors about how to fix the problems.
Most recently, Weaver criticized the governor's long-term plan to replace the lead services lines in the city, while the state said her rush to dig up lines without first studying the issue was not financially responsible.
Snyder has proposed $195 million dollars for Flint in next year's budget. Weaver has said she believes it will cost $1 billion to fix the infrastructure alone.Just a few months after the market launch of the new MINI, the British premium brand has expanded its model range with the addition of an entirely new body variant - the MINI 5-door - for the first time in its history. It combines MINI's hallmark driving fun, the distinctive character and refinement of the third model generation and the enhanced practicality which comes with extra space. The characteristic exterior design of the original premium small car is authentically transferred to the specific proportions of the new body, with the addition of two rear doors.
With the wheelbase expanded by 72 millimetres and the body lengthened by 161 millimetres when compared to the MINI 3-door, the 5-door model provides greater freedom in terms of interior use. In the back are three separate seats, and passengers using them benefit from increased headroom of 15 millimetres and interior width increased of 61 millimetres at elbow height. In addition, the luggage compartment space is 67 litres larger than in the new MINI 3-door, with a total of 278 litres. The car's high level of versatility is also supported by the 60:40 folding split in the rear backrest. It enables the luggage compartment volume to be increased to 941 litres.
At the market launch of the MINI 5-door, the range has combined fuel consumption which ranges from 5.9 - 3.6 l/100 km. CO2 emissions range from 136 - 95 g/km. There are four engines with MINI TwinPower Turbo Technology to choose from. A 3-cylinder petrol engine with a peak output of 100 kW/136 hp powers the MINI Cooper 5-door. The output of the 4-cylinder petrol engine in the MINI Cooper S 5-door is 141 kW/192 hp. The new MINI Cooper D 5-door is powered by an 85 kW/116 hp 3-cylinder diesel engine. In addition, the MINI Cooper SD 5-door is presented for the first time with a new 2.0-litre 4-cylinder diesel power unit that has an output of 125 kW/170 hp. All model variants of the new MINI 5-door meet the EU6 exhaust emission standard.
As with every other MINI, the latest generation of engines ensures an exceptional balance between driving fun and fuel consumption. This is supported by the newly developed 6-speed manual and 6-speed Steptronic transmissions, as well as extensive MINIMALISM fuel-efficiency technology. MINI's famed go-kart feeling on the road is guaranteed thanks to a model-specific version of the refined suspension technology. Dynamic Damper Control with adjustable dampers is available as an option, as are MINI driving modes which ensure a'made-to-measure' approach to performance driving and comfort.
The MINI 5-door also benefits from the high standards of the new model generation in many other ways, including quality of materials and workmanship, safety, acoustic and NVH comfort and innovative equipment. The new display and operating concept can be supplemented with an on-board computer of up to 8.8 inches in size, fitted in the central instrument, as well as the MINI Controller with touch-sensitive surface. An optional LED light ring for the central instruments provides feedback on driving condition as well as on numerous functions activated by the driver. Other equipment available includes the LED headlight, LED fog lamp, ambient lighting and Comfort Access. The range of optional driver assistance systems includes the Head-Up Display which extends above the steering column. The MINI 5-door also comes with Driving Assistant, a camera-based active cruise control, collision and pedestrian warning with initial brake function, high beam assistant, road sign detection, Parking Assistant and rear view camera.
The diversity of the MINI Connected in-car infotainment program is unique within the competitive field. The MINI 5-door can be equipped with a permanent SIM card. This means that Emergency Call with automatic detection of vehicle location and accident severity is available, as well as MINI Teleservices. The MINI Connected XL Journey Mate helps the driver plan journeys as well as providing relevant information en route to the destination. Numerous additional functions which can be integrated in the vehicle via social networks and infotainment apps are now available for both the Apple iOS and Android smartphones.
Exterior design: characteristic proportions, clear lines
The new MINI 5-door is the second body variant of the new MINI, and its unique roof line and emphasis of the rear section draw attention to the extended length. The increased overall height reflects the improvement in headroom. The design pays tribute to the car's historical roots as well as being an evolution of the contemporary vehicle concept. Characteristic MINI proportions ensure a compact and powerful appearance, which underscores the agility of the newcomer.
The body of the new MINI 5-door is 3,982 millimetres long (MINI Cooper S 5-door and MINI Cooper SD 5-door are 4,005 millimetres), 1,727 millimetres wide and 1,425 millimetres wide. This makes the MINI 5-door 161 millimetres longer and 11 millimetres higher than the 3-door version. The width remains the same. The wheelbase has been extended by 72 millimetres to 2,567 millimetres, while the track is identical to that of the 3-door model.
Interior comfort has also been enhanced. Thanks to the extended wheelbase, rear passengers now have 72 millimetres more foot space and legroom available to them, while the increased space also provides for a third seat in the back row. Access to the rear is also more comfortable.
The increased vehicle height can be felt in an additional 15 millimetres of headroom. Meanwhile the car's interior width at elbow height is now increased by 61 millimetres. The luggage compartment has a volume of 278 litres, an increase of 67 litres or around 30 per cent when compared to the 3-door model.
Like all MINI models, the new MINI 5-door also has an unmistakeable appearance. The body, greenhouse and roof are clearly separated from one another in visual terms. The window graphic tapers off to the rear, contributing to a dynamic wedge shape when the car is viewed in profile, and suggesting a forward thrust even when it's stationary.
The wide track and short overhangs emphasise the striking expression of the vehicle's body as it sits powerfully on top of the wheels. The athletic stature of the new MINI 5-door is underscored by a striking sill line between the front and rear wheel arches. Meanwhile, the character line below the side windows provides a dynamic downward thrust which directs attention to the large wheel apertures.
Traditional design features include the hexagonal contour of the radiator grille, the side indicator surrounds known as'side scuttles', the circular headlights, the upright rear light clusters and the black periphery at the bottom edge of the body. The single-section chrome frame of the radiator grille brings out the hexagonal shape particularly clearly. The visual effect of the side scuttle elements and the additional headlights in the front apron is enhanced by means of striking lines on the adjacent surfaces in each case.
In the MINI Cooper 5-door and MINI Cooper D 5-door, the ribs of the radiator grille and the tailgate handle are finished in White Aluminium. The bumper trim, integrated in the radiator grille and also acting as a number plate carrier, is finished in high-gloss black, while the exhaust pipe has a chrome cover. The MINI Cooper S 5-door and MINI Cooper SD 5-door models emphasis their sporty flair with a honeycomb pattern in the radiator grille, an anthracite bumper trim, an additional opening in the bonnet, brake air ducts integrated in the lower air inlets and a separate rear apron with exhaust pipes arranged at the centre. These model variants also bear a red 'S' logo with a chrome border, not only on the side scuttle elements but also on the chrome bar of the radiator grille.
Unique within the competitive field: LED headlamps, adaptive light distribution, LED turning light, LED fog lamp
The circular headlamps are bordered by a wide chrome ring and have clearly structured light sources, with the arched turn indicators arranged in the lower section. In the standard version, the daytime driving lights and the side lights are fitted inside the additional headlights, while fog lamps can also be included here as an optional extra.
The new MINI 5-door is the first car in its class to offer the option of LED headlights. The bright white units provide the light source for both low and high beam. They are also surrounded by an LED daylight driving ring, the lower section of which reaches down to the white turn indicators. Another option is that of LED headlamps with additional functions, ensuring optimum illumination of the road surface and roadside - depending on the situation and route profile - and also including an LED turning light. The optional fog lamps are also available in halogen or as LEDs in conjunction with LED headlights. Cars fitted with LED headlights also have LED rear lights.
There is a palette of three solid and nine metallic exterior colours for the launch of the new MINI 5-door. In all models, the roof and exterior mirror caps can be finished in a contrasting colour, white or black, as an option and at no extra cost. Roof rails for roof rack mounting are also available for the new MINI 5-door. Individual accents include white or black bonnet stripes and Chrome Line for the exterior.
Interior design in hallmark MINI style: an innovative display and operating concept
Precise lines, premium colour and material combinations and modern functionality highlight how the MINI 5-door's cabin is a contemporary reworking of a design classic. The horizontal structure of the cockpit and the circular or elliptical contours of central features such as air vents, instruments and door trim are among the best-loved MINI design elements. The innovative display and operating concept is ideal for safe and intuitive use of the various driver assistance systems, infotainment and comfort functions.
The instrument cluster on the steering column displays road speed, engine speed and fuel level by means of superimposed circular instruments. The speedometer scale includes a colour panel for Check Control messages, vehicle status displays and visual indicators relating to driver assistance systems currently activated.
As soon as the key is inside the car, the engine of the new MINI 5-door can be started by pressing the toggle-type start/stop button located in the middle of the centre console, which lights up red. Above the toggle switch there are three circular control switches for heating and air conditioning. The operating switches for the headlamps and fog lights are located on the instrument cluster next to the steering wheel. The electrically controlled power window lifts are integrated in the door trim panels.
Central instrument with a wide range of functions and exclusive lighting configuration
With its indicator elements and extended functionality, the hallmark MINI central instrument provides exceptional interaction between driver and car. Depending on the car's fittings, the centre of its interior surface serves as a 4-line TFT display or a colour screen up to 8.8 inches in size. This provides operating feedback for vehicle functions, air conditioning, infotainment and communication, navigation maps and route directions, as well as the special graphics for MINI Connected Services. The selection and control of these functions is via the Controller in the centre console, which is fitted in conjunction with the Radio MINI Visual Boost, the MINI navigation system and the Professional navigation system. Rotary, pressure and shift movements as well as one-touch and bookmark buttons allow for intuitive, safe and convenient operation based on the principles of the BMW iDrive system, a ground-breaking concept throughout the entire automotive sector. The features included with the Professional navigation system include a Touch Controller whose touch-sensitive surface enables entry of characters. The innovative display and operating concept is supported by a lighting design in the area of the central instrument which is unique to MINI. LED units around the outer edge of the circular instrument - optionally available in six colours - can respond to the current situation on the road and to specific operating procedures according to driver preference. For example, the hand movements of the road speed and engine speed display in the instrument cluster are underpinned by parallel light impulses at the edge of the central instrument. When Park Distance Control is activated, the remaining distance to obstacles is shown by means of a ring of light which is illuminated in green, yellow or red, supplementing the graphic display. A change in the desired interior temperature is confirmed by LED units which light up in blue or red. Route guidance information provided by the navigation system is also visually supported by the illuminated ring: the closer the car gets to the turn-off point, the smaller the lit-up area at the edge of the central instrument.
Extended functionality and hallmark MINI diversity of colours and materials in the interior
The extended interior space along with numerous clever details makes the new MINI 5-door extremely functional and practical. The rear backrest with a 60:40 split can be folded down but also angled more steeply so as to create more luggage space. This enables the load volume to be increased in stages as required, from 278 litres to as much as 941 litres. The seat belt for the central back seat is integrated in the backrest. Numerous cupholders and storage facilities make it easy to take drinks and travel utensils in the car, and there is an additional storage compartment behind the trim strip on the passenger side. A storage package is also available as an option, and includes a double dual-section load compartment floor, additional lashing eyes and floor net for the luggage compartment, along with map pouches for the backrests of the front seats.
Seats in a fabric/leather combination and leather finish are offered as an alternative to the standard fabric version. The MINI Cooper S 5-door and the MINI Cooper SD 5-door are fitted with sport seats as standard and these are available as an option for the other variants. The sport seats offer excellent lateral holding, as well as seat depth adjustment function. The optional leather lounge seats have a tube-like visual structure and offer top-quality upholstery for excellent comfort.
A wide range of possibilities for interior customisation is offered by the model-specific selection of upholstery colours, interior surfaces, Colour Lines and other design features. These include a Chrome Line for the interior and the lighting package with LED interior lights and orange-coloured ambient lighting, as well as numerous new MINI Yours program features.
Powerful engines with MINI TwinPower Turbo Technology
At the launch of the MINI 5-door, there are two petrol engines and two diesel engines to choose from, with three and four cylinders respectively, as well as MINI TwinPower Turbo Technology. In the power units of the MINI Cooper 5-door and the MINI Cooper S 5-door, turbocharging and direct fuel injection are combined with variable camshaft control on the intake and exhaust side (double VANOS) and variable valve control in the form of VALVETRONIC, as patented by the BMW Group. In the diesel engines of the MINI Cooper D 5-door and the MINI Cooper SD 5-door, MINI TwinPower Turbo Technology consists of a turbocharger with variable turbine geometry and the latest generation of common rail direct injection. This offers further increased injection pressure as compared to the predecessor engines, a particularly high-precision fuel dosage and clean combustion.
In combination with extensive MINIMALISM technology, the new engine technology in the MINI 5-door also ensures a desirable balance between driving fun and fuel consumption. All engine variants also meet the EU6 exhaust emission standard.
With a peak output of 141 kW/192 hp, the 2.0-litre 4-cylinder engine gives the MINI Cooper S 5-door a real dash of sporty flair. The maximum torque of the engine is 280 Nm from 1,250 rpm. It can even be briefly increased to 300 Nm by means of an overboost function. This enables a sprint from standing to 100 km/h in 6.9 seconds (automatic: 6.8 seconds). The top speed of the MINI Cooper S 5-door is 232 km/h (230 km/h). These figures are combined with an average fuel consumption of 5.9 to 6.0 litres (5.4 to 5.5 litres) per 100 kilometres and a CO2 emissions level of 136 to 139 grams per kilometre (125 to 128 g/km; EU test cycle figures, dependent on tyre format selected).
Spontaneous power delivery and high revving are also characteristic of the 1.5-litre 3-cylinder petrol engine in the MINI Cooper 5-door. This has a peak output of 100 kW/136 hp and a maximum torque of 220 Nm (230 Nm with overboost) from 1,250 rpm. As a result, acceleration from zero to 100 km/h for the MINI Cooper 5-door takes 8.2 seconds (automatic: 8.1 seconds), with a top speed of 207 km/h in each case. The average fuel consumption of the new MINI Cooper 5-door is 4.7 to 4.8 litres (4.8 to 4.9 litres) per 100 kilometres, while its level of CO2 emissions 109 to 111 grams per kilometre (111 to 114 g/km; EU test cycle figures, dependent on tyre format selected).
The latest addition to the new generation of MINI engines is a 2.0-litre turbodiesel which delivers 125 kW/170 hp. With this peak output and a maximum torque of 360 Nm between 1,500 - 2,750 rpm, it ensures impressive pulling power in the MINI Cooper SD 5-door. With common rail injectors operating at a maximum pressure of 2,000 bar, this engine provides the basis for a high level of running smoothness as well as low fuel consumption and exhaust emission figures. The MINI Cooper SD 5-door completes the sprint from zero to 100 km/h in 7.4 seconds (automatic: 7.3 seconds), reaching a top speed of 225 km/h (223 km/h). The efficiency of the new diesel engine is reflected in an average fuel consumption of 4.1 to 4.3 litres (4.1 to 4.2 litres) per 100 kilometres and a CO2 emissions level of 109 to 112 grams per kilometre (107 to 109 g/km; EU test cycle figures, dependent on tyre format selected).
Spirited power and impressive efficiency are also combined in the MINI Cooper D 5-door. Its 1.5-litre 3-cylinder diesel engine has a peak output of 85 kW/116 hp. The maximum torque of 270 Nm is available from 1,750 rpm, enabling acceleration from zero to 100 km/h in 9.4 seconds (automatic: 9.5 seconds). The top speed is 203 km/h (202 km/h). These figures are combined with an average fuel consumption of between 3.6 and 3.7 litres (3.8 to 3.9 litres) per 100 kilometres and a CO2 emissions level of 95 to 97 grams per kilometre (99 to 102 g/km; EU test cycle figures, dependent on tyre format selected).
Cutting-edge manual and automatic transmissions
The new MINI 5-door features state-of-the-art manual and automatic transmissions which exhibit a high level of efficiency. Each car is fitted as standard with a 6-speed manual transmission that is characterized by low weight and improved shift comfort deriving from the use of carbon friction linings for the synchroniser rings. A centrifugal pendulum in the dual-mass flywheel compensates for torsional vibrations. This enhances the acoustic and vibrational properties of the drive system when travelling at low engine speeds, for greater fuel efficiency. A gear sensor also enables active engine speed adaptation for sporty up-shifting when accelerating and increased comfort when shifting down.
The 6-speed Steptronic transmission available for all variants of the new MINI 5-door offers improved efficiency, enhanced shift comfort and increased shift dynamics. It offers both automatic and manual changes in Drive position using the gear selector switch. The new MINI 5-door also combines the 6-speed Steptronic transmission with the automatic engine start/stop function, preventing unnecessary fuel consumption caused by idling at junctions or in congested traffic. Another option for the new MINI Cooper S 5-door and the MINI Cooper SD 5-door is a 6-speed Steptronic sports transmission that offers even shorter shift times and comprises shift paddles on the steering wheel for use in manual mode.
In conjunction with the MINI navigation system, the 6-speed Steptronic transmission is also able to take account of the route profile in controlling gear shifts. Based on navigation data, the appropriate drive position is selected to match the imminent situation on the road ahead. For example, it prevents unnecessary upshifts directly prior to junctions or on corners.
The MINIMALISM technology which comes as standard includes a shift-point display function for models with manual transmission, brake energy recuperation and needs-oriented control of the fuel pump, coolant pump and other ancillary units.
The electromechanical power steering and map-controlled oil pumps in all engines are optimised for the most efficient use. An optimised preheating process achieves approximately 50 per cent reduction in the energy required to start the diesel engines.
Depending on the model variant, optimisation of aerodynamic properties is achieved by such measures as active cooling air flaps, extensive underbody trim and air ducting elements in the upper section of the C columns. With a drag coefficient (Cd value) of 0.30 (MINI Cooper 5-door, MINI Cooper D 5-door) or 0.32 (MINI Cooper S 5-door) and 0.33 (MINI Cooper SD 5-door), the new MINI 5-door is at the forefront its segment in terms of aerodynamics.
MINI Driving Modes: sporty flair and efficiency at the turn of a switch
MINI Driving Modes is an optional extra which provides an excellent basis for fuel-efficient motoring. A rotary switch at the base of the gear or selector lever is used to activate either the standard MID mode, SPORT mode or GREEN mode. In SPORT, the accelerator pedal characteristic curve and steering are switched to a more sporty set-up, as are the shift times in cars fitted with the 6-speed Steptronic transmission. In GREEN mode, a relaxed and more fuel-efficient driving style is supported by intelligent control of energy and climate management, as well as by systems such as shift point display. In cars fitted with 6-speed Steptronic transmission it is also possible to use the coasting function. The drivetrain is decoupled at speeds of between 50 and 160 km/h as soon as the driver's foot is removed from the accelerator pedal. The new MINI 5-door then rolls at idling engine speed and at a minimum rate of fuel consumption.
Optimised suspension technology: low weight, lots of go-kart feeling
The suspension technology of the new MINI 5-door retains the well-established principle of the single-joint spring strut axle at the front and the multilink rear axle. It's a set-up which is unique within the competitive environment. Every component has been optimised in terms of material selection and geometry, and everything possible has been done to create MINI's much-loved handling properties - commonly referred to as the brand's signature 'go-kart' feeling - in the new MINI 5-door.
The mechanical set-up also takes account of the high level of engine power, front-wheel drive transmission, transversely mounted engine at the front, low centre of gravity, short overhangs, wide track and a rigid, weight-optimised body structure.
In order to achieve a low weight and a high level of component rigidity, the front axle is fitted with aluminium swivel bearings as well as axle supports and wishbones made of high-strength steel. The front axle kinematics supports the agile turn-in response and precise steering sensation of the new MINI 5-door. High-strength steel types are also used for the rear axle. Tube-shaped stabilisers at the front and rear axle contribute to weight reduction. The innovative axle bearing benefits both ride comfort and agility.
Dynamic Damper Control in the new MINI 5-door
The dampers are decoupled at the front and rear axle by means of triple-path support bearings. As an option, the new MINI 5-door can also be fitted with Dynamic Damper Control. Two characteristic lines are available for damper set-up, allowing activation of either a more comfort-oriented response or a direct, sporty response to road bumps, depending on the given situation. The compression and rebound stage are adjusted by means of electrical control of the EDC valves.
Engineered into the electromechanical power steering is compensation for so-called 'torque steer'. This prevents self-steering tendencies caused by differing degrees of torque at the drive wheels. Steering precision is also ensured when it comes to sudden avoidance swerves and when taking bends at higher loads. Standard features include the speed-related steering assistance system Servotronic. In addition to the ABS anti-lock braking system, Electronic Brakeforce Distribution (EBD), Cornering Brake Control (CBC) and the brake assistant, the driving stability control system DSC (Dynamic Stability Control) in the new MINI 5-door also includes a drive-off assistant, a brake dry function, Fading Brake Support and DTC mode (Dynamic Traction Control), which permits controlled slip at the drive wheels so as to facilitate driving off on loose sand or deep snow. When the driving stability system is deactivated (DSC Off mode), there is an electronic locking function for the front axle differential which selectively and appropriately brakes a spinning drive wheel on tight corners, redirecting the drive torque to the other wheel. This system, known as Electronic Differential Lock Control (EDLC), promotes the car's forward momentum without negatively influencing self-steering response. The MINI Cooper S 5-door and the MINI Cooper SD 5-door also feature the Performance Control system, which counteracts any tendency to understeer prior to reaching the threshold level. This supports an agile yet neutral driving response on bends.
The 15-inch forged light alloy wheels in the new MINI Cooper 5-door and the new MINI Cooper D 5-door have a particularly low weight as well as favourable aerodynamic properties. The new MINI Cooper S 5-door and the new MINI Cooper SD 5-door are fitted as standard with 16-inch light alloy wheels. Other light alloy wheels up to a size of 18 inches are available as part of the program of options and accessories. Tyres with emergency running properties are available as another option to fit all rim sizes.
Low weight combined with a high level of safety and agility due to intelligent lightweight construction
Intelligent lightweight construction means that weight reduction in the MINI is combined with an increase in rigidity. The result is improved agility and occupant protection. In spite of the wide range of fittings, virtually all variants of the new MINI 5-door are lighter than their competitors in the segment. Highly resilient load-bearing structures, advanced deformation zones and an extremely stable passenger cell provide an excellent basis for keeping impact energy away from passengers and ensuring maximum occupant protection. The safety concept behind the new MINI 5-door is geared towards achieving maximum scores on all the relevant crash tests worldwide.
Comprehensive safety technology including pedestrian protection
The standard safety fittings of the new MINI 5-door comprise front and side airbags, as well as curtain airbags for the front and rear seats. All seats are fitted with 3-point seat belts and there are belt tensioners and belt force limiters at the front. ISOFIX child seat mountings are provided at the rear and are optional on the front passenger seat.
There are also safety features which are designed to minimise the risk of injury to pedestrians. These include impact absorbers, precisely defined deformation elements and a partially active engine compartment lid. In the event of a collision with a pedestrian, which is registered by special sensors, a pyrotechnic trigger mechanism raises the engine compartment lid. This creates additional deformation space and significantly reduces the risk of injury when impacting against very hard parts of the engine.
Innovative driver assistance systems increase convenience and safety
There are numerous driver assistance systems available for the new MINI 5-door. These include the MINI Head-Up-Display, which shows information relevant to the driver on an extendible monitor in the upper section of the dashboard, between the windscreen and steering wheel. The MINI Head-Up Display promotes concentration on the road by displaying information directly in the driver's line of sight. It can then be read quickly and conveniently without the driver needing to avert their eyes from the road. The information that can be shown in the MINI Head-Up Display includes speed, navigation directions in the form of arrow graphics and junction sketches, visual signals for collision warning, display symbols generated by Speed Limit Info and No Passing Info, Check Control messages and entertainment program details such as radio channels and song titles. The graphics on the high-resolution screen are clearly visible in all light conditions.
Other innovative driver assistance systems in the new MINI 5-door include the optional Driving Assistant. This comprises a camera-based cruise control and distance control function which automatically maintains a distance from the vehicle ahead, as well as the collision and pedestrian warning system with initial brake function. In critical situations, the driver is first provided with a visual signal
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subject of ouster rumors ostensibly for his opposition to major pieces of legislation pushed by the Aquino administration, including the sin tax and reproductive health (RH) bills.
These were passed before the Christmas break after long and acrimonious debates in both houses of Congress and which required the President meeting with lawmakers to make a pitch for the passage of the controversial measures.
Untenable
Some of Enrile’s own colleagues view his position as Senate President to be untenable because as leader of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), he would be campaigning against the administration alliance during the midterm elections this May.
The senator, who questioned Enrile’s distribution of the money, noted that the Senate President recently talked about possibly resigning after the May elections.
That means, the senator said, Enrile wanted to stay on as Senate President during the crucial three-month campaign period for the midterm elections in May.
The senator said Enrile could use the influence of the office of the third highest official of the land to campaign not only against the administration but also for his son Jack, a representative of Cagayan who is running as a senatorial candidate under the UNA slate.
Enrile belongs to UNA which includes Vice President Jejomar Binay, archrival of Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas, touted as the possible presidential candidate of the Aquino-led Liberal Party in 2016.
UNA also includes former President Joseph Estrada, whose other son, San Juan Rep. JV Ejercito, is also running under the UNA senatorial ticket.
Unfilled positions
A look at the Senate budget for 2012 showed that of the P2.8 billion appropriated last year for the chamber’s operations, there was a considerable amount of savings generated from “unfilled positions” that were otherwise provided for in the budget.
For 2012, there were 2,162 permanent positions in the Senate, including the senators and their staff. But there were only 1,923 filled positions, leaving 239 unfilled.
P51.8M unused
The Senate has a P708.1-million budget for the salaries of all permanent positions but the total budget for the filled positions amounted to P656.3 million. That meant P51.8 million in unused funds.
Aside from this, the Senate Electoral Tribunal which has a separate budget of P105.7 million has 52 unfilled positions, corresponding to unused funds worth P112,000.
‘Vindictiveness’
Another senator said Enrile’s discrimination against four senators smacked of “professional jealousy and political vindictiveness.”
The two Cayetanos and Arroyo belong to the minority, which Trillanes joined after a feud with Enrile. Santiago is with the majority.
Trillanes had a bitter public spat with Enrile last September when the much younger senator rose to challenge the veteran politician over the bill that sought to divide Camarines Sur province.
Secret negotiator
Angered by this, Enrile revealed Trillanes’ previously secret role as Mr. Aquino’s back-channel negotiator with China.
The Senate President read on the Senate floor embarrassing notes of Trillanes’ meeting with then Philippine Ambassador to China Sonia Brady in Beijing, prompting Trillanes to walk out of the session hall.
Biscuits returned
Last December, Santiago disclosed that Enrile had returned her and Sen. Pia Cayetano’s Christmas gifts (biscuits from Iloilo) because of their sponsorship of the RH bill that Enrile opposed.
Though Enrile was one of Santiago’s wedding sponsors, the veteran senator reportedly also resented Santiago when she upstaged him in a survey of senators’ performance during the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Enrile was widely praised for his handling of the trial. He also allegedly resented Sen. Alan Cayetano, the minority leader, for questioning some of his rulings, particularly during the Corona impeachment trial.
Enrile’s prerogative
Aside from the questionable use of the Senate funds as Christmas gifts, a senator wondered about the basis of Enrile in discriminating against his four colleagues.
“What’s the legal basis for excluding four senators?” the senator said.
Another senator laughed when told that four colleagues got only P250,000 each.
That, the senator said, was also up to Enrile to decide. With a report from Norman Bordadora
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MOST READInfosys, the country's second biggest information technology company, going through a troubled leadership transition, has sent legal notices to three Indian newspapers for the first time in its history since seven entrepreneurs, including N R Narayana Murthy, set it up.
Monday's notices seek of Rs 2,000 crore each from The Times of India and The Economic Times, both owned by Bennett, Coleman & Co, and The Financial Express, owned by the Indian Express group, alleging some of their articles defamed It asked the newspapers to withdraw the articles and offer an unconditional apology.
Legal notices to the are not uncommon in India. But the move by a media-friendly company like has surprised many, who believe this could be part of a crisis management strategy over speculation regarding its senior management.
"I think it is an employee communication problem they are trying to address through this. It is very different from their old strategy, which is the is a friend. I was very surprised when I saw it," said Jessie Paul, a marketing expert and CEO of Paul Writer Strategic Advisory, a marketing advisory firm. Lulu Raghavan, managing director, Landor Associates, a global strategic brand consulting and design firm, says, as a company has the prerogative to respond to anything that is negative for its brand. "We live in a very transparent and digital age and it is a difficult environment for corporate brands to operate in. More so for a firm like Infosys that is undergoing restructuring."
Vaidehi Thakar, director of The Indian Express Limited, said, "While we will send an appropriate response to the Infosys notice, we do not wish to comment on this matter." Ravi Dhariwal, CEO, publishing, at Bennett Coleman & Co, did not reply to an email from Business Standard. Infosys, too, did not reply to an emailed query.
Infosys is understood to have objected to nine articles in Economic Times and six in The Times of India and has pointed out inaccuracies. Most of the articles dealt with a series of exits at Infosys and its revival strategy under Narayana Murthy, who returned from retirement last year. Infosys is searching for a replacement to CEO S D Shibulal, who wants to step down before January 2015.
The company is understood to have interviewed internal as well as external candidates and is expected to announce a name soon. The departure of a few senior executives, notably B G Srinivas, a former president in contention for the CEO's job, has triggered speculation of more exits at Infosys.
"It is okay to speculate on a company. But when you start speculating about an individual - whether he will stay in a company or not - two things happen. Even if a person has not thought of leaving, people will assume he is going to leave. Second, that person will also get targeted by head-hunters," said Paul, who has worked as chief marketing officer for infotech company Wipro and global brand manager for Infosys.
"I think, it (the notices to companies) is a ploy to clamp on speculative stories, and to try to send a message that if you do not have the facts do not publish," she added.The income of the median U.S. household was $51,900 in 2013, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. That’s essentially unchanged from 2012, after adjusting for inflation, and is 8 percent lower than in 2007, before the recession began. Median income hasn’t shown a statistically significant increase since the recession ended in 2009.
Median income is an imperfect measure of financial well-being. The government’s official measure ignores noncash benefits, such as food stamps, and after-tax benefits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit. Moreover, it doesn’t account for demographic changes, such as the aging of the population and the shrinking of the typical household. Adjusting for those changes would probably show at least some improvement in income, especially over the longer term.
Still, Tuesday’s report makes clear how little progress the American middle class has made — not just over the past few years, but over recent decades. Median household income was lower in 2013 than in 1989 and is 8.7 percent below its 1999 peak.
The pain hasn’t been shared equally. The average income of the bottom fifth of earners has fallen 16 percent since 1999, compared to 2 percent for the richest fifth. The top 20 percent of earners accounted for 51 percent of all income in 2013, unchanged from 2012 and up slightly from 49.4 percent in 1999. The “gini index,” a measure of income inequality in which 0 represents perfect equality and 1 represents perfect inequality, was essentially unchanged in 2013 at 0.476. But it remains high by historical standards.
Tuesday’s report did have glimmers of progress. The official poverty rate fell to 14.5 percent from 15 percent, and the child poverty rate fell for the first time since 2000. More people, and especially more men, worked full time in 2013. And fewer people went without health insurance.
Here are a few other interesting data points from Tuesday’s report:
Young, old see gains: The weak recovery has hit young people especially hard; the unemployment rate for Americans younger than 25 is still 13 percent, more than double the 6.1 percent for the population as a whole. But the “lost generation” may at last be seeing some gains. Americans ages 15 to 24 saw their household income rise 10.5 percent in 2013, the biggest increase for any group, though they are still earning 4 percent less than before the recession. Those 65 and older, meanwhile, saw their incomes rise 3.7 percent. No other age group saw statistically significant income gains.
But young people’s gains come with an important caveat: Household income figures are based on the age of the “householder.” So-called boomerang children, 20-somethings living in their parents’ basements because they can’t find good jobs don’t count as their own households and thus are left out of those numbers. (Their income still counts, but it’s part of their parents’ household income.) Still, even looking at individual income, rather than household income, young people saw modest progress; their median individual income rose 2.7 percent, faster than any other age group.
Pay gap narrows: Women working full time, year-round earned 78 cents for every dollar men made in 2013. The Census Bureau’s measure of the gender pay gap is crude, ignoring differences in hours worked, education, industry and numerous other factors. (Even adjusting for those factors, however, the pay gap is larger than zero by almost every calculation.) Still, while the exact number may not be meaningful, the trend is significant. The pay gap, which had been stuck at 77 cents on the dollar for nearly a decade, narrowed by a penny in 2013, the first change since 2004. The shift was due to rising earnings for women, not falling earnings for men.
Big racial gaps remain: The median income of an African-American household was $34,600 in 2013, more than 40 percent less than the median non-Hispanic white household. The race gap has been little changed in recent years. It peaked at about 45 percent in the 1980s and narrowed to 35 percent in 2000, but has since lost much of that ground. More than a quarter of blacks live below the official poverty line, compared to 10 percent of whites.
Hispanics, however, saw modest income gains in 2013, though their $41,000 median household income is still about 39 percent less than whites’ and their poverty rate, at 23.5 percent, is far higher. Asians had the highest median income of any racial group, at $67,000.
An imperfect poverty measure: Tuesday’s report included data on Americans living beneath the official poverty line, which in 2013 was about $15,162 for a family of two. But economists widely regard the official poverty rate as misleading. It ignores benefits that keep millions of people out of poverty and fails to account for regional variations in the cost of living, among other significant weaknesses. An alternative measure, which is seen as more accurate, won’t be released until next month. Last year’s alternative measure showed overall poverty was higher than the official measure indicated, but lower among children.
Lots more data: The Census Bureau released far more data Tuesday than it included in its main report. Dozens of tables break down income by age, sex, education, marital status and other factors, and a separate widget allows users to create their own tables. And there’s more to come: On Thursday, the Census Bureau will release results from the 2013 American Community Survey, which will provide a detailed look at demographics and earnings by state and local area. We’ll have more for you as we dig through it all.Each year, the U.S. Census Bureau spends $1 billion surveying the population. These surveys are designed to tease apart the demographic makeup of the country by asking a representative group of people about their race, gender, education, occupation, and so on. This is an important exercise because it gives a crucial bird’s-eye view of the population and how it is changing.
But it is not easy. For a start, the data is relatively large scale—the Census Bureau’s main survey, the American Community Survey, gives results for all cities and counties with a population greater than 65,000. Smaller areas don’t figure.
What’s more, surveying the population is a time-consuming exercise; so much so that some data can be five years old by the time it is published. And because other data is much newer, comparisons can be problematic.
So demographers would dearly love to have a faster, more efficient, and higher-resolution way of studying the population.
Enter Timnit Gebru at Stanford University and a few pals, who have used Google Street View images to make remarkably accurate assessments of the demographic breakdown in a wide range of U.S. cities. Their technique shows how demographers can collect reliable data in an entirely new way that complements and improves on current methods.
Gebru and co begin with 50 million Street View images gathered by Google’s cars in 200 American cities. The team believes the type of car people own is a strong indicator of their race, income, education levels, occupation, and so on.
So Gebru trained a set of machine-vision algorithms to recognize cars in these images and then classify each in one of 2,657 different categories that depend not only on the make and model of the car but also its age. This gives an accurate idea of the car’s worth.
In total, they classified some 22 million vehicles, about a third of all vehicles on the road in these cities. And it took their machine about two weeks to do the task at a rate of about 0.2 seconds per vehicle. “A human expert, assuming 10 seconds per image, would take more than 15 years to perform the same task,” say Gebru and co.
But how does the population of vehicles in an area relate to the local demographics? To find out, the team trained another deep-learning algorithm to learn the correlation between vehicle types and the data from U.S. Census and presidential election voting patterns in each precinct (an area of about 1,000 people). This training data set consisted of the data from 35 cities.
They then used the rest of the data to test the deep-learning algorithm. The question they wanted to answer was: given the pattern of vehicles in an area, could the algorithm accurately predict the demographics as recorded in the U.S. Census and presidential voting data?
It turns out that the deep-learning algorithm can do this remarkably well. “Using the classified motor vehicles in each neighborhood, we infer a wide range of demographic statistics, socioeconomic attributes, and political preferences of its residents,” they say.
For example, sedans are most closely associated with Democrats, while extended cab pickups are more closely associated with precincts that voted Republican. “We found that by driving through a city for 15 minutes while counting sedans and pickup trucks, it is possible to reliably determine whether the city voted Democratic or Republican,” say Gebru and co.
An important question is how well these conclusions match those gathered by surveys in the conventional way. To find out, Gebru and co compared their results with those from the U.S. Census Bureau’s own data from the American Community Survey. And they found a strong correlation with demographic factors such as income, education, occupation, and so on. They were even able to make fine-grained predictions about voter preferences at the level of precincts, which encompass about 1,000 people.
The American Community Survey is likely to remain the gold standard for data collection, at least for the time being. But the ability to gather high-quality data quickly using Google Street View has great potential to provide almost real-time monitoring of changes in the population.
And of course, Google is not the only organization collecting images of the streets—it’s not hard to imagine the same process being applied to images from Facebook, Twitter, or other social media networks that are geotagged and date-stamped.
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1702.06683: Using Deep Learning and Google Street View to Estimate the Demographic Makeup of the USQUINCY, MA—Saying she would stop looking at her phone and tablet at least an hour before going to sleep, local woman Carina Anielski, who drinks six cups of coffee per day, told reporters Tuesday that she was trying to cut down on blue light around bedtime. “I heard that too much blue light can really mess with your circadian rhythm, so I’m going to keep it way down,” said Anielski, who consumes a full 12 ounces of highly caffeinated beverage roughly every two hours between the cup she has upon arriving at work and the cup she consumes after dinner. “I’ve also put a filter on all my devices that blocks out blue light, so I’ve got an added layer of protection. Seriously, one blast of that stuff at the wrong time and I’m wide awake till four in the morning. I have to take some precautions.” At press time, Anielski, who also drinks at least six Diet Cokes every day, was shutting down her laptop promptly at 9 p.m.
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[Photo Credit: jmv]In the six pages that HRW dedicates to Venezuela in its World Report 2014, released this week, it manages to tell at least 30 serious lies, distortions, and omissions. Pointing out these lies is important, because many people believe that HRW is a neutral authority on human rights, and the mainstream press publish articles and headlines based on HRW report conclusions. Here are some of the headlines in both English and Spanish (translated to English) that have come out of the 2014 report:
Global Post – Venezuela intimidates opponents, media: HRW report, PanAm Post – Human Rights Watch: A black eye for Latin America, AFP – HRW criticises Venezuela in its annual report on human rights, El Economista – HRW: Democracy in Venezuela is fictitious, El Universal – Human Rights Watch report denounces persecution of media in Venezuela, El Siglo – Human Rights Watch: Venezuela is an example of “fictitious democracies”, El Colombiano: HRW describes Venezuela as a fictitious democracy, NTN24 – HRW warns that Venezuelan government applies “arbitrary” measures against media that is critical of its policies
The headlines which talk about a “fictitious” or “feigned” democracy, are referring to the start of the report, where HRW put Venezuela, along with other countries, under the category of “abusive majoritarianism”. There, HRW provides a very limited definition of democracy; “periodic elections, the rule of law, and respect for the human rights of all” and argues that Venezuela has adopted “the form but not the substance of democracy”. HRW cites Diosdado Cabello not letting legislators who didn’t recognise democratically elected President Maduro speak in parliament – yet the punishment seems soft, considering the crime.
Below, I’ve grouped the lies and omissions according to HRW’s own subheadings in its chapter on Venezuela. Unlike with other countries such as the US, HRW omits all of Venezuela’s human rights achievements in its assessment, and in reality a range of other subheadings would be deserving, such has right to have access to housing, people’s right to be consulted about policy, right of the poorer people to be heard in the media, right to education, the right to health care, to land, and so on. Of course, nowhere in the report does HRW mention the economic crimes committed by the business sector against Venezuelans’ right to access affordable goods (hoarding, speculation, etc).
15 lies and distortions
Introduction
1. “The Supreme Court and the National Electoral Council rejected appeals filed by the opposition candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, challenging the results [of the April 2013 presidential elections]”. – The CNE did meet with the opposition and they came to an agreement to do a manual recount of the remaining 46% of votes which hadn’t already been revised on the day of the election. The entire recount was televised live. Given how incredibly flimsy Capriles’ “evidence” was, the Supreme Court would have been ridiculing itself to do anything but reject his case.
2. “Under the leadership of President Chavez and now President Maduro, the accumulation of power in the executive branch and the erosion of human rights guarantees have enabled the government to intimidate, censor, and prosecute its critics.” – HRW offers very little evidence to substantiate such accusations. The reality is the opposite; private media makes up the vast majority of the media, and freely criticises the government on a daily basis, to the point where it invents news and blames the national government for things it isn’t even responsible for. Just last week here in Merida a few opposition students held a protest by burning tires on a main road. For a week, traffic to a key hospital was blocked, and the students had no placards stating the reason for their protest. The police closed off the roads around them to protect their right to protest.
3. “In September 2013, the Venezuelan government’s decision to withdraw from the American Convention on Human Rights took effect, leaving Venezuelans without access to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights, an international tribunal that has protected their rights for decades in a wide array of cases.” – The IACHR has not protected Venezuelans’ rights. From 1969-1998, a repressive period of disappearances, political repression, and massacres such as those at Cantaura, Yumare, and the Caracazo, it only considered six cases, and of those only one was brought to the commission. In contrast, from 1999 to 2011 it ruled on and processed a total of 23 cases. It did not take any action after the coup attempt against democratically elected president Hugo Chavez in 2002.
Post-Election Violence
4. “Security forces used excessive force and arbitrary detentions to disperse anti-government demonstrations after the April elections, according to local groups”. -Though it may have varied from region to region, unlike HRW, I was at those protests, and took photos of and interviewed opposition protesters in Merida – one of their strongholds. Despite threatening to take over and destroy the CNE and the PSUV head offices, with large piles of projectiles like rocks and shrapnel and Molotov cocktails, the police merely cordoned off those areas. They were not armed, and there were no injuries or arrests observed. The threats were not empty ones either, as seen by other destruction carried out by the opposition around the country. HRW also needs to specify what it means by “security forces”, as the police system here is complicated and most police continue to be managed at a state level, but HRW implies that the national government is entirely responsible. Finally, merely attributing these claims to “local groups” is very vague. One might also say, HRW is a capitalist front, said local groups.
5. “Official sources reported that nine individuals were killed at the time, although the circumstances in which the deaths occurred remain unclear. President Maduro and other high level officials have used the threat of criminal investigations as a political tool, attributing responsibility for all acts of violence during demonstrations to Capriles”. – Does HRW want an investigation or not? The violence occurred the day after the presidential elections, and all of the victims and buildings destroyed were Chavista supporters or part of national programs. It was clearly political, why is it a problem to mention that, and why does it become a “threat” when Maduro talks about bringing murderers and those who set fire to public hospitals, to justice? A thorough investigation was conducted, and those who were responsible for the deaths were arrested.
Judicial Independence
6. “The judiciary has largely ceased to function as an independent branch of government”. – While it is true that there are serious problems in Venezuela’s court system: HRW doesn’t mention those: the delays and corruption. Instead, it argued the judiciary is not “independent” because it doesn’t always rule against the government, as HRW would like. If it is not independent, why were almost a hundred supposedly pro government workers in SAIME, SENIAT, the China-Venezuela bank, and so on, arrested last year for corruption?
Freedom of Media
7. “Over the past decade, the government has expanded and abused its powers to regulate the media… fear of government reprisals has made self-censorship a problem” – No it hasn’t. What the government has done, over the last four years or so, is pass legislation which limits media abuse: racism, extreme violence, and sensationalism that is so extreme it can be psychologically damaging. Those regulations apply equally to the private, public, and community media, but the reality is it is the private media which tends to be most abusive. Nevertheless, Conatel has emitted less than 10 fines over the last few years.
8. “The government has taken aggressive steps to reduce the availability of media outlets that engage in critical programming.” – HRW is not able to cite any examples to back up this statement. Instead, it refers to one case from years ago, RCTV, who’s license was not renewed after it played an active role in the 2002 coup.
9. “In April 2013, Globovision was sold to government supporters… since then it has significantly reduced its critical programming”. The owners of Globovision sold it to a group of Venezuelan investors headed by businessman Juan Domingo Cordero, who is not a government supporter. Since then, Globovision’s coverage is somewhat less extreme and sensationalist, but it is just as critical.
10. “The government has also targeted other media outlets for arbitrary sanction and censorship”. – The government has not censored any media. Today alone, for example, Tal Cual freely published these headlines: “The fiscal report is a time bomb”, “The government uses violence as an excuse to censor the media”, “Dance with death” (to refer to the government) and “The government tragicomedy”. El Nacional received a fine in August last year for using a three year old photo of naked corpses on its front cover, and that is it.
Human Rights Defenders
11. “The Venezuelan government has sought to marginalise the country’s human rights defenders by repeatedly accusing them of seeking to undermine Venezuelan democracy with the support of the US government”. – The lie here is “the country’s human rights defenders”. HRW is referring to a select few organisations such as itself and other individuals, who use human rights as a front for their right-wing political agenda. The government is completely within its right in pointing that out.
Abuses by Security Forces
This section is somewhat accurate, but lacks any causal analysis.
Prison Conditions
These criticisms are also somewhat legitimate, though the information is selective. For omissions, see below.
Labour Rights
12. “Political discrimination against workers in state institutions remains a problem. In April 2013, Minister of Housing Ricardo Molina called on all ministry personnel who supported the opposition to resign, saying that he would fire anyone who criticised Maduro, Chavez, or the revolution”. Though perhaps a bit extreme, HRW forgets to point out that Molina made that remark in the context of the opposition not recognising a democratically elected president. That there is political discrimination against workers is largely untrue, though may occur in isolated situations. It is no secret that most of the public education and health workers, for example, support the opposition.
13. “The National Electoral Council (CNE), a public authority, continues to play an excessive role in union elections, violating international standards that guarantee workers the right to elect their representatives in full freedom” – Actually, what the CNE provides to unions is logistical support: machinery that makes cross-country elections much easier. If there were concern about the CNE somehow influencing elections, the opposition would not have also used its logistical support for its primaries in February 2012.
Key International Actors
14. “For years, Venezuela’s government has refused to authorise UN human rights experts to conduct fact-finding visits in the country” – That’s why the UNESCO and the FAO have both recently praised Venezuela’s education and food development. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Right’s most recent report on Venezuela was made in September last year, it was about Venezuela’s elimination of racial discrimination.
15. “In June 2013, Venezuela became the pro-tempore president of Mercosur… The Asuncion Protocol…states that “full respect of democratic institutions and the respect of human rights” are essential…By not addressing the absence of an independent judiciary in Venezuela, as well as the government’s efforts to undermine human rights protections, the other Mercosur member states have failed to uphold these commitments” – See previous and subsequent comments on Venezuela’s judiciary and treatment of “human rights” protections.
15 omissions
The following very important facts on Venezuela’s human rights record were completely omitted from the report. Such omissions are as serious as lying.
Post-Election Violence
1. HRW conveniently doesn’t mention that the 15 “health centres” that were “vandalised” (ie they were set on fire on medical equipment was destroyed) were CDIs- Cuban-Venezuelan run free health centres that have come to be a symbol of the Bolivarian revolution. HRW doesn’t mention that opposition supporters attacked them, it lets readers believe that the government supported such violence.
2. HRW doesn’t criticise the extremely undemocratic move by Capriles to not recognise the president whom the majority of voters chose in the April presidential elections. Their omission to do so amounts to tacit support of Capriles. That sort of context is also necessary when HRW criticises the fact that there were arrests following the elections: it’s possible that some arrests were not justified, but given that the Bolivarian revolution has already suffered one (failed) coup, and the continent has suffered many successful and bloody ones, it is reasonable to arrest participants in that. Any other country would do the same.
3. HRW focuses on the post election violence, and blames the national government for it, rather than recognising the opposition’s role. It purposefully omits to mention that while Capriles called for a “venting of rage”, Maduro called on supporters to play music and dance in the street.
Judicial Independence
4. HRW criticises the imprisonment of “government critic” judge Afiuni, but omits to mention that she was arrested for illegally releasing a bank president who stole US$27 million from state currency body, CADIVI. Does HRW advocate such judicial corruption? In June Afiuni was awarded conditional release.
5. There are, however, other cases of court inefficiency and bribery of judges, which HRW completely ignores, perhaps because the victims are mostly Bolivarian revolution supporters. Over the last year, many rural workers, commune members, trade unionists, and indigenous activists were murdered by hired killers, and though the killers are usually easy to identify, few have been arrested and prosecuted.
6. HRW criticises Venezuela for withdrawing from the IACHR, but omits to mention that that court is totally under the thumb of the US. It then hypocritically comments on Venezuela’s so called “lack of judicial independence”.
Freedom of Media
7. While in most countries, people who aren’t rich don’t have the right to run their own media, that right is being promoted in Venezuela, with the state materially and legally supporting over 500 community and alternative radios, television stations, and newspapers. That is an important development in media freedom, but HRW completely ignored it.
8. HRW states that, “In November 2013, the broadcasting authority opened an administrative investigation against eight Internet providers for allowing web sites that published information on unofficial exchange rates”. HRW intentionally omits to point out that those sites were illegally publishing those figures, and that those figures have contributed to the three and four fold price increase of basic products. At no point does HRW criticise the role of business of deliberately making basic food and goods unaffordable for Venezuelans.
9. HRW also doesn’t mention the almost one thousand free internet centres the government has set up, its promotion of freeware, and its distribution of laptops to school children: part of the government’s efforts to make the right to information a reality.
Human Rights Defenders
10. HRW criticises the government for supposedly “marginalising” “human rights defenders” by investigating their sources of funding, but fails to mention the fact that the US does use such groups as a front for funding the undemocratic wing of the opposition. It fails to criticise this affront to Venezuela’s right to sovereignty.
11. Likewise, it doesn’t mention the important role played by the real human rights defenders in Venezuela: gender and sexuality activists and movements, indigenous and afro-descendents organisations, the Cuban doctors defending the right to free and quality health care, community activists, environmental movements, volunteer teachers, social mission workers, activist analysts who are constructively critical of the situation in the country, and so on. Many of these movements and workers receive financial, institutional, and/or legal support from the state, though there are improvements to be made there as well, such as legalising gay marriage, abortion, and so on.
Abuses by Security Forces
12. Here it is telling that HRW simply doesn’t mention Venezuela’s creation of the UNES, a university training police in human rights and preventative policing. While it is legitimate that HRW points out ongoing problems within the police forces, it doesn’t mention that such corruption has significantly decreased, nor that police political repression has been almost completely eliminated.
Prison Conditions
13. HRW rightly points out the ongoing problems of overcrowding and organised prisoner violence in prisons, but simply omits to mention anything the government is doing to improve prisoner rights, including letting those who have committed minor offences out during the day time to work or study, internal prison education and productive work programs, assistance on leaving prison, cultural workshops such as video production in prisons, and government meetings with prisoners.
Labour Rights
14. For HRW it seems labour rights are limited to the right of opposition supporters to work in governmental programs that they don’t agree with (a right they have). HRW omits to mention the Labour Law which came into effect in May last year, which beats most of the world in providing workers with rights to permanent work (contract labour is made illegal), to childcare in the workplace, to maternity leave and to paternity leave, shorter working hours, retirement pensions, and much much more.
15. HRW alleges that opposition workers were “threatened” with losing their jobs if they supported Capriles, but provides no evidence of that, nor mentions that of course voting is anonymous and such a threat could not be carried out, and neglects to mention that governor Capriles fired fire fighters in May last year for demanding pay they were owed, uniforms, and infrastructure improvements.Disgraced LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling reveals his inner horndog in his
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the old Diefenbaker was in full cry. All the agony of the disintegration of his government was gone, and he seemed to be a giant revived by his contact with the people. This was Diefenbaker's finest election. He was virtually alone on the hustings. Even such loyalists as Gordon Churchill had to stick close to their own bailiwicks, where they were fighting for their political lives.
Though the White House maintained public neutrality, privately Kennedy made it clear he desired a Liberal victory. Kennedy lent Lou Harris, his pollster to work for the Liberals again. On election day, April 8, 1963, the Liberals claimed 129 seats to the Tories' 95, five seats short of an absolute majority. Diefenbaker held to power for several days, until six Quebec Social Credit MPs signed a statement that Pearson should form the government. These votes would be enough to give Pearson support of a majority of the House of Commons, and Diefenbaker resigned. The six MPs repudiated the statement within days. Nonetheless, Pearson formed a government with the support of the NDP.
Later years (1963–1979) [ edit ]
Return to opposition [ edit ]
Diefenbaker continued to lead the Progressive Conservatives, again as Leader of the Opposition. In November 1963, upon hearing of Kennedy's assassination, the Tory leader addressed the Commons, stating, "A beacon of freedom has gone. Whatever the disagreement, to me he stood as the embodiment of freedom, not only in his own country, but throughout the world." In the 1964 Great Canadian Flag Debate, Diefenbaker led the unsuccessful opposition to the Maple Leaf flag, which the Liberals pushed for after the rejection of Pearson's preferred design showing three maple leaves. Diefenbaker preferred the existing Canadian Red Ensign or another design showing symbols of the nation's heritage. He dismissed the adopted design, with a single red maple leaf and two red bars, as "a flag that Peruvians might salute". At the request of Quebec Tory Léon Balcer, who feared devastating PC losses in the province at the next election, Pearson imposed closure, and the bill passed with the majority singing "O Canada" as Diefenbaker led the dissenters in "God Save the Queen".
In 1966, the Liberals began to make an issue of the Munsinger affair—two officials of the Diefenbaker government had slept with a woman suspected of being a Soviet spy. In what Diefenbaker saw as a partisan attack, Pearson established a one-man Royal Commission, which, according to Diefenbaker biographer Smith, indulged in "three months of reckless political inquisition". By the time the commission issued its report, Diefenbaker and other former ministers had long since withdrawn their counsel from the proceedings. The report faulted Diefenbaker for not dismissing the ministers in question, but found no actual security breach.
There were calls for Diefenbaker's retirement, especially from the Bay Street wing of the party as early as 1964. Diefenbaker initially beat back attempts to remove him without trouble. When Pearson called an election in 1965 in the expectation of receiving a majority, Diefenbaker ran an aggressive campaign. The Liberals fell two seats short of a majority, and the Tories improved their position slightly at the expense of the smaller parties. After the election, some Tories, led by party president Dalton Camp, began a quiet campaign to oust Diefenbaker.
In the absence of a formal leadership review process, Camp was able to stage a de facto review by running for re-election as party president on the platform of holding a leadership convention within a year. His campaign at the Tories' 1966 convention occurred amidst allegations of vote rigging, violence, and seating arrangements designed to ensure that when Diefenbaker addressed the delegates, television viewers would see unmoved delegates in the first ten rows. Other Camp supporters tried to shout Diefenbaker down. Camp was successful in being re-elected thereby forcing a leadership convention for 1967. Diefenbaker initially made no announcement as to whether he would stand, but angered by a resolution at the party's policy conference which spoke of "deux nations" or "two founding peoples" (as opposed to Diefenbaker's "One Canada"), decided to seek to retain his leadership. Although Diefenbaker entered at the last minute to stand as a candidate for the leadership, he finished fifth on each of the first three ballots, and withdrew from the contest, which was won by Nova Scotia Premier Robert Stanfield.
Diefenbaker addressed the delegates before Stanfield spoke:
My course has come to an end. I have fought your battles, and you have given me that loyalty that led us to victory more often than the party has ever had since the days of Sir John A. Macdonald. In my retiring, I have nothing to withdraw in my desire to see Canada, my country and your country, one nation.
Final years and death [ edit ]
Diefenbaker was embittered by his loss of the party leadership. Pearson announced his retirement in December 1967, and Diefenbaker forged a wary relationship of mutual respect with Pearson's successor, Pierre Trudeau. Trudeau called a general election for June 1968; Stanfield asked Diefenbaker to join him at a rally in Saskatoon, which Diefenbaker refused, although the two appeared at hastily arranged photo opportunities. Trudeau obtained the majority against Stanfield that Pearson had never been able to obtain against Diefenbaker, as the PC party lost 25 seats, 20 of them in the West. The former Prime Minister, though stating, "The Conservative Party has suffered a calamitous disaster" in a CBC interview, could not conceal his delight at Stanfield's humiliation, and especially gloated at the defeat of Camp, who made an unsuccessful attempt to enter the Commons. Diefenbaker was easily returned for Prince Albert.
Although Stanfield worked to try to unify the party, Diefenbaker and his loyalists proved difficult to reconcile. The division in the party broke out in well-publicised dissensions, as when Diefenbaker called on Progressive Conservative MPs to break with Stanfield's position on the Official Languages bill, and nearly half the caucus voted against their leader's will or abstained. In addition to his parliamentary activities, Diefenbaker travelled extensively and began work on his memoirs, which were published in three volumes between 1975 and 1977. Pearson died of cancer in 1972, and Diefenbaker was asked if he had kind words for his old rival. Diefenbaker shook his head and said only, "He shouldn't have won the Nobel Prize."
By 1972, Diefenbaker had grown disillusioned with Trudeau, and campaigned wholeheartedly for the Tories in that year's election. Diefenbaker was reelected comfortably in his home riding, and the Progressive Conservatives came within two seats of matching the Liberal total. Diefenbaker was relieved both that Trudeau had been humbled and that Stanfield had been denied power. Trudeau regained his majority two years later in an election that saw Diefenbaker, by then the only living former Prime Minister, have his personal majority grow to 11,000 votes.
In the 1976 New Year Honours, Diefenbaker was created a Companion of Honour, an accolade bestowed as the personal gift of the Sovereign. After a long illness, Olive Diefenbaker died on December 22, a loss which plunged Diefenbaker into despair.
Joe Clark succeeded Stanfield as party leader in 1976, but as Clark had supported the leadership review, Diefenbaker held a grudge against him. Diefenbaker had supported Claude Wagner for leader, but when Clark won, stated that Clark would make "a remarkable leader of this party". However, Diefenbaker repeatedly criticized his party leader, to such an extent that Stanfield publicly asked Diefenbaker "to stop sticking a knife into Mr. Clark"—a request Diefenbaker did not agree to. According to columnist Charles Lynch, Diefenbaker regarded Clark as an upstart and a pipsqueak.
In 1978, Diefenbaker announced that he would stand in one more election, and under the slogan "Diefenbaker—Now More Than Ever", weathered a campaign the following year during which he apparently suffered a mild stroke, although the media were told he was bedridden with influenza. In the May election Diefenbaker defeated NDP candidate Stan Hovdebo (who, after Diefenbaker's death, would win the seat in a by-election) by 4,000 votes. Clark had defeated Trudeau, though only gaining a minority government, and Diefenbaker returned to Ottawa to witness the swearing-in, still unreconciled to his old opponents among Clark's ministers. Two months later, Diefenbaker died of a heart attack in his study about a month before his 84th birthday.
Diefenbaker had extensively planned his funeral in consultation with government officials. He lay in state in the Hall of Honour in Parliament for two and a half days; 10,000 Canadians passed by his casket. The Maple Leaf Flag on the casket was partially obscured by the Red Ensign. After the service, his body was taken by train on a slow journey to its final destination, Saskatoon; along the route, many Canadians lined the tracks to watch the funeral train pass. In Winnipeg, an estimated 10,000 people waited at midnight in a one-kilometre line to file past the casket which made the trip draped in a Canadian flag and Diefenbaker's beloved Red Ensign. In Prince Albert, thousands of those he had represented filled the square in front of the railroad station to salute the only man from Saskatchewan ever to become Prime Minister. His coffin was accompanied by that of his wife Olive, disinterred from temporary burial in Ottawa. Prime Minister Clark delivered the eulogy, paying tribute to "an indomitable man, born to a minority group, raised in a minority region, leader of a minority party, who went on to change the very nature of his country, and change it forever". John and Olive Diefenbaker rest outside the Diefenbaker Centre, built to house his papers, on the campus of the University of Saskatchewan.
Legacy [ edit ]
Diefenbaker Statue, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan
Most of the policies that Diefenbaker held dear did not survive the 16 years of Liberal rule which followed his fall. By the end of 1963, the first of the Bomarc warheads entered Canada, where they remained until the last were finally phased out during John Turner's brief government in 1984. Diefenbaker's decision to have Canada remain outside the OAS was not reversed by Pearson, and it was not until 1989, under the Tory government of Brian Mulroney, that Canada joined.
But several defining features of modern Canada can be traced back to Diefenbaker. Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights remains in effect, and signalled the change in Canadian political culture that would eventually bring about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which came into force after his death. Diefenbaker was the first to appoint women and ethnic minorities to Cabinet. It was under Diefenbaker that Canada finally achieved universal adult suffrage, with the granting of the vote to Native Canadians in 1960. The removal of explicit racial discrimination from the criteria for admission to Canada under the Immigration Act of 1961 was a factor in the creation of today's multi-cultural and multi-ethnic Canada.
Diefenbaker reinvigorated a moribund party system in Canada. Clark and Mulroney, two men who, as students, worked on and were inspired by his 1957 triumph, became the only other Progressive Conservatives to lead the party to election triumphs.[i] Diefenbaker's biographer, Denis Smith, wrote of him, "In politics he had little more than two years of success in the midst of failure and frustration, but he retained a core of deeply committed loyalists to the end of his life and beyond. The federal Conservative Party that he had revived remained dominant in the prairie provinces for 25 years after he left the leadership." The Harper government, believing that Tory prime ministers have been given short shrift in the naming of Canadian places and institutions, named the former Ottawa City Hall, now a federal office building, the John G. Diefenbaker Building. It also gave Diefenbaker's name to a human rights award and an icebreaking vessel. Harper often invoked Diefenbaker's northern vision in his speeches.
Conservative Senator Marjory LeBreton worked in Diefenbaker's office during his second time as Opposition Leader, and has said of him, "He brought a lot of firsts to Canada, but a lot of it has been air-brushed from history by those who followed." Historian Michael Bliss, who published a survey of the Canadian Prime Ministers, wrote of Diefenbaker:
From the distance of our times, Diefenbaker's role as a prairie populist who tried to revolutionize the Conservative Party begins to loom larger than his personal idiosyncrasies. The difficulties he faced in the form of significant historical dilemmas seem less easy to resolve than Liberals and hostile journalists opined at the time. If Diefenbaker defies rehabilitation, he can at least be appreciated. He stood for a fascinating and still relevant combination of individual and egalitarian values... But his contemporaries were also right in seeing some kind of disorder near the centre of his personality and his prime-ministership. The problems of leadership, authority, power, ego, and a mad time in history overwhelmed the prairie politician with the odd name.
Honorary degrees [ edit ]
Diefenbaker received several honorary degrees in recognition of his political career:
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Explanatory notes [ edit ]
Citations [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Archbold, Rick (2002), I Stand For Canada; The Story of the Maple Leaf Flag, Macfarlane Walter and Ross, ISBN 1-55199-108-X
Bliss, Michael (2004), Right Honourable Men: The Descent of Canadian Politics from Macdonald to Chrétien (revised ed.), HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., ISBN 0-00-639484-1
Diefenbaker, John (1975), One Canada, Memoirs of the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker: The Crusading Years 1895 to 1956, Macmillan of Canada, ISBN 0-7705-1331-X
Diefenbaker, John (1976), One Canada, Memoirs of the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker: The Years of Achievement 1956 to 1962, Macmillan of Canada, ISBN 0-7705-1443-X
Diefenbaker, John (1977), One Canada, Memoirs of the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker: The Tumultuous Years 1962 to 1967, Macmillan of Canada, ISBN 0-7705-1569-X
English, John (1992), The Worldly Years: The Life of Lester Pearson, 1949–1972, Vintage Books, ISBN 0-394-28015-6
Gabriel, Soloman (1987), Foreign Policy of Canada: A Study in Diefenbaker's Years, Uppal Publishing House, ISBN 81-85024-24-3
Meisel, John (1962), The Canadian General Election of 1957, University of Toronto Press
Nash, Knowlton (1990), Kennedy and Diefenbaker: Fear and Loathing Across the Undefended Border, McClelland & Stewart, ISBN 0-7710-6705-4
Newman, Peter (1963), Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years, McClelland and Stewart, ISBN 0-7710-6747-X
Peden, Murray (1987), Fall of an Arrow, Stoddart Publishing, ISBN 0-7737-5105-X
Smith, Denis (1995), Rogue Tory: The Life and Legend of John Diefenbaker, Macfarlane Walter & Ross, ISBN 0-921912-92-7
Smith, Denis (2016). "Diefenbaker, John George". In Cook, Ramsay; Bélanger, Réal. Dictionary of Canadian Biography. XX (1971–1980) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
Stewart, Greig (1991), Shutting Down the National Dream: A.V. Roe and the Tragedy of the Avro Arrow., McGraw-Hill-Ryerson, ISBN 0-07-551119-3
Stursberg, Peter (1975), Diefenbaker: Leadership Gained 1956–62, University of Toronto Press, ISBN 0-8020-2130-1
Stursberg, Peter (1976), Diefenbaker: Leadership Lost 1962–67, University of Toronto Press, ISBN 0-8020-2225-1
Van Dusen, Thomas (1968), The Chief, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-665-25329-X
Online sources [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]DEFINITION: Total number of losses in World Cup history, 1930-2006. NOTE: Serbia & Montenegro includes historic Yugoslavia's totals. Germany includes West Germany totals. SHOW ALL LESS
APA MLA MHRA CSE AMA Chicago Bluebook Bluebook/JOLT Citation
"Countries Compared by Sports > World Cup Totals > Losses. International Statistics at NationMaster.com", ESPN, FIFA Official Website, NationMaster. Aggregates compiled by NationMaster. Retrieved from http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Sports/World-Cup-Totals/Losses
"Countries Compared by Sports > World Cup Totals > Losses. International Statistics at NationMaster.com, ESPN, FIFA Official Website, NationMaster. Aggregates compiled by NationMaster." 2006. <http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Sports/World-Cup-Totals/Losses>.
'Countries Compared by Sports > World Cup Totals > Losses. International Statistics at NationMaster.com, ESPN, FIFA Official Website, NationMaster. Aggregates compiled by NationMaster.', <http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Sports/World-Cup-Totals/Losses> [assessed 2006]
"Countries Compared by Sports > World Cup Totals > Losses. International Statistics at NationMaster.com", ESPN, FIFA Official Website, NationMaster. Aggregates compiled by NationMaster. [Internet]. 2006. Avaliable from: <http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Sports/World-Cup-Totals/Losses>.
"Countries Compared by Sports > World Cup Totals > Losses. International Statistics at NationMaster.com", ESPN, FIFA Official Website, NationMaster. Aggregates compiled by NationMaster. Avaliable at: nationmaster.com. Assessed 2006.
"Countries Compared by Sports > World Cup Totals > Losses. International Statistics at NationMaster.com, ESPN, FIFA Official Website, NationMaster. Aggregates compiled by NationMaster.," http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Sports/World-Cup-Totals/Losses (assessed 2006)
"Countries Compared by Sports > World Cup Totals > Losses. International Statistics at NationMaster.com", ESPN, FIFA Official Website, NationMaster. Aggregates compiled by NationMaster., http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Sports/World-Cup-Totals/Losses (last visited 2006)
"Countries Compared by Sports > World Cup Totals > Losses. International Statistics at NationMaster.com", ESPN, FIFA Official Website, NationMaster. Aggregates compiled by NationMaster., http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Sports/World-Cup-Totals/Losses (as of 2006)
SHARE TWEET EMBED Sports > World Cup Totals > Losses: Countries Compared MapPhoto via Flickr user Chris Gerty
Read: The Best Place to Stand: What I Learned Hitchhiking Across Canada
Some residents of a city in Quebec have apparently decided that they can do whatever the fuck they want, and hence, have begun cutting regular Canadian bills in half in a move to create their own currency. Some merchants and customers in the city of Gaspé, located on a peninsula in the eastern Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine region of the Canadian province, have recently started using said currency, known as the "Half."
So far, only a handful of businesses are known to be accepting the made-up form of money. According to those using the Half in Gaspé, the implementation of the cut-up bills encourages people to spend locally.
"Retailers who accept these are making a promise to buy local...They have to know about it to use it, and that creates a tighter network," Michelle Secours, a retailer in Gaspé, told CBC. "It's a way to keep circulating the money locally."
Currently, it is not known how many of the halved bills are in circulation, nor is it even clear how exactly this economic initiative will actually benefit the city. However, as the Canadian dollar becomes increasingly weak, it's no wonder some feel the urge to literally cut up their money.
Though it is not a criminal offence in Canada to cut up money the way some of those in Gaspé are, the Bank of Canada does discourage the mutilation of bills, including marking, writing, and maiming.
Photo via Flickr user Chris Gerty
Follow Allison Elkin on Twitter.GREEN power may no longer be as fickle as the weather, thanks to a device that can generate electricity in any conditions – be it sun, wind or rain.
Most forms of renewable energy are intermittent, says Elias Siores at the Institute for Materials Research and Innovation at the University of Bolton in the UK – the wind doesn’t always blow and the skies aren’t always cloud-free. “What we wanted was something that can take energy from different elements,” he says.
So, together with his colleagues, Siores has done just that. First, he created 20-centimetre-long flexible ribbons made of a piezoelectric polymer that generates electrical currents when perturbed, either by wind or when rain drops fall on it. The team chose a polymer called polyvinylidene fluoride over ceramic piezoelectric materials because in wind tunnel tests and simulated rain it deformed more, creating higher peak voltages. That means more energy per rain drop or gust of wind, says Siores.
Next, the team coated the ribbons with a flexible photovoltaic (PV) film, and attached a pair of electrodes with which to harvest this solar-induced current. Siores says that 10 square centimetres of the PV film can generate 1 to 2 watts of solar energy at its peak. The work will appear in Smart Materials and Structures.
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It makes sense to combine different forms of renewable energy because they complement each other so well, says Hod Lipson at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. But such hybrid generators would likely be limited to small-scale applications, because piezoelectric materials aren’t very energy-dense. “Their benefit would be more for powering very low power devices,” he says.
“Combining different forms of renewable energy makes sense because they complement each other”
Siores agrees that each hybrid ribbon would only generate a few milliwatts consistently, perhaps enough to charge a cellphone. He envisages building pine cone-like structures made up of many flat “needles” that oscillate with the wind and rain, while simultaneously having a high surface area to harvest the sun’s energy.
A similar technique using standard nylon could also be used to make energy-generating clothing, Siores says: “We can turn nylon into piezoelectric nylon.” His team achieves this by extruding it into fibre form in the presence of a strong electric field. The fibres are then coated with a conducting electrode material, followed by a PV layer and then another electrode layer. The result, says Siores, can be woven into fabrics to make garments that generate energy as we move or soak up sunshine.
Journal reference: Smart Materials and Structures (DOI:10.1088/0964-1726/20/5/055019)Image copyright Thinkstock
A legal dispute over copyright fees for the song Happy Birthday To You has been settled out of court.
The music company Warner/Chappell had claimed the rights to the song but earlier this year a judge ruled that the lyrics could be used without the need to pay royalties.
A group of artists and filmmakers had sought to claim back the money collected by the firm over the years.
The terms of the agreement have not been revealed.
Warner/Chappell is thought to have made $2m (£1.3m) a year by charging every time the song was used in a film, television episode, advertisement or other public performance.
It acquired the copyright in 1988 but a judge ruled it was only granted for specific arrangements of the music, not the song itself.
In a statement the company said: "While we respectfully disagreed with the court's decision, we are pleased to have now resolved this matter."
The lawyer for the artists, Mark Rifkin, told Reuters he was pleased with the agreement but did not give any further details.
The tune was composed by two Kentucky sisters in 1893.
Mildred and Patty Hill called their version Good Morning To All, which later evolved into the song that is popularly sung at birthday parties around the world.Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Friday for suicide attacks on a military training facility in the nation's northwest, saying they were carried out in retaliation for the killing of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.
The twin suicide bombings killed at least 80 people, nearly all of them military recruits who had just completed their training, said Bashir Ahmad Bilour, a senior provincial minister. About 140 others were wounded.
"Pakistani and the U.S. forces should be ready for more attacks," said Ihsan Ullah Ihsan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, who accused the Pakistani military of having alerted the United States to bin Laden's location.
"Osama was our great leader and the killers of Osama will have to pay its price," he said.
The back-to-back explosions took place shortly after scores of recruits had left the Shabqadar Fort, a training facility in the district of Charsadda, said Jahan Zeb Khan, a senior police officer.
Afterward, video of the blood-soaked ground outside the training facility showed it littered with burned vehicles and broken glass.
The recruits had just completed a nine-month training program when the attackers struck.
The district of Charsadda borders Mohmand Agency, one of seven districts in Pakistan's tribal region along the Afghan border.
Mohmand is believed to be a hideout for Taliban fighters and al Qaeda-linked militants fleeing last year's military operation in the district of South Waziristan and ongoing U.S. drone strikes in North Waziristan.
The Pakistani army has carried out numerous ground and air operations in Mohmand but it has not been able to stamp out the militants.
The Pakistani Taliban represent a confederation of Taliban groups in northwestern Pakistan, where they are based, said Bill Roggio, military-affairs analyst who is managing editor of The Long War Journal.
Those fighters attack targets in Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan.
The group, which is headquartered in Quetta, is different from the Afghan Taliban, which has been focused on re-establishing the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan.
Both groups swear allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Omar and have close ties to al Qaeda, he said.
Last December, some 150 militants ambushed six security checkpoints in Mohmand, killing 11 Pakistani soldiers, officials told CNN.
Earlier in December, a twin suicide attack targeting a government building in Mohmand killed at least 40 people.
"They're clearly trying to disrupt our bilateral relationship through this attack," State Department spokesman Mike Toner told reporters. "But it's also clear that they are going to carry out these kinds of attacks no matter what."
But Imran Khan, a Pakistani opposition party leader, said the attacks show that the Pakistani government is doing a poor job managing the crisis.
"Unfortunately, we do not have a trustworthy, credible government," the chairman of Pakistan's Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) Party told CNN. "That's why I'm calling for the resignation of our own government, free and fair elections and a new, credible government," he said.
He cited government figures that cite 34,000 deaths and a $68 billion loss to the nation's economy as a result of terrorism. "The people of Pakistan are dying under this war on terror," he said.
Khan said Pakistan would be in a better position if it would simply decline U.S. aid. "Unfortunately, if Pakistan is considered a hired gun of the U.S., it reduces its capability to win this war on terror," he said. "If this becomes Pakistan's war, I think Pakistan will win the war. But if it's perceived that the Pakistani army is a mercenary army of the U.S., we have no chance of winning."
He added, "They target Pakistan because Pakistan is perceived as America's agents. That's why you see the sort of carnage that's taking place today."
Prior to 2004, there were no suicide attacks and no militant Taliban in Pakistan, he said. But things have changed. "Here's a country that had 500 bomb blasts last year."
The vast majority of the fighters are tribal people who are neither terrorists nor religious fundamentalists, he said. "They are fighting as a result of Pakistani military operations in the tribal area. So a credible government should have peace talks with them and then isolate the al Qaeda, which has worried the West."
CNN's Samson Desta and journalist Nasir Habib contributed to this report.IN SEEING THINGS AS THEY ARE, John Searle turns his attention to perception — visual perception, to be precise. Perception is both the basic way that minds connect with configurations of objects and attributes in a local environment, and an epicenter for sensory feeling and experience. That is, perception is a site of both representation and phenomenology. And since the capacities for representation and phenomenology have long been taken by philosophers to be characteristic marks of the mental, philosophical questions about perception provide a window into philosophical questions about minds more generally.
When it comes to the long tradition of thinking and writing about perception, Searle takes the situation to be rather bleak. He believes that the entirety of philosophical work on perception since Descartes has been bewitched by what he calls “the Bad Argument” and, as a consequence, is unnecessary and incoherent. Yet Searle wants to not just bury philosophical theories of perception but also praise them. In particular, he believes that once the bad argument is identified and diagnosed, nothing will prevent us from endorsing a form of direct realism about perception, of the sort Searle himself developed in his 1983 classic Intentionality. According to this form of direct realism, we do not perceive external objects by way of first perceiving intermediate ideas, impressions, or sense-data; instead, perception serves to provide us with immediate presentations of external objects and attributes themselves. In short, our perceptual capacities enable us to see things as they are in the local environments in which we find ourselves, and this fact should serve as the backbone, rather than an optional add-on, to philosophical reflection on minds and their epistemological condition.
This may seem fairly straightforward, and, in some ways, it is. There is an external world, and it is full of things: tables, crocodiles, textures, etc. These things and this world exist whether I like it or not: their existence is independent of my beliefs, opinions, or preferences, and hence we say that such an existence — or, to use the technical term, such an ontology — is objective. There is also a subjective world, and it consists of internal states of mind. Such states are not ontologically objective, but subjective: they depend for their existence on the person who has them. Moreover, there is generally something that it feels like to be in or occupy a state of mind: we all know what it is like to be mad or tired, and we similarly know (although this case is more complicated) that believing something feels different from not believing it. The central claim of direct realism is that perception puts the external world into contact with the subjective one. Thanks to the rise of modern vision science, we have a basic sense of how this story might go: an internal causal process is initiated by arrays of light moving from entities in the external work to sensory receptors in our retinas; these arrays of light are then processed by a module in ours head that constructs an output perceptual representation on the basis of proprietary perceptual principles. This perceptual representation has content: it encodes conditions of satisfaction that are either accurate or inaccurate, depending on the extent to which the representation corresponds with the scene that initiated the causal process. While beliefs, desires, and other mental states are also associated with representational contents — beliefs can be evaluated as true or false, desires can be fulfilled or unfilled, and so forth — perceptual representations are special in that they cannot be detached from, or entertained independently of, the scenes that prompt them. In the more contemporary philosophical jargon, perception provides a non-conceptual means by which minded creatures get in touch with an objective world.
There seems to be a lot to recommend this basic picture of perception. How could we plausibly deny that perception plays a central role in connecting us to, and helping us acquire knowledge about, the empirical world? According to Searle, however, the picture has not only been denied; it has been denied by “just about every famous philosopher who writes on this subject.” “Indeed […],” Searle observes, “I do not know of any Great Philosopher who even accepted […] Direct Realism.” If you’re wondering who the “Great Philosophers” might be, he is referring to Bacon, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, and maybe Mill and Hegel, too.
Each of these great philosophers falls prey to what Searle calls the Bad Argument. The Bad Argument turns on the truism that perception, like all other mental faculties, does not provide us with infallible access to the world. We sometimes get things wrong, from a perceptual point of view. Consider the environment you’re in right now: there is probably a computer display in the foreground, maybe some furniture or a few other people in the background. Now take a snapshot of that scene. This snapshot has representational content; it represents the world as being a certain way. But your snapshot could be inaccurate in matters of detail, as is the case in illusions — for example, the color of the edge of the screen that you perceive as being white could, in fact, be gray. Indeed, your snapshot could be inaccurate in matters of substance, as is the case in hallucinations — for example, your perceptual experience of there being any material bodies at all in front of you now could be the unfortunate result of a badly malfunctioning brain or a Matrix-style computer simulation. In all such cases, we are left with an unhappy result, namely that your perceptual system has produced an inaccurate representation of the external world.
So what? Why should these truisms about the possibility of perceptual error bear on direct realism? The answer, it turns out, is that there are good reasons to think that two perceptual states that differ only in that one of them involves an accurate perception of the world and the other involves an inaccurate perception of the world are psychologically of a kind. In other words, the type of perceptual state you’re in does not vary if you’re hallucinating or compos mentis. After all, the happy and unhappy cases of perception are phenomenologically indistinguishable: they feel exactly the same, even though one is accurate and the other is not. In addition, the point jibes with what vision science seems to suggest about the ways in which our visual system constructs perceptual representations from incoming arrays of light. So long as the proximal stimulation on the retina is the same, even if the distal causes of those proximal effects vary, the perceptual system will generate the same kind of representational content.
The philosophical orthodoxy — as Searle puts it, more or less from Descartes onward — has taken all this to spell bad news for the realist picture of perception. After all, if I’m hallucinating that there is a computer in front of me now, then the object of my perception is not an external object but some sort of internal object — an idea, an impression, or a sense-datum — created by my mind. And if such hallucinatory cases of perception are psychologically of a kind with accurate cases of perception, then it would seem to follow that the objects I see even when I’m not hallucinating are likewise internal, mind-dependent, objects. In particular, it would seem to follow that we never directly perceive external objects. Bad news indeed.
Many philosophers have accepted this argument as stated, and have developed what I’ll call anti-realist theories of perception. According to one version of anti-realism, associated with the 18th-century philosopher Bishop Berkeley (yes, he’s among Searle’s list of Greats), the so-called objective world is in fact constructed out of mental phenomena, perhaps ideas in the mind of God or of some social collective, but ideas nonetheless. A more common version of anti-realism accepts that there is, in fact, such a thing as a world independent of our minds, but that we nonetheless can only perceive that world by first perceiving mind-dependent sense data.
Searle has little patience for anti-realism in any of its forms. For Searle, being an anti-realist about perception is the first step on a slippery slope to the dubious pronouncement that we cannot have any empirical knowledge whatsoever. He also argues that it leads to the position — often called solipsism — that there is no publicly accessible world about which we can share beliefs and languages, and coordinate our actions. There are other problems, too, including that the claims anti-realism provides offer no coherent account of the features that initiate an
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